Let me clarify a bit.
Are you kidding? I couldn't walk ten feet without tripping over a band member all weekend - just in the venue, completely disregarding the Courtyard.
I only watched a few bands because I was busy signing, visiting friends, etc. I saw many band members throughout, but out of what I saw, I only ran into Wolverine around the venue more than just one brief instance, is what I mean. This isn't a Jeer for the other bands, but a Cheer for Wolverine.
Bottom line - if you're THAT worried about not knowing the songs at the show, buy the album in advance.
And you had a FULL YEAR to buy the thing before the fest yourself.
I knew Nine from Spotify and other legal services, so not knowing the songs was not a concern to me at all; I knew the whole set well enough to follow along the whole way, even the epic. Not having the album yet was because I wanted to buy it at the venue from the band or someone, even for more cash than I would pay to an online nobody. There
was a friend of mine who had never heard anything by CM before, and by the time the band played, he was
over 24 hours late trying to buy the album that had almost everything he had heard at the concert. My Jeer is simply that the vendors did not have enough stock of Nine to accommodate people who couldn't help but hear it at the concert or to last until they actually played, as compared to Myrath who did everything else the same but brought enough copies of Tales of the Sands to satisfy everyone, and still had a stack of it left over Saturday night even though they played a whole day earlier. For a band that's not playing, a lack of stock barely matters if at all, but for a band playing who's as popular as Circus Maximus, I don't approve, and I am not anywhere close to alone on this.
I should amend one of my Jeers. Yes, the security should be checking the badge, but I still just don't like that we have to pay for a lanyard to avoid that. Suck it up one way or the other if you don't like it, though, just like the other Jeers.
