Period: 1999-2001

History: 1999-2001

March '01 - June '01 / US Dates Canceled Due to complications with the pregnancy, Jo's doctor advises her not to do anymore long haul flights until after the baby is born. The band manages one Festival appearance in the USA in Memphis, but unfortunately has to cancel other US dates and the planned appearance at the Baja Prog Festival in Mexico.

July '01 / Band Dropped by Forefront The band is dropped by US label Forefront after management changes at the company and a change of emphasis to favour signing more younger chart oriented artists.

August '01 / 'Open Sky Records' Launched After discussions with Alliance Media, Iona's UK label, it is agreed that the band can be freed from their current contract in order to set up their own label 'Open Sky'. IONA immediately begin to look into the possibility of releasing a 4cd box set as their own label's first release. Greenbelt Festival decide that it is too risky to have the band on the bill due to Jo's baby's imminent birth (although Jo is feeling fine by now), so they cancel our appearance.

September '01 - June '02 / Box Set Prepared Work continues behind the scenes to set up the 'Open Sky' label, and to prepare the box set for release. The latter is a huge task, as the box set contains a 60 page full colour booklet with around 80 archive photos which have to be collated from various sources, and around 10,000 words of text, much of it newly written.

In addition, original master tapes have to be sourced and transferred to new digital media, several tracks are reworked and remixed, and a whole CD of new and unreleased material is prepared. Unsurprisingly, the original release date has to be delayed.

September '01 / Issac Hogg Born Baby Issac Hogg is born to proud parents Jo and Steve.