I got this disc during the summer of 2000, 5 or 6 months after the Y2K bug was supposed to have ended civilization. I spent the summer of 2000 working as a temp doing accounts payable for the Indiana Pacers and this was the year they made it to the NBA Finals. For the past couple years I had been doing similar accounting jobs. The biggest difference was that sometimes names like "Reggie Miller", "Derek McKey" or "Austin Croshere" would show up on invoices. I didn't get to meet any players in any real way, but occaisionly I did see Al Harrington, who now plays for the Denver Nuggets, the afore mentioned Derek McKey and Brian Cardinal, who now plays for the Dallas Mavericks. I did manage to see a few memorable games for free too.
But back to Iced Earth. They are a legendary power metal band thoughout Europe who are chart toppers in Germany and Greece. This disc is as great as any of the classic live metal albums of the 1970s and 1980s. (Live After Death, Alive I and II, World Wide Live, Unleashed in the East etc) But what is really crazy is that these guys at that time were living outside of Columbus, Indiana. I found this out when my friend and bandmate Greg went to see Dio live at a bowling alley that was converted to a bar. I just happened to run into their lead singer Matt Barlow and their guitarist Jon Shaeffer. I saw three people wearing Iced Earth T-Shirts after the show and I asked them kind of sarcastically "Are we having an Iced Earth convention here?" and suddenly I realized I was looking at lead singer Matt Barlow, but my brain is telling me, "That's Impossible!" Matt then tells me that he lives in Columbus, IN because that's Iced Earth base of operation because Jon Shaeffer lives there too. We also met Ronnie James Dio, Jimmy Bain, Craig Goldy and Simon Wright that night too. More on that later.
Academically, I was kicking ass and taking names as a student of computer technology. Not only was I understanding the subject matter, I was getting A's as well. For the first time ever no one could accuse me of slacking off academically. Conventional wisdom says that older students will do much better than their younger counterparts and this really was the case for me. This actually led to first real position as a software developer.
Musically, this was also a disc that proved that metal was still alive, even in the darkest days of boy bands, grunge rock, alternative and all of the other manufactured musical trends of the 1990s. Better days for metal were just around the corner.
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