Sadly, after one or two false starts, where we’d have convened at John Mitchell’s own Outhouse Studio in Berkshire, the guitarist is not present, having had to journey to France. Mick Pointer has travelled all the way up from his home in the West Country. Although our paths cross regularly, Prog hasn’t ventured down to Virginia Water, the base of Clive Nolan’s operations and home to his Thin Ice Studios, since 1998. They’d just been joined by a young guitarist called John Mitchell and were touring their new opus, and Prog was to travel with them to Holland for their gig at the Boerderij in Zoetermeer.Ĭhatting with Nolan on the 2018 HMS Prog mini-cruise, he put forward the idea that it might be a laugh for us to reconvene for another chat, given the impending release of a new Arena album, Double Vision, the band’s ninth. Classic Rock magazine had just come out, and Arena, with their third album, the conceptual The Visitor, were taking a few more steps up the ladder, as it were. Two decades ago, this writer ventured down here to meet, for the first time, Arena, the progressive rock band formed by former Marillion drummer Pointer and (still) Pendragon keyboard player Nolan. Prog, for it is also us, has travelled down to this delightful corner of Surrey for the first time in 20 years. “And chins,” grumbles Pointer, like a curmudgeonly Gimli. “Ah, but a beard hides a multitude of sins,” says Nolan.