3RP 2009, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, August 8-9, 2009

First off, the venue:  What a great place for a festival, the Pepsi Roadhouse is a smallish club with a capacity of about a thousand people (according to the webpage).  The staff was certainly courteous and helpful and the rows were spread far enough away from each other than me and my long legs didn't feel cramped at all.  While we did not sample their food this year, we heard no one complaining about it, and it was very tasty last year.  I can't comment on the drinks either as we brought our own this time as well.

The overall sound volume was a little lower than I'm used to.  While this was probably a good thing for my ears I would have enjoyed a little more volume.  The actual sound mix was decent at best, and rough at times.  The vocals were undermixed for It Bites, IQ, Crack the Sky and King's X.  We pull Peter Nichols more than three thousand miles to come sing for us and he has to tell the sound man three or four times that he couldn't hear himself in the monitors.  Sadly, we couldn't hear him either. . . . and that was before his microphone spontaneously died entirely.  Kudos to Mr. Nichols for improvising new lyrics to "Erosion" (more on that in a later post).

The vendors were all good; there were a slew of CD vendors, a label (Trinity Records I believe) and a magazine (I'm sorry to say that I didn't get the name of the magazine).  On the other side of the hall were the band tables, quite often manned by the more than gracious musicians themselves.  Phideaux, Glass Hammer, Singularity, Edensong and Persephone's Dream in particular made themselves available to fans all throughout the festival.  One of my particular highlights was when I introduced myself to Phideaux as Roland113.  He gave me one of 'those looks' and asked if I was ok with the succulent lair (I had given him grief for the lyric in my review of "Chupacabras").  It was neat to be recognized and I believe it was all in good fun.  There were also four or five bands with tables outside including The Mandrake Project and 3rdegree among others.  I took a moment to speak with Robert Pashman of 3rdegree who was a good guy to talk to and very appreciative of the community's support.

The parking lot was easily large enough to handle all attendees, a combination of a paved lot close to the venue with a grass lot a little further out made it ideal for tailgating.  My wife and I just set up our tent and voila, instant party.  Which brings me to the people, the fans; not once did my wife and I have to put the tent up or take it down without one of the other nearby groups of people offering to help.  On Saturday I met a great guy who flew in from Mexico City for day one.  Unfortunately, Moses had to be back at work on Monday so he couldn't stay for day two but he graciously gave me his tickets in the hopes that someone could enjoy his seats.  While we kept our original seats, we did pass the tickets on to someone who was sitting in the back.   On Sunday night a pair of guys from Cincinnati came over to talk for a while and just plain entertained us with stories of their exploits while they were playing.  Dave and Jim, if we ever get to Cincinnati I totally want to see the nundome. 

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend.  My hat is off to promoter Howard Levy and his staff for putting together another wonderful festival.

1. Micro Deathstar
2. The Doctrine of Eternal Ice (Part One)
3. Crumble
4. Thank You For the Evil
5. Prequiem
6. Gift of the Flame
7. Interview With a Doormouse / Doormouse - An End
8. Angry Rock (? From 7.5, may have gotten the name wrong)
9. Chupacabras
10. Tempest of Mutiny
11. Microdeath Softstar

1. Frequency
2. Erosion
3. The Darkest Hour
4. Stronger than Friction
5. Outer Limits
6. Sacred Sound
7. The Province
8. Guiding Light
9. Closer
10. The Narrow Margin
11. (encore) It All Stops Here