Suilad Melyn!
So it's that time of year when the biggest 'battle of the bands' in all of LotRO starts heating up: Weatherstock! This year (the 6th annual) will be a little different. They've only accepted 10 bands total from around Middle Earth, out of 20 who applied. It's a little different this year: there will only be two prizes, and all the voting will happen on-line. It promises to be the same madhouse as previous years, with 700+ avatars in one space and visitors from many other servers.
This year, my elf band Andúnië won't be part of the festivities. I rather enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere with that crew while everyone else raced about. We won twice, and both times were entirely surprised.
This year, I had similar expectations: I was due to go to Weatherstock as a player (Zhigi, my lady-beard) with my Laurelin friends in the band The Chosen Few, who'd competed and got close to a prize two years running. But they weren't picked to compete this year (bummer!). Meanwhile, the mad application for the dwarf band I lead, The Rolling Kegs, which I thought would be rejected, was randomly accpeted. So I'll be at Weatherstock after all, as Raggolgrimbob, my Blacklock bard, with a rag-tag bunch of dwarrows, and dwarrowettes.
Meanwhile there are two hour-long concerts one for each band. There's a lot more content than the 12 minutes we'll have at the summit, so be sure to come along. One's this Thursday, the 5th (the R.Kegs) and the other Monday of next week, the 9th (the C.Few). They're at afternoon hours for N. Americans.
I'll be playing my 'Start Wearing Twilight' cover with partial Sindarin lyrics based on 'The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen', and another song dedicated to Thranduil and Thingol. Huzzah to Elf-dwarf relations getting better!