Track #45 - “2 Minutes to Midnight” by Iron Maiden (1984)
From the album Powerslave
Music & lyrics by Adrian Smith and Bruce Dickinson
Performed by:
Bruce Dickinson – lead vocals
Dave Murray – lead & rhythm guitar
Adrian Smith – lead & rhythm guitar
Steve Harris – bass
Nicko McBrain – drums
The killer’s breed or the demon’s seed
The glamour, the fortune, the pain
Go to war again, blood is freedom’s stain
Don’t you pray for my soul anymore
So, full disclosure and apologies in advance but I’m going to get crotchety for the next several minutes. Up to now and for the past 44 tracks (thank you for sticking with me) I have presented the songs on my life’s playlist and remained positive, framing each with mostly happy, and sometimes sad but influential moments. I’ve been nostalgic for sure, but in this uncertain world we’re now living in I feel I have every right to sometimes long for my youth, and for simpler times. In fact, I think it’s actually my job when we take these trips down memory lane to wax nostalgic, if for no other reason than to help us all escape the realities that lie just outside our front doors. But for right now I must be the proverbial old guy in the rocking chair on the porch yelling at the kids to get off the lawn. So, here’s what’s making me crotchety today: Most of the joy of going to see live music is gone. There, I said it. It’s out there. I’ve spoken my piece. But please bear with me, because I have well thought out reasons! If this were the 12th grade English Regents exam, I could easily fill TWO of those confounding blue books and make my teacher proud. I have an opening statement (see above), supporting reasons peppered with data and examples, and a conclusion. I am going to back this up, I promise. And mind you, this is not to convince you I’m right or to persuade you not to attend any more concerts. In fact, I want to be wrong. But to me, the facts are all there. OK, so here we go, the reasons why most of the joy of seeing your favorite band live is gone…
1. Cost of tickets – This one should be obvious. Here are some numbers to make you feel old (if you’re my age that is; if you’re Gen Z and reading this, you’ve been f*** by the industry and I take no responsibility.) The average cost of a concert ticket in 2024 was $135.92; in 1996 it was $25.81. Now, that’s the average price which means you could spend a lot more for an amazing seat close enough to see the sweat on your favorite artist’s face or pay less for a shitty seat just to say you were in the building. Chances are though, if you saw any of the top ten grossing artists last year, you paid a heck of a lot more than $135.92, no matter where you sat. Minimum prices for Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen tickets last year were $500, and that’s before you set foot in the arena and spent $25 on a beer and $60 on a T-shirt. Now most of the people in my demographic have a little extra cash for entertainment and can foot a bill like this, albeit begrudgingly. But if you’re in high school or college like I was when I attended the most shows in my lifetime, how can you possibly afford to buy tickets now? From 1981 to 2012 the average ticket price increased 400 percent, far outpacing overall consumer inflation of 150 percent during the same time. However, and here’s the rub…demand for live music is through the roof, thanks to the COVID pandemic and overall FOMO among, well, everyone. If you’re younger, you just want to go because your friends are going, but if you’re older you want to see your favorite artist before they join the great big band in the sky. And honestly, this is a great thing. But why does it need to be so expensive? There are bands out there that still tour who seriously should be giving away tickets, like in bulk, like they should play entire shows for free. (I’m talking to you Bono, Mick and Bruce). Have a raffle and donate it all…they do not need the money. I paid less than $20 for my first concert ticket in 1985 (more on that), including the fees. I don’t want to tell you what I paid to see one of Billy Joel’s final MSG concerts last year; it was obscene. Totally worth it, but obscene. So, the point of all this is that artists do not need to work at it to sell concert tickets. We all want to be there! They just need a way to make the tickets more reasonable. And easier to acquire…which brings me to…
2. Buying tickets – In April of 1994, just a few days after the death of Kurt Cobain, the members of Pearl Jam were invited to the White House by then-president Bill Clinton. Clinton, well known back then for his town hall meetings with young voters and for playing the saxophone on late night television, wanted Pearl Jam vocalist Eddie Vedder’s thoughts on “messaging” regarding Cobain’s suicide. During the meeting, Vedder shared that he was concerned about a perceived monopoly held by concert ticket vendor Ticketmaster. Clinton offered to investigate the matter, and what followed was an odyssey of unfortunate events for Pearl Jam as the Justice Department looked into the band’s complaint, and controversy followed them around for almost two years: it ended up costing the band a small fortune, they cancelled a summer tour and they fired their drummer, Dave Abruzzese, over “philosophical differences” regarding the whole matter. Vedder and Pearl Jam had the best intentions when they decided to take on Ticketmaster. All they wanted was to bring their music to all their fans, at fair prices. What they probably didn’t realize was that at the time, Ticketmaster controlled 63 percent of the arena seats in the US, and 90 percent of the top 25 markets with large arenas. Ticketmaster brokered agreements with promoters who controlled various markets to ensure they would control the sale and distribution of tickets. When Pearl Jam tried to play in small markets at obscure venues, Ticketmaster found a way to charge fees to print the tickets, and when the band attempted to work with startup company ETM for their 1995 tour, Ticketmaster attempted to plant stories in local papers disparaging the band. I could go on. Pearl Jam ended up cancelling the summer tour, and within a week, the Justice Department dropped the investigation. Ticketmaster clearly made Pearl Jam an example, and while other artists have tried to fight them, the ticket behemoth has not lost its stranglehold on the live music business. Granted, some artists have gained control over their ticket prices, with Beyonce, Metallica, Taylor Swift and Dave Matthews offering fans better access to tickets and keeping scalpers away, but most have no choice and sell through Ticketmaster’s platform. I know I’m not the only person who thinks this is just ridiculous, but this problem is probably here to stay unless someone breaks up Ticketmaster, which is a long shot at best. Having one company in control of most of the ticket business to the point that artists must go out of their way to fight them is just insane to me. If they made it easy, maybe I’d get it, but they definitely do not. Just ask the 1.4 million Taylor Swift fans who were given presale codes in 2022 only to get shut out after spending hours trying to buy tickets. There was a time when we lined up at ticket outlets, we were given a wristband with a number, and then we went back to the point of sale and bought the tickets based on the number you had on your bracelet. We stood in the rain, in the oppressive heat, and held our bladders for hours just to stay in line and get our concert tickets. But it was a community of sorts; you talked to people, and sometimes made friends while you waited, and when you had your tickets in your hands, it felt like you earned it. I realize those days are probably long gone and obviously buying tickets on your phone or laptop is how it’s done, but waiting on those lines was just more fun to me. OK, so now we have our tickets. Everyone is excited and anticipating all that great music. But when we get there, how present are we, really?
3. Setlist cheating/Smartphones/Social media – I think I could actually live with the prices and the hassles of buying concert tickets if I could get rid of this one. The combination of these three things I think is at the heart of why concert-going for me is just not the same. And the worst part is that I’m guilty of all of it. I’ve looked ahead at setlists before I’ve gone to shows since they’ve been made available (setlist.fm launched in 2008, just FYI). I’ve taken videos and pictures at shows. And I’ve posted them to social media, sometimes while I’m at the show. I am not proud of this. The advent of social media and smartphones has altered the culture of concert-going. Everyone has their phones out at shows. I don’t know how the artists stay focused with all that blue light in the arena. And worse, if I was on that stage, I would wonder if the audience would even notice if I stopped playing…everyone is staring down at their phones! Back when we talked about “Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode, I mentioned going to their show at Nassau Coliseum in September of 1993. I was lucky enough to be five rows from the stage that night (a ticket I happily paid $75 for, about ¼ of my weekly salary at the time), and during the encore when they played “Enjoy the Silence”, I snuck a look behind me and the crowd was undulating in this giant wave in time to the song, and the crowd was singing every word with vocalist David Gahan; the building was shaking. To me, at that moment, it felt like the only place on the planet that mattered. And I was there; not just there, but there. There were no smartphones back in 1993; I wasn’t filming the show or posting to Facebook. I was there in that mini sea of humanity, sweating and dancing and screaming my head off. Go and pull up Queen’s performance at Live Aid in 1985. Freddie Mercury is singing their hit “Radio Ga Ga” and leading 72,000 people in singing the chorus with him, his fist raised triumphantly in the air. Those 72,000 people are right there with him: they’re not pointing 72,000 smartphones at him. There are 72,000 pairs of hands in the air and they are in that moment. It’s magical. It’s transformative and uplifting. Do people still get lost in those moments, and are they present when their favorite bands are leaving it on the stage? I’m not so sure, but I hope so. And while setlist.fm and YouTube can be useful when you can’t make it to the show, it takes away from the anticipation of the show if you are going; some of the mystique has disappeared. The silver lining though is that unlike the first two gripes, this one is completely in your control. You can stay off setlist.fm before the concert, and when you’re there you can keep your phone in your pocket. But you’ll just have to deal with the high prices and the hassles of getting tickets.
So, there it is. I’ve had my rant, and I’m getting off the porch. Thank you for listening. Now, it’s time to go back to May of 1985 to re-visit my first ever concert experience, from the convincing of my parents to let me go alone with friends, to the buying of the tickets, to the weeks leading up to the show, to finally that evening in the spring of my freshman year of high school when I was lucky enough to see my favorite band at the time at arguably their creative peak. I was fourteen years old, and as awkward as you can imagine an adolescent boy in the 1980s, that was me. But part of me didn’t care. I had MTV and my rock T-shirts and my records and cassettes and boombox. Nothing else mattered to me back then. And I was going to see my first concert ever. I bought paper tickets in person from a Ticketron vendor with crumpled up bills from the top drawer of my dresser. I had no idea what songs would be played, and I took no pictures or videos from the show. I don’t even have the ticket stub anymore (please, I’m so pissed I lost it). But that didn’t stop all of us who were there from talking about it for weeks before and afterwards. And all these years later I still remember the night Iron Maiden came to Long Island; the crowd, the smells, the way Nassau Coliseum shook. I remember all of it.
When we last left Iron Maiden, they had just released Piece of Mind, in May of 1983. This album was the follow up to 1982’s enormously successful and influential The Number of the Beast, often considered one of the greatest metal albums of all time. As successful as that album was, Iron Maiden had yet to headline their own tour. The critical and commercial success of Piece of Mind enabled them to finally tour without supporting other bands, and it was a huge success. Iron Maiden also gained a foothold in the US, playing arenas in large markets, all while selling 1 million copies of the album. The record includes songs now considered Iron Maiden and metal classics: “The Trooper”, “Flight of Icarus”, and the song that made yours truly an obsessed fan, “Revelations”. The tour wrapped up in the US in St Louis in October of 1983, and concluded worldwide in Dortmund, Germany that December. Iron Maiden were now uniquely positioned as one of the biggest metal acts in the world, and they knew their fans would be anticipating the new album almost as soon as the World Piece Tour ended, so the bar was high. They were no longer a support band, and while they were revered in their native England, they had earned a devoted army of fans in the US, the most important music market on the planet. Plus, this would be the first time they had the same lineup for two albums in a row, so this was a pivotal moment in their history. The band took a month off in January of 1984 and reconvened on the island of Jersey to write and rehearse the new album, and then they flew to Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas to record what would become Powerslave. By that summer, the album had been mixed at Electric Lady Studios in New York and was ready for release that September. Iron Maiden would kick of The World Slavery Tour in August, in Poland, and they became the first metal band to bring a full stage show behind The Iron Curtain, a very big deal at the time. History lesson for the kids out there: The Iron Curtain was the political (and literal) boundary that divided Europe after World War II. On the east side was the USSR and their allies (by choice or not); on the west side were the NATO allies, including the US. When you see videos of “the wall” coming down in 1989, that’s The Iron Curtain, more or less. So, a western heavy metal band playing in a country “behind” The Iron Curtain was a huge achievement at the time. Powerslave was released on September 3rd, 1984, a Monday; I started high school that Wednesday. By Friday, I was jumping out of my skin, knowing that somehow I had to get my hands on that album over the weekend. I had a good friend back then named Bill who I hung around with a lot during junior high school who was also an Iron Maiden fan. He’s also a big reason I started to love the band so much in 8th grade. Bill ended up on the football team in ninth grade, and after practice on Saturday, he walked over to Record Stop in Ronkonkoma right near our high school and he bought Powerslave. I was home, waiting for a ride to the record store, and I was pacing the floor, stalking my mom while she did whatever she did on Saturday mornings. I was growing impatient, so I grabbed the phone, and I still remember calling Bill when I thought he might be home, and asking how the album was, and I still remember him vividly saying, “The best song is ‘2 Minutes to Midnight’, but I’m not finished with it yet, I gotta go.”…and he hung up!! F***…what was my mother doing? Finally, she was ready, and my mom, forever my music mule until I could drive myself, drove me to Record Stop and I bought the album. You’ve heard this drill before: I got home, ripped off the cellophane, and carefully put it on my turntable and watched the needle drop as I settled on my bed, ready to read the lyrics along with Bruce Dickinson’s wail. I listened, and I was…blown away? Mesmerized? Transported to another place? What do you say when you play your heroes’ new album for the first time, and you’re 14-years old, and you don’t have a job or responsibilities, and those 51 minutes are all that matters? You can’t say anything, because it’ll just sound cliché. But it was, indeed, a benchmark of my youth hearing Powerslave for the first time. “2 Minutes to Midnight” was probably the best song, but there was also opener “Aces High”; two songs about sword play, “The Duellists” and “Flash of the Blade”; the awesome title song, a galloping track about a pharaoh who thinks he should be immortal; and finally, there was the 13-minute “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, a retelling of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s epic poem of the same name, complete with a moody slowdown in the middle, ghostly creaking ship noises and a narration of one of the verses. There was even an instrumental, “Losfer Words”, (get it?), and “Back in the Village”, a sequel of sorts to the 1982 song “The Prisoner”. It was perfect. That day was one of the greatest days of my life to that point. And boy, did I stare at that album cover, dominated by an Egyptian pyramid with a likeness of band mascot Eddie sitting on a giant throne, wearing a Tutankhamen-like mask, as his sarcophagus is carried up the steps to his tomb. I may have listened to it three or four times through that first weekend, but each time it got better. Powerslave became the soundtrack to the first part of my freshman year in high school. If I wasn’t listening to it, I was talking about it. I got a huge poster of the album cover and hung it in my room and gawked at it when I was supposed to be doing homework. I was obsessed with it. The thought of seeing Iron Maiden live never occurred to me until after the new year, in early 1985. Until then, I never thought I’d be able to afford a concert ticket, nor convince my parents to go to a concert with friends. But when another friend, yet another Iron Maiden fan, told me that they would be playing less than 45 minutes away, in only a few months, seeing my first concert began to become a reality. I had to go. There was no way I could miss it, and if I did, it would be my own fault. Fate had lined everything up perfectly; all I had to do was take advantage of the opportunity. I would regret it forever if I did not go to that show.
I figured I had three obstacles standing in the way of seeing Iron Maiden live: money, a ride, and convincing my parents to go to the concert with my friends. If I couldn’t get past the last one, the first two wouldn’t mean a thing, so when my friend Mike L. (not my neighbor Mike, a different Mike), told me about the show, I immediately began to plant the seed with my parents. They were relieved I wasn’t asking them to go to Madison Square Garden in the city, but still, a heavy metal show where I could be exposed to sex, drugs and perhaps human sacrifice had them concerned for my safety. “Pleeeaaase,” I begged them, “I don’t know when they’re going to come around again.” When my father offered to go with me, I had to think of something fast; all due respect, but there was no way I was going to my first concert with one of my parents. And I don’t know what he was thinking; he would not have lasted 5 minutes in that arena with one of the loudest bands on the planet playing. “What if I ask Mike down the block to go, too,” I asked. And that did it. “OK, if Mike’s parents let him go, then you can go.” Within a day, the parents were talking and agreed to let us go…hallelujah! I told Mike L. that I asked my neighbor, and he laughed and said he asked his neighbor, so there would be four of us. So, obstacle #1 was out of the way. Now I had to figure out if I had enough money. A floor seat back then would probably cost $50-60, and there was no way we’d score those, so I figured I would need about $25. I kept all the money I had in the world in my top dresser drawer, either scattered at the bottom or in a velcro Mets wallet. I had about $15 in the wallet, and some crumpled up bills next to my socks. It probably totaled $30; it would have to be enough. But, as it turned out, I wouldn’t even need that much. One weekday after school in early spring, Mike L.’s mom drove us to the local TSS store about two miles from where I lived. TSS, or Times Square Stores, was a local discount department store chain where my parents did a lot of shopping for the house; they also had a great record department. This location had a Ticketron kiosk where you would tell the clerk behind the counter what tickets you wanted, and he or she would dutifully collect your money and print out your tickets. We had missed the day the Iron Maiden tickets went on sale, so we knew we’d be getting whatever was left, but that was fine with us; we were just hoping to get four seats together. With Mike L.’s mom idling in the car out front, we ran in with everyone’s cash and headed straight to the Ticketron counter. Today there was no line, but on other occasions, I’d seen it snake down the main aisle right in front of the records and tapes. We asked the older guy behind the counter for four Iron Maiden tickets for May 24th and crossed our fingers while he tapped away on a keyboard, and the green monitor glowed in his eyeglasses. “You’re in luck…I have four together right here…”, he said, and he produced a laminated seating chart of Nassau Coliseum, with “STAGE” marked clearly to the far right of the diagram. The seats were in section 300, three levels above the floor, and we were sort of on the side of the stage. The seats were not great. But Mike L. and I looked at each other, shrugged and said at the same time, “We’ll take ‘em.” With tax and service fees, the tickets were about $19 each, all in. The clerk printed them out, put them in a Ticketron envelope, and sent us on our way. We high-fived each other right there in front of the counter and ran out to where Mike L.’s mom was patiently waiting. We had our tickets; we were doing this! Now we just had to wait almost six weeks until the show, which you can probably imagine, was interminable. It was like waiting for Christmas when you were seven years old. But we felt like celebrities at school, bragging that we had tickets; it seemed like everyone we knew was talking about the concert. We even heard one of the Spanish teachers had tickets. My friend Bill also managed to get tickets with some guys on his street; it really seemed like everyone I knew was going to be there. I spent the next six weeks listening to all of Iron Maiden’s albums, trying to figure out what songs they would be playing. This was way, way before the internet, YouTube or social media, so unless the newspaper published a setlist or you were friends with the band, you had no idea what songs they would play that night. As we got deeper into May, the weather started to get warmer, and I started to study for the end of year Regents exams. Studying provided the distraction I needed those last two weeks because I was seriously losing patience. It felt as if I had those tickets in my drawer for a year. Finally, the day arrived. It was a Friday, so the school day dragged on and on, but by the time I was on the bus home that afternoon I knew I was in the homestretch. Mike L.’s mom once again agreed to drive us, this time all the way to Uniondale, and my dad was going to pick us up when the show was over. By 6PM, we were piled in the car and on our way.
The old Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York held a little over 16,000 people and used to be known as “The Barn”, owing to its older design and cavernous acoustics. Or to put it more simply, it wasn’t sexy, and the place was f***ing loud. It was also home to the NHL’s New York Islanders (until 2015) and I can tell you from seeing hundreds of games in that arena that there were times I thought the building may implode from the noise. But that’s what made it special. The arena was the last of its kind before corporate America started sponsoring venues and making them the luxury experiences they are today. There was nothing luxurious about the Nassau Coliseum, believe me. But, as the only option on Long Island to see a concert or a sporting event at the time, it was more than fine. So, as we pulled into the parking lot on that evening in May 1985, I was more than familiar with the layout of the venue and where our seats were going to be to see Iron Maiden. But since I had never been to a concert in my life, I really had no idea what to expect. The first thing I noticed was the scene in the parking lot. After Mike L.’s mom had dropped us off we made our way to the entrance, but not before we had to navigate a sea of Iron Maiden fans, just hanging around the parking lot. There was Iron Maiden music blasting from every direction. And most of these fans were older than us, like by a lot. There were grown men there, hanging around near motorcycles and vans, and drinking beer and who knows what else from bottles in paper bags. They wore denim vests and jackets, with Iron Maiden patches and portraits of band mascot Eddie painted on the back. These were serious fans; I don’t think any of us were wearing any band gear at all. We must have looked ridiculous, like little kids. I had a thought that maybe we’d end up in the back of one of the vans, never to be seen again. But eventually we reached the entrance, showed our tickets, and started wandering around the concourse. Obviously, we couldn’t buy alcohol, so after an unsuccessful stop at one of the merch tables, we found our section and climbed the stairs to our seats. (Note: the merch table was so crowded we couldn’t get near it. We all ended up buying $10 ¾ sleeve t-shirts in the parking lot after the show; mine faded after three washings, but I kept that thing till 12th grade.) The seats were not bad; we had a clear view of the stage, but there were a lot of empty seats around us. My guess was that people were skipping the opening act, German metal band Accept, but it was our intention to watch their set, which we did; they were awesome. For more on why you never skip the opening act, check out my post on Volbeat. When Accept finished their 45-minute set, the house lights went up, and now we waited. I remember looking around the arena and just seeing the size of the crowd, how it had grown exponentially since the opening act finished, and how on edge everyone seemed. There was something palpable about the energy at that moment, something I had never felt before. I remember that energy scaring me. There was nowhere for it to go until Iron Maiden came onstage and began to play, but until then, it would just continue to build. Now when I go to see live music, I want to feel that energy before the band hits the stage. I love getting to the venue early, watching the crowd filing in, and all the anticipation. Back then, it all just made me anxious in a bad way. Finally, the lights went down, and there was a roar from that crowd, and everyone was on their feet. Aha, now we’d have a hard time seeing the stage. From the PA we heard the din of plane engines, and then what I would later learn was an excerpt from Winston Churchill’s speech to Parliament in June of 1940, followed by the opening chords of “Aces High”, the first song on Powerslave. And then there were explosions, another scream from the crowd, and then the band who I had obsessed over the past three years, whose album covers and photos were all over my bedroom walls, was there…they were right there, playing real instruments and singing in front of a giant Egyptian-themed stage set. At first, I have to be honest, I didn’t see much because of the tangle of arms in front of me, but wow, did I hear it. They were LOUD, like earth-shaking loud; it was awesome. Finally, by the time I heard the first chords of the second song, “2 Minutes to Midnight”, I moved to where I could see what was going on down on the stage below, and by the middle of the set, when they played the 13-minute “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, I was pumping my fist in the air and sweating along with everybody else. I wished I was closer. I wanted to be there on the floor, and closer to the frenzy of what was going on. Someday, I would figure out a way to be on the floor, but for now, at least I was here; best to just go with it. The show felt like it lasted for hours, but by the time they played the final song, “Sanctuary”, less than two hours had gone by. Six weeks of anticipation for two hours. Part of my 14-year-old brain couldn’t wrap itself around that, but what did I expect? A full Iron Maiden catalog retrospective? We got their best, but I wanted more. By the time we found our way out and to the parking lot and chased down t-shirts, and finally found my dad, we were spent. It was a quiet ride home. I woke the next morning to my brother blasting his Powerslave cassette on his boombox in his bedroom next door. My head was buzzing, my ears were ringing, and I felt like I may have had a contact high from the giant cloud of marijuana smoke in the arena. I had gone to my first concert, and now it was over. When would I go to another one? It would actually be a while, but for now I’d just have to play this one over and over again in my head. When I returned to school on Monday, I proudly wore my $10 t-shirt. In fact, there were a lot of Iron Maiden t-shirts in school and in the neighborhood those first couple of weeks after the show. I remember feeling ultra cool during that time, and very grateful I had pushed my parents to let me go, and for having used my own money for my ticket. This was a rite of passage, and I made up my mind right then that if I ever had my own kids that maybe I’d take them to their first concert…I mean, why not? I remember thinking, donning my first concert t-shirt, walking down the hallway in high school, “Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be this cool forever.”
That was a lot to get through, so thanks again for stopping by and for reading! Sign up for email updates to get new posts delivered to your inbox and if you’re enjoying the posts, please feel free to share the link with your friends!
The video for “2 Minutes to Midnight” is a bit weird, to me at least, and all this talk about live Iron Maiden music had me thinking I should include a live version of the song, but in the end, I decided on the album version and the video. Enjoy! 😊
Next time…”Icon” is too small a word for this artist: We’ll talk about one of her biggest 90s hits and solve the mystery of why I am obsessed with a certain 2000s rom-com. And…FIVE more tracks to go; we are nearing the finish line :-)
P.S.
Five months after I saw them at Nassau Coliseum, Iron Maiden released Live After Death, recorded over the band’s four-night stint at Long Beach Arena in March of 1985. I bought it the day it came out, and I think it might be the album I’ve listened to in its entirety the most in my lifetime. It is considered one of best live albums ever, and certainly the best live metal album ever produced. British rock publication Classic Rock has called it “the last great live album of the vinyl era.” I have memories of listening to it on repeat, especially when I bought the cassette and could take it with me in a Walkman or boombox. Iron Maiden also released the Long Beach shows on VHS, which of course I watched to the point that I snapped the tape; I’m not kidding (don’t worry, I bought another copy, and I also have it on DVD somewhere.) Watching a video of the set I saw live on demand was a thrill. You can see the entire video here on YouTube. Besides Rush, Iron Maiden is the band I listened to most in high school, probably to the point of unhealthy obsession…but I couldn’t help myself! Iron Maiden released two more albums in the 1980s: Somewhere in Time, and the loose concept album, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, which incidentally might be my favorite. Both were considered experimental, but both sold well and had successful tours. By 1993, they had released two more albums, but both guitarist Adrian Smith and vocalist Bruce Dickinson had departed to pursue solo projects. Smith was replaced by Janick Gers, and Wolfsbane vocalist Blaze Bayley became the new singer. After two albums, Bayley was dismissed, and Bruce Dickinson returned, along with guitarist Smith. In 2000, they released Brave New World, and since then, Iron Maiden has experienced a resurgence in popularity, releasing five more albums, continuing to tour and winning their first Grammy for Best Metal Performance, in 2011. They have earned a generation of new fans in the past 25 years, and the fans from my generation are not going anywhere. I saw them this past November, and aside from drummer Nicko McBrain retiring from touring in December 2024 due to after-effects from a stroke, they have not slowed down and still sound amazing. To me, they are the same band I saw 40 years ago, and I will be a fan until they stop recording and touring.
So, this might be hard to believe, but I did not attend another Iron Maiden show for another 15 years, when my brother took me to see them in 2000 for my 30th birthday at Madison Square Garden for the Brave New World tour. Note: Queensryche (when they still had Geoff Tate) and Rob Halford’s solo band were the openers that evening. Three of the greatest metal vocalists on the same bill; man, what a night that was. Since then, I’ve seen them five additional times, including this past November at the Prudential Center in New Jersey. Like I mentioned earlier, they haven’t lost a step and sounded amazing, especially vocalist Bruce Dickinson. The guy just doesn’t seem to age. Why I didn’t see them for 15 years is a mystery even to me, but I would chalk it up to a new group of friends that just did not listen to metal. I basically couldn’t get anyone to go with me. But I think I have more than made up for it since 2000. There are a couple of photos from the November show below. Like the Rush playlist, I’ve been thinking about this one for months. I limited it to 25 songs, and of course it was ridiculously tough, but here it is on Spotify. If you’re a fan, I hope I’ve included some of your favorites!
And, about that rant above…that was mostly tongue and cheek, but it goes without saying that I wish concert tickets weren’t so insanely expensive. Do I expect to pay $19.50 like I did in 1985? Well, no, but less than $100 would seem reasonable. That last part though, I’m kind of serious about it. You want to take a picture and post it while you’re at the show, go right ahead, but after that, put the phone in your pocket. Be present. Watch the instruments being played, the sweat, the joy, feel the floor shake. You won’t get those 2-3 hours back. We believe you were there. We don’t need all the pictures to prove it.
See you next time…
JS
8/7/2025