edgeofthorns, actually, I think it was me you talked to. We talked a lot about Theocracy. I remember you being from TN. I hope that you've found your way over the the Theocracy boards! It was a pleasure chatting with you.
As long as we're on the topic of Lance King, who is indeed a stand-up guy and a fantastic vocalist, I'll post the Lance King portion of my PP review:
The coolest thing for me this weekend happened in the vendors' room. I happened to be standing near Lance King's (ex-Balance of Power, Pyramaze, Avian) booth when he announced that he and the Avian guitarist (Yan Leviathan) would be doing a quick acoustic, unplugged set. Now, I've been a huge Lance King fan since BoP. Some years later, I learned that he's from Minneapolis, so now I get to go and see his local cover band as well, which is a blast. There was a group of about 15 of us that made a circle for them to play in. Anyway, Lance and Yan played an Avian song. Then another guy took Yan's place on guitar (I think someone said he had been Helstar's guitarist) and they played Queensryche's "Take Hold of the Flame". It was freaking sweet. The music itself was so quiet that I'm sure that no one outside of 40 feet had any clue that it was even happening. When they had the 15 of us singing the "TAKE HOLD!" part of the chorus, everyone else in the vendor room would look over and wonder what the heck was going on. Someone asked for Lance to do a BoP song (Savage Tears, I think) and he said he would if anyone knew the guitar part. No one did
Talk about being in the right place at the right time! I was quite happy. Sadly, they had to cut it short at two songs, because Pink Cream 69 was about to start in the main room. While this doesn't quite match up to the lucky people who got to hear Midnight of Crimson Glory do an impromptu acoustic one hour set in the hotel last year, at least I got something special!
