Saw the Flower Kings last night. I wasn't terribly familiar with the band; I knew them only through their songwriter's involvement with Transatlantic, and I'd only heard maybe two of their songs, but I knew enough to know I'd probably like them.

They're pretty popular for a prog band, much more so than Tunnels, so the attendance was much better for this show. I suspect that the majority of Pittsburgh's prog fans - all 50 of them - were at the show, in all their portly, bearded, middle-aged glory. One of them, whose name was not Julius, struck up an awkward conversation with me about my Spock's Beard shirt.

The opening band was a local Christian prog outfit, which was pretty much what you'd expect, though they owed more to Kansas than King's X. The problem with local-caliber prog bands is that their lyrics lack any subtlety whatsoever, often making them even more cringe-inducing than those of the international acts. But considering that the same is true of most Christian rock, and that these guys were a combination of the two, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

They started their set with an inexplicable video montage of Saturday morning television from the 80s. This included a clip from the Muppet Show, which made not-Julius clap like a retarded seal. I need to find some less dorky interests.

The Flower Kings were pretty late getting on, but they made up for it by playing quite a long set. Just so you know what kind of a band we're dealing with here, I believe they only actually played five or six songs in that time. They definitely had more of a jam-band component than a lot of the tighter neo-prog I tend to listen to, but even the jamming was pretty firmly grounded, so it didn't bug me as much as actual jam bands do. They managed to slip both "Lucy in the Sky" and Zep's "Rock and Roll" into one of their jams. I love covers.

The dude from Pain of Salvation is playing with them on this tour, and he was so amazing that I almost bought a Pain of Salvation CD on the spot without having heard a single one of their songs.

Anyway, all of this prog rock must have gone to my head, because last night I had a dream that my friend Matt had written and produced a rock opera about a psychiatrist in colonial America, with the music being reminiscent of Dream Theater's last album.

And tinselet and Link talked through the whole thing about Link's sexual prowess. Explain that one.