Iron. Fucking. Maiden.
I've been meaning to write about this for the better part of a week. I am made of procrastination.
Went to the Iron Maiden show at Greatwoods (aka the Tweeter Center, aka the Comcast Center, aka fuck 'em, I'm still gonna call it Greatwoods) on the 20th. Was fuckin' awesome, naturally. Getting tickets was a pain, tho, as the nearest Ticketmaster office was closed for remodeling, and all the others in the area are farther away than I want to blow gas on. So I ended up ordering them online with the 'will call' option, where you just pick them up at the box office the day of the show. I honestly expected it to be a hassle, but it was remarkably pain free. Wasn't even any wait to speak of.
The opening act was one Lauren Harris, who is actually the daughter of Maiden's bassist, which seems like a pretty handy arrangement. She does servicable metal-girl stuff, and if nothing really grabbed me, it was certainly better than I was expecting from some bit of nepotism I'd never previously heard of. And she was definitely workin' those skin-tight shiny black vinyl pants. Her supporting band was really odd, tho, in that they were all at least her dad's age. So you've got a girl in her twenties, dressed up all sexy, exhorting the crowd to 'come on over', surrounded by middle-aged men. There were more than a few moments where I wondered what Papa Harris was thinkin' about all this.
The really interesting thing during her set was the weather. Y'see, Greatwoods is an outdoor venue, with only the stage and expensive seats covered, and since we've usually gone there for Ozzfests in the middle of summer, we usually end up broiling. This day, however, was full of storms. It was nice enough when we got there, with just some ominous clouds on the horizion, but by the time Lauren's set started there was thunder, lightning, and downpours. It never got really serious about it, and the rain in particular was quite sporadic, but it was certainly one of the more interesting concert experiences I've had. It was also hilarious for the reaction of the crowd when it first started up, dashing for cover and freaking out and generally making nits of themselves over a little water. Personally, I've always kinda liked being out in the rain, so it just made the whole thing better for me.
Maiden's set started during one of the breaks in the storm, right after a rather nice sunset. It took them about a half hour to get the stage set up between the sets, and we were treated to radio play of a number of random 80's rock songs in the interim, including an actual Maiden song right before they got started, which was kinda weird. They came out pretty strong- Too strong, maybe, as one of the drums got busted on the second song and we were treated to Bruce ranting about how gay American Football is for a few minutes while they fixed it. :) They played all thier concert standards, The Trooper, Number of the Beast, all that, but the absolute highlight of the night was about halfway through the set, when they played motherfuckin' Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Yes, the twelve minute long adaptation of Coleridge's poem. The whole thing. With massive fog effects! Bruce opened it with a rather extended, rambling speil, but I had a good idea of where he was going from the first mention of seabirds, and pretty much started sqeeing with glee. Sadly, the weather didn't cooperate; the song's denouement begins with the line "...Comes the rain!", but at that point the rain had cleared. We got a few patters as the song wound down, but it didn't start up again in earnest until about five minutes too late. Too bad, really. That would've just made the whole thing that much more perfect.
Everything after that was a bit of a comedown, really. Still awesome, but, y'know, that's one of those songs that I never expected to hear live, like The Wizard at the last Sabbath show. From that point on in the night, I could die happy. (Although I still wouldn't mind if they whipped out Alexander the Great one of these days, but I'm not gonna get my hopes up.) They were using their Egyptian themed set, and used the nifty Mummy Eddie animatronic during the last song before the standard 'false encore' intermission, and pulled out the Cyborg Eddie suit after that. And Bruce was wearing the weirdest fucking pants; loose black leather of vinyl with what looked like green plastic 'leaves' all over them. Not printed on, like, hanging off loose. Like some sort of hard rock ghillie pants. And the rest of the band was wearing various Maiden tour shirts. I guess the 'that guy' rule doesn't apply to them. Hell, judging from the crowd, it doesn't apply to Iron Maiden in general. At *least* half of them were wearing tour shirts. What the hell.
Speaking of the crowd, they were quite... Unexpected. The last non-fest 80's metal revival band we saw at Greatwoods was Judas Priest a couple years ago, and the bulk of that crowd was obviously their hardcore fans from back in the day, i.e., largely greybeards still rockin' their leather pants and vests. It was also kinda dissapointingly thin, only filling up maybe a third of the venue. (Of course, the show was also on a Tuesday, which couldn't have helped.) Compared to that, Maiden's crowd was absurdly mixed. Sure, there were a few of the old school fans, but there were also a ton of people college age or younger and what seemed to be entire families. It was also packed. Not quite as large of a crowd as the Ozzfests tended to get, but only by a matter of degrees. Bruce even commented on it, mentioning how Maiden's had a huge surge in popularity recently and they have no idea why, but what the hell, they're gonna run with it. And, of course, a crowd of largely college-age kids produces more than a few nice pieces of eye-candy, so I'm certainly not going to complain.
Sadly, the crowd also produced the few really negative parts of the show. We got there fairly early and had a pretty good empty section around us, but it filled in with jerkwads. The guy in front of us was bad enough- he kept flicking things into the crowd in front of him during the show. Empty cups, crap from his pockets, lit cigarette butts... I really wanted to punch him a couple times. But not as much as I wanted to punch the guy behind us. Y'see, he was one of those guys you seem to find at every show who confuses 'enthusiasm' with 'screaming at the top of your lungs so damn loud so that the people around you can't even hear the fucking band'. Which is bad enough to just be near, but he was right behind us, effectively screaming right into my ear. And to top it off, he was absurdly tone-deaf, so when he was singing along at the top of his lungs he was beyond off-key. When he started up the standard 'Maiden, Maiden' chant during the intermission, he sounded like a god damned klaxon. And to top all that off, we were apparently in a high-traffic aisle. We had people constantly squeezing past us for beer runs. I swear, one guy went by at least seven times. Looking back, I'm not at all certain why the hell we didn't move. Ah, well.
After all that, we managed to find the car out in the boondocks of their parking and waited around for a half hour or so, waiting for the traffic to thin out, and were rewarded with a fairly easy exit. We hit up Wendy's when we got back to town as it was the only thing open that late, and I've learned a few things because of it. One, that the new Frosty Shakes aren't bad, but they're nowhere near as appetizing as the commercial makes them out to be. Second, that I can in fact tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tounge. While driving, no less. And third, that I can no longer eat at Wendy's. I was okay for a few hours afterwards, while we hung out at Jim's watching a recording of that night's Sox game and drinkin', but a few minutes into the drive home my bowels started giving me some painfully insistent messages. Unfortunately there's really nowhere on my route to stop off at four thirty in the morning aside from maybe the woods, so I had to hold it in. For a half hour. I honestly have no idea how the hell I managed it, as I damn near exploded when I finally got home and into the bathroom. I had a similar reaction a couple weeks ago when I picked up a couple of hashbrowns from McDonalds on my way home from work. So, with that and the few weeks I worked at Burger King nearly a decade ago turning me off of them forever, fast food is now verboten. Except for Dairy Queen, they're still good. For now.
Now, I just need Priest to tour around here again so I can get a three-peat with them, and I'll be all set.
Went to the Iron Maiden show at Greatwoods (aka the Tweeter Center, aka the Comcast Center, aka fuck 'em, I'm still gonna call it Greatwoods) on the 20th. Was fuckin' awesome, naturally. Getting tickets was a pain, tho, as the nearest Ticketmaster office was closed for remodeling, and all the others in the area are farther away than I want to blow gas on. So I ended up ordering them online with the 'will call' option, where you just pick them up at the box office the day of the show. I honestly expected it to be a hassle, but it was remarkably pain free. Wasn't even any wait to speak of.
The opening act was one Lauren Harris, who is actually the daughter of Maiden's bassist, which seems like a pretty handy arrangement. She does servicable metal-girl stuff, and if nothing really grabbed me, it was certainly better than I was expecting from some bit of nepotism I'd never previously heard of. And she was definitely workin' those skin-tight shiny black vinyl pants. Her supporting band was really odd, tho, in that they were all at least her dad's age. So you've got a girl in her twenties, dressed up all sexy, exhorting the crowd to 'come on over', surrounded by middle-aged men. There were more than a few moments where I wondered what Papa Harris was thinkin' about all this.
The really interesting thing during her set was the weather. Y'see, Greatwoods is an outdoor venue, with only the stage and expensive seats covered, and since we've usually gone there for Ozzfests in the middle of summer, we usually end up broiling. This day, however, was full of storms. It was nice enough when we got there, with just some ominous clouds on the horizion, but by the time Lauren's set started there was thunder, lightning, and downpours. It never got really serious about it, and the rain in particular was quite sporadic, but it was certainly one of the more interesting concert experiences I've had. It was also hilarious for the reaction of the crowd when it first started up, dashing for cover and freaking out and generally making nits of themselves over a little water. Personally, I've always kinda liked being out in the rain, so it just made the whole thing better for me.
Maiden's set started during one of the breaks in the storm, right after a rather nice sunset. It took them about a half hour to get the stage set up between the sets, and we were treated to radio play of a number of random 80's rock songs in the interim, including an actual Maiden song right before they got started, which was kinda weird. They came out pretty strong- Too strong, maybe, as one of the drums got busted on the second song and we were treated to Bruce ranting about how gay American Football is for a few minutes while they fixed it. :) They played all thier concert standards, The Trooper, Number of the Beast, all that, but the absolute highlight of the night was about halfway through the set, when they played motherfuckin' Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Yes, the twelve minute long adaptation of Coleridge's poem. The whole thing. With massive fog effects! Bruce opened it with a rather extended, rambling speil, but I had a good idea of where he was going from the first mention of seabirds, and pretty much started sqeeing with glee. Sadly, the weather didn't cooperate; the song's denouement begins with the line "...Comes the rain!", but at that point the rain had cleared. We got a few patters as the song wound down, but it didn't start up again in earnest until about five minutes too late. Too bad, really. That would've just made the whole thing that much more perfect.
Everything after that was a bit of a comedown, really. Still awesome, but, y'know, that's one of those songs that I never expected to hear live, like The Wizard at the last Sabbath show. From that point on in the night, I could die happy. (Although I still wouldn't mind if they whipped out Alexander the Great one of these days, but I'm not gonna get my hopes up.) They were using their Egyptian themed set, and used the nifty Mummy Eddie animatronic during the last song before the standard 'false encore' intermission, and pulled out the Cyborg Eddie suit after that. And Bruce was wearing the weirdest fucking pants; loose black leather of vinyl with what looked like green plastic 'leaves' all over them. Not printed on, like, hanging off loose. Like some sort of hard rock ghillie pants. And the rest of the band was wearing various Maiden tour shirts. I guess the 'that guy' rule doesn't apply to them. Hell, judging from the crowd, it doesn't apply to Iron Maiden in general. At *least* half of them were wearing tour shirts. What the hell.
Speaking of the crowd, they were quite... Unexpected. The last non-fest 80's metal revival band we saw at Greatwoods was Judas Priest a couple years ago, and the bulk of that crowd was obviously their hardcore fans from back in the day, i.e., largely greybeards still rockin' their leather pants and vests. It was also kinda dissapointingly thin, only filling up maybe a third of the venue. (Of course, the show was also on a Tuesday, which couldn't have helped.) Compared to that, Maiden's crowd was absurdly mixed. Sure, there were a few of the old school fans, but there were also a ton of people college age or younger and what seemed to be entire families. It was also packed. Not quite as large of a crowd as the Ozzfests tended to get, but only by a matter of degrees. Bruce even commented on it, mentioning how Maiden's had a huge surge in popularity recently and they have no idea why, but what the hell, they're gonna run with it. And, of course, a crowd of largely college-age kids produces more than a few nice pieces of eye-candy, so I'm certainly not going to complain.
Sadly, the crowd also produced the few really negative parts of the show. We got there fairly early and had a pretty good empty section around us, but it filled in with jerkwads. The guy in front of us was bad enough- he kept flicking things into the crowd in front of him during the show. Empty cups, crap from his pockets, lit cigarette butts... I really wanted to punch him a couple times. But not as much as I wanted to punch the guy behind us. Y'see, he was one of those guys you seem to find at every show who confuses 'enthusiasm' with 'screaming at the top of your lungs so damn loud so that the people around you can't even hear the fucking band'. Which is bad enough to just be near, but he was right behind us, effectively screaming right into my ear. And to top it off, he was absurdly tone-deaf, so when he was singing along at the top of his lungs he was beyond off-key. When he started up the standard 'Maiden, Maiden' chant during the intermission, he sounded like a god damned klaxon. And to top all that off, we were apparently in a high-traffic aisle. We had people constantly squeezing past us for beer runs. I swear, one guy went by at least seven times. Looking back, I'm not at all certain why the hell we didn't move. Ah, well.
After all that, we managed to find the car out in the boondocks of their parking and waited around for a half hour or so, waiting for the traffic to thin out, and were rewarded with a fairly easy exit. We hit up Wendy's when we got back to town as it was the only thing open that late, and I've learned a few things because of it. One, that the new Frosty Shakes aren't bad, but they're nowhere near as appetizing as the commercial makes them out to be. Second, that I can in fact tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tounge. While driving, no less. And third, that I can no longer eat at Wendy's. I was okay for a few hours afterwards, while we hung out at Jim's watching a recording of that night's Sox game and drinkin', but a few minutes into the drive home my bowels started giving me some painfully insistent messages. Unfortunately there's really nowhere on my route to stop off at four thirty in the morning aside from maybe the woods, so I had to hold it in. For a half hour. I honestly have no idea how the hell I managed it, as I damn near exploded when I finally got home and into the bathroom. I had a similar reaction a couple weeks ago when I picked up a couple of hashbrowns from McDonalds on my way home from work. So, with that and the few weeks I worked at Burger King nearly a decade ago turning me off of them forever, fast food is now verboten. Except for Dairy Queen, they're still good. For now.
Now, I just need Priest to tour around here again so I can get a three-peat with them, and I'll be all set.