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Next was the opening address from Legalize [a.k.a. Rich]. In thirty seconds or less, he managed to alienate and offend eighty percent of the planet. First of all was his verbal distain for the European demo scene. I do understand there are reasons for this; some Europeans have openly attacked [I do mean attack] the Pilgrimage event. (Such as deleting entries in wikipedia). However, it’s silly to go on so far on the offensive like this screaming “Eurotrash!”. Instead of taking one on the chin, and moving on… it escalates throw for throw. We need to stop throwing sand at each other, as it only destroys the spirit of what we are trying to create.

Rich then went further to ridicule the Canadians for no longer having an active demo party, calling us “wussies”. I realize that he was trying to build enthusiasm for the pilgrimage event. However, doing it this way was cheap and ineffective. The Northern Dragons demo group is BASED in Canada, and is MOSTLY Canadian. We were among those that traveled the most to attend. We sponsored Pilgrimage as well as wrote the party invitation.

Unable to resist… I heckled from the back… “With an invite written by Canadians”. This is only ninety percent true. Some of the music is from members in The Netherlands, and at the time... we had an American member that contributed to the invitation. I believe that Rich is a two faced sword. He is the life of Pilgrimage (as he started it)… but his myopic attitude to everything non-American may also kill Pilgrimage in the eyes of any and all foreign attendance (and subsequently diminish the local attendance). I still give the event it the benefit of the doubt, but Rich needs to drop his attitude down a several notches.