ProgPower USA has laid out most of its 2027 bill, and the top of it is a reunion, a thrash institution and a supergroup that has spent two decades refusing to stay dissolved. NEVERMORE, METAL CHURCH and MASTERPLAN headline the three nights of ProgPower USA XXVI, which runs September 9-11, 2027 at Center Stage Atlanta.
NEVERMORE take Saturday, the festival's closing night — a slot that reads differently now that the band is genuinely back on stages after playing their first show since 2011 earlier this year. METAL CHURCH open the run on Thursday, and MASTERPLAN land on Saturday directly before NEVERMORE. LYNCH MOB are also on the Saturday bill, marking the 40th anniversary of DOKKEN's "Back For The Attack".
The full lineup announced so far:
Thursday, September 9, 2027 — ADVENT HORIZON (USA), SILENT SKIES (International), METAL CHURCH (USA), H.E.A.T (Sweden), ELUVEITIE (Switzerland)
Friday, September 10, 2027 — ROYAL SORROW (Finland), Einar Solberg (Norway), UNLEASH THE ARCHERS (Canada), WIND ROSE (Italy), plus two acts still to be announced
Saturday, September 11, 2027 — POWER PALADIN (Iceland), IHLO (UK), VISION DIVINE (Italy), MASTERPLAN (International), LYNCH MOB (USA), NEVERMORE (USA)
ELUVEITIE on the Thursday bill is the closest thing here to a curveball — Swiss folk metal on a stage that has historically leaned power and prog — and the Friday run of Einar Solberg, UNLEASH THE ARCHERS and WIND ROSE covers about as much ground as a single night at this festival ever does, from LEPROUS's frontman doing his solo material to Italian dwarven power metal.
Tickets go on sale October 17 through Ticketmaster.
The festival has been running since 2001, when the first edition took place over two February nights at J.J. Kelley's in Lansing, Illinois, just outside Chicago. Every event since has been in Atlanta, at Center Stage. Over twenty-five years it has become the fixed point in the American calendar for European power and progressive metal — the one weekend where bands who would otherwise never cross the Atlantic reliably do.
One note hangs over the announcement. Founder and promoter Glenn Harveston had said that the 2026 edition, ProgPower XXV, would be his final year of the festival. A 2027 edition is now on the books; what that means for who is running it has not been addressed.
For more information, visit progpowerusa.com.