How did you become a fan?

[POM]

 Hi!

I just wanted to know how you have discovered Arena...

My boyfriend was delighted by an anounced gig of Arena at "Spirit of 66", he just want me to come with him... I'd never heard about Arena before (never heard about prog'music either), ... "You'll love it", he told me. I wasn't so sure but...

It was in october 2002 (I think), it was THE day! 
We were 2 meters from the stage (yeah, at "Spirit", the further you can be is 10 meters, not a big place, about 500 fans max., friendly place to listen to music...). 
And then, it begin's... Rob appears... waaouuuw, he's cute  , his look is great; Clive is surrounded by keywords (never seen so much together, or maybe in a music shop?), ... 10 minutes of music and it's done, I'm completely "in", enjoying it so much... God, it's already the last song? It's already finished? 

I listened to all they've made...

Now I'm the one running to buy the new album the day it was released, to wait for THE date of the gig in Belgium in 2005, playing PG (I can imagine them coming on stage dressed as in the booklet of the CD    ).  This time, I know the lyrics, the music, all the albums, so I'll enjoy it even more!   
Pleaaaaaase, come soon, can't wait!

[Moonloop]

I bought the first album as soon as it came out 

I already knew Clive's work from Pendragon, Shadowland & Strangers on a Train and so would have bought the Arena album anyway, the presense of Mick Pointer with the Marillion connection just made the project more interesting to look forward to. Loved the album to bits and have bought every release since. 

[Mark Jan]

I'm a Arena fan for about two years. I listen every week to a radioprogramm about progrock. A song of Arena passed and I thought: hmmmm interesting. I know it's illegal but I downloaded a Arena song on KaZaA. It was The Butterfly man. After all nog a bad choice! It's still one of my favorite Arena songs! I was so impressed by The Butterfly man that I decided to by Immortal? Then it was done, and I became a Arenafan. Contagion followed soon, and the rest.

[Appelmoes??]

A friend of mine had bought Contagion after being curious about the bands that lend their artist's to Ayreon. When I visited my friend I heard the album and bought contagion the week after. En then bought another album... And another... Etc.

[POM]

A friend of mine had bought Contagion after being curious about the bands that lend their artist's to Ayreon. When I visited my friend I heard the album and bought contagion the week after. En then bought another album... And another... Etc.

I'm also a huge fan of Ayreon! 

[Moonloop]

Any of you guys got the "Ambeon" project - be interested to know what that's like..??

[POM]

Any of you guys got the "Ambeon" project - be interested to know what that's like..??

I'm not a guy  but I've got Ambeon too 

[Appelmoes??]

Check Arjen's site to get more information about Ambeon.

[Dude]

Back in '95 I was lucky enough to witness what was probably the first-ever concert of Arena. They played a few songs on the Marillion Fanclub day, featuring a very nervous but intense John Carson on vocals. Maybe the bass-player wasn't present, and it was sort of semi-acoustic (I don't remember exactly), but it was rather impressive.
Soon after it I bought their album - a masterpiece, and since then I always bought every new Arena-album as soon as it came out.

[Peter]

Any of you guys got the "Ambeon" project - be interested to know what that's like..??

Ambeon is comparable to the first CD of the Universal Migrator, the Dream Sequencer. It's pretty much about computer sounds, assisted by spacy, but hard riffs. And the best feature about the Ambeon album is surely Astrid van der Veen's voice. She also wrote most of the vocals melodies.

Summary: an album for calm, rather depressed weekends...

[Peter]

Back OnTopic:

I became a fan when a musician friend of my wife's invited me to join him to a concert, which turned out to be the Kick-Off gig for the Contagion tour (28.03.2003, Substage, Karlsruhe)

I agreed. I sat down and listenened to some of the albums he had, which were Immortal and The Visitor. Fell in love that very moment and the night after.

[Moonloop]

Ambeon is comparable to the first CD of the Universal Migrator, the Dream Sequencer. It's pretty much about computer sounds, assisted by spacy, but hard riffs. And the best feature about the Ambeon album is surely Astrid van der Veen's voice. She also wrote most of the vocals melodies.

Summary: an album for calm, rather depressed weekends...

Thanks. Sounds good. I'd heard the singer was one to look out for but didn't know much about her or the project - will put it on the list..!! 

[HeJePi]

Bonjour,

Fairly simple: I was visiting my favourite CD shop here in Singapore ('The Roxy') and the boss show me a nice Digipack Arena 'Contagion' ... 'Want to listen ?' ... 'Yes, sure !' ... after a couple of tracks ... I buy it (36 SG$ if I remember correctly) and listen to it nearly every day during 2 weeks.



After that I bought all Area CD in no time ... but I still miss all 'fan club' CDs 

[CygnusX1]

Well, 'Immortal?' was pretty much the first contemporary prog-rock album I bought back in 2000, not having realised up until that point that there was still much of a scene surrounding the genre.  That led on in turn to the discovery of a huge number of other bands and great music.  So there you go, I owe part of my discovery of prog to Arena. 

[Deenfan]

I got a bit of a bizzare reason: Because of the AsiA album, "Arena". 

It was just something about that word that reeked of a certain sound or mood, so I took my chances, and ordered "Pride". My, I could have done worse!!!! So the name alone, as soon as Asia had used it as an album title (it had to happen one day!), provided Arena with a fan that buys every album, loves it and tells it. Our keyboard player has started, too, now! -I knew I would get him hooked!

[Constable Hogweed]

I became a fan of "Arena" because of "Camel"
its a long convoluted story, but it did have its roots in.....errmm "Camel"
After "Marillion" decided to "Hogarth" out i was in despair. I wasn't aware that bands were still out there progging it in the good old stylee. To be fair to H i did like "Seasons End", parts of "Holiday's In Eden" and "Brave", but was horrified by the "Afraid Of Sunlight" album. Crying into my cans of Tennents Super i turned to Whispering Bob Harris for decent music. He didn't disappoint. night after night were filled with "Walter Trout", "Robert Cray", "Crowded House", "Argent" etc etc......and even some good old stylee prog.    Then the sadists at radio 1 decided i was clearly enjoying myself far to much, so they gave good old bob the boot.     NOW WHAT?  Bobs succesor was a little bit on the crappy side to be perfectly honest, so i was left high and dry again. ( And still not realising that bands were still around progging it in the good old stlylee )  I was in the wilderness, and my tears were becoming oceans of despair........then it happened. One night i noticed that "Camel" were being featured on "Cue the music"  To be honest and to my shame, "Camel" had escaped me the first time round, but i kinda remembered them being proggy. The concert was absolutely brilliant and the next day i started to add "Camel" to my prog collection. Each CD was snapped up greedily on a weekly basis until i had virtually everything they had ever done. Thirsty and hungry for more i virtually looked at every CD in HMV until i came across "The Window Of life" by "Pendragon" and thought that the cover and the length of the songs seemed quite proggy. I asked to listen to it on one of those ghastly listening posts and waited in anticipation for the girl in the shop to stick it on for me. To say i was impressed was an understatement, and the the deal was clinched when i noticed among the people thanked in the sleeve credits was one "ANDY LATIMER"  yeaaaaaa i screamed, punching the air and jumping up and down in a manic fashion...............well to be honest i didn't really do any of that if i am being truthful, but i was smiling a lot anyway. Once back at home i blasted the album out and was fair near to tears of joy. i started to order the back catalogue, but was still too impatient to wait for the goodies to arrive. I made my way into "Virgin" records salivating and muttering "Prog Prog, I NEED MORE prog" i made my way to the "A" section ( Well where else do you start?  )  and noticed an interesting looking CD called "Songs From The Lions Cage"
What was more interesting was the round sticker which proclaimed " Includes Clive Nolan (Pendragon) Mick Pointer (Ex Marillion) and members of "Asia" ( This is paraphrased you understand as i no longer have said sticker) Without even asking to hear it, i snapped it up. On hearing it i was absolutely astounded......each track just seemed to get better and better until finally i had my brains completely blown out by "Solomon" I was hooked. From that day on i became a big big "Arena" fan.  Things have snowballed since then, discovering "IQ" "Spocks Beard" "Threshold" and a tidy little band called "Shadowland".  But nothing in years had blew me away quite as much as that fiendish little debut "Arena" album............But all this might not have been but for the domino effect of that "Camel" concert, so........................give my thanks to "ANDY LATIMER" 

[Moonloop]

What a fantastic post Mr Hogweed 

I met one of my closest friends Steve through a Camel gig, indeed, a couple of years ago I wrote to Andy Latimer asking if he would sign a promo I'd come across for Steve (as a Christmas pressie) if I sent it over to him with return shipping. He took the trouble to write enclosing a 2 fully signed promos and some signed postcards - a truely magnificent guy.

If you haven't already, try GFT mail order for prog-related stuff (0208 339 9965 ask for Malcolm Parker and he'll post you a free catalogue).

(not sure about the Tenants Super though, prefer Real Ale meself  )

[Mark Jan]

Impressive story Hogweed!

Good ol' Andy Latimer! He gets things done! 

And of course fantastic music, Camel. One of the few progbands who came up with great music in the distant seventies and are still capable of making good music. 

[Constable Hogweed]

hi guys, glad ya's liked the story. 
Great story you have there yourself Moonloop about good old Andy Latimer. thanks for the GFT info. Seems like there are EVEN MORE prog bands to get into. 
Cheers
Hogweed

[Xanxtuary]

My story of Arena addiction is somewhat shorter than Hogweed's ...

BLAME HOGWEED!!! 

Twas the spring of 2004 and this poor, prog-starved Jedi Master was desperate for more prog ... so thus my beloved Hogweed grintroduced himself to me and me to Arena (and other fantastic progbands like Threshold, Spock's Beard, Transatlantic, Land's End, Shadowland, etc).

[BrianG]

Well, it was a dark and stormy night...........

I listen to all kinds of music, but have always loved some of the more complicated stuff. Listening to old Genesis, Yes, Rush, etc while in high school when everyone else was into Big Country. Then I heard Marillion's Heart of Lothian and just about flipped. That started it. So fast forward a few (few? more like 10 or 15) years, and here I am ("So here I am, sitting on a pile of stones...") typing away on my computer doing this or that and listening to an internet radio station on iTunes, and this band comes on and I pay attention. The song was Pendragon's Guardian of my Soul. And about halfway through I stopped, and looked at the info and made a wee note to myself.......check these guys out. Alot of times I'm disappointed in the prog scene when I hear some obscure band play and the singer can't sing or whatever. But not this time. I made a mental note and checked out their website a few weeks later. There was a link or two to previous and concurrent bands and I checked them out. Arena was one of them and I went there. There was a sound sample or three and the firs thing I heard was Spectre at the Feast. Uh-oh....I can feel that old feeling creeping up again (thinking back to when I first heard Marillion), so on I move to Jericho. Too late....it's all done...I'm hooked. The next day I ordered all the albums from Verglas (except Pride as I had to manage the expenses....therefore had to choose one to leave out). They arrived a few weeks later and that was that. Basically forgot about everything else. Not long after that, having decided that this band has moved me musically like none other (Contagion just got into my soul, I think) I see that they're playing Montreal a few months down the road. I live in Vancouver and Montreal is not a hop down the street. My buddy (who by now is totally hooked as well) and I  each take a week off work and fly to Montreal (5-1/2 hrs) just to see the band. I guess you could say I'm a fan.....and that was how it started. Maybe it even was a dark and stormy night? Who knows?

[Moonloop]

hi guys, glad ya's liked the story. 
Great story you have there yourself Moonloop about good old Andy Latimer. thanks for the GFT info. Seems like there are EVEN MORE prog bands to get into. 
Cheers
Hogweed

Yes. MORE prog. Sorry about that 

[Constable Hogweed]

Yes. MORE prog. Sorry about that 

I should think so too Moonloop. ahhh well i shall let you off this time. 

[Constable Hogweed]

My story of Arena addiction is somewhat shorter than Hogweed's ...

BLAME HOGWEED!!! 

I'm sorry Mistress, please please not the walnut whip again. 

[Peter]

I'm sorry Mistress, please please not the walnut whip again. 

More details, please