Saturday, 17th March'07 was one of the biggest days of my life so far. It was the day when the Heavy Metal Gods, Iron Maiden came to India as a part of the Iron Maiden - A Matter Of Life And Death tour, 2007. Excuse my French, but I gotta say IT WAS FUCKING AWESOME!!! It just blew me off!
Me and my mates left home by 9:30, had to drop mom to her workplace and reached the venue by 10 AM. There were already some people camping there since a long time. At about 10:30 AM, we happened to meet Sam Dunn, the director of the documentary movie, Metal: A Head bangers Journey. Apparently he was filming his next documentary on Metal scene around the world.
Sam Dunn
It was round about 1 PM when we queued up and what a terrible experience it was! Scorching Indian summers and Heavy Metal concerts... not a good combination at all! People were constantly pushing and jostling each other. I was almost first to the gates and I looked back and saw an infinite crowd of screaming angry fans all clad in the Black Iron Maiden Tees. I had to persevere until 3:30 PM in that riot before I was let in and I could make it to the second row!!! I was upfront in the dead center, just 25 feet away from the mighty stage... now what more could I ask for in my life! Soon crowd was pouring in and I could catch a glimpse until half the arena not beyond it. When the ground was almost filled, the horrible crowd avalanches started. The back rows were pushing the front rows at rib-cracking force. Since I was in the center of 4th row, it was like a mosh pit ALL THE TIME! It was a lot of fun in the beginning but soon I was getting elbowed. And guys in front row were getting horribly squished against the barricade. Some passed out, some got brutally injured I think and many were craving for water!At this point I couldn't take it anymore...and just walked back and had a plan to get in front by the time Maiden performed...and might I add it worked....OK I had my good cousins around to buy me some soda...I so badly wanted to at the kebabs..but it was bloody expensive...The unfortunate thing was the phone lines were jammed...and so could not contact my other cousins and friends...in the venue...
At about 5:30 PM, F.T.N, a pansy band who were winners of MTV Campus Rock Idols Contest took the stage. Their set list consisted of about 4 songs I guess, two of which were covers of Korn, Rage Against the Machine. Come on, they were fuckin opening for Iron Maiden! This is a serious blasphemy. And sure enough, they were booed off the stage with everyone shouting "Fuck off" and raising the middle fingers. That must have been a kick in the crotch to those guys!
Parikrama
After 6:15 PM, another so-called Indian "rock" band, Parikrama came on to the stage for the second opening act. Honestly they failed to impress me. But they appealed to a handful of fans by performing their original numbers. Adding Violin instrument to almost all their songs was just sissy! But I kinda liked one of their songs Parikrama - Am I Dreaming, which was inspired by Frodo and Sam's exploits in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
Lauren Harris
Next, it was cute Lauren Harris on stage. That was one of the privileges of being a daughter of Iron Maiden's Bassist Steve Harris! Hers is a punk rock band... you know kinda like Avril Lavigne. Lauren was welcomed much better than the previous two bands. When she finished performing 4 songs, the crowd was getting highly impatient... people were continuously screaming "Maiden, Maiden, Maiden...". She finished her 5th song somehow and left the stage.
It was close to 8 PM. The big time has finally come. The crowd was screaming at the top of their lungs for Maiden to come on to the stage. The painful right and left crowd avalanches started too, creating a huge moshpit in the front rows but I was out of it....
Then the stage was darkened momentarily and "Bruce Dickinson", the Iron Maiden's vocalist sprang onto the stage explosively by singing Iron Maiden – Different World followed by "Nicko McBrian" on Drums, "Dave Murray" and "Adrian Smith" on Lead Guitars, "Steve Harris" on Bass Guitar and finally "Janick Gers" on Rhythm Guitar. The crowd just went out of control. It is one of the most amazing moments of my life. I felt resurrected and got a surge of energy from no where seeing Maiden on stage! There I was standing, just humble 20 feet away from the Heavy Metal Gods and around me tens of thousands of fans screaming, head banging and moshing violently! It was simply jaw-dropping!!! Maiden then went onto perform the other two songs from their new album, Iron Maiden – These colors Don't Run, and Iron Maiden – Brighter Than A Thousand Suns. Then the next song, Iron Maiden – Wrathchild, from their second album, Iron Maiden - Killers was dedicated in "Leon Ireland's" memory who passed away last December - he was the lead singer of the famous Indian Rock band, "Moksha", which is credited to be the only Asian group to perform for the Iron Maiden tribute album Children of the Damned.
After Wrathchild, the crowd was shouting for the encore, Iron Maiden – The Trooper. As soon as Bruce heard that, he went in and came out in the the old British Trooper red uniform and British Flag and started performing The Trooper song with unparalleled energy. This was the best performance in my opinion. People went insanely wild too... singing along. It just felt like I was riding a wildly galloping horse!on heaven I absolutely loved it!
The Trooper was followed by another 2 songs from the new album, Iron Maiden – The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg and Iron Maiden – For The Greater Good of God. Next line-up was their classic songs, all my favorite ones:
Iron Maiden – Number of the Beast
Iron Maiden – Fear of the Dark
Iron Maiden – Run to the Hills
Iron Maiden – Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden – 2 Minutes to Midnight
Iron Maiden – The Evil That Men Do
and finally,
Iron Maiden – Hallowed Be Thy Name.
I totally loved these set of tracks as I must have listened to them at least a million times! While performing Fear of the Dark, Bruce climbed up the truss up to 30 feet high! It is simply mind blowing to watch the awesome stagemanship of Bruce; even though he is close to 50 years of age, he is amazingly energetic! And Iron Maiden's Mascot, Eddie The Head appeared in a Battle Tank in Iron Maiden song and then came onto the stage in soldier's uniform and with a rifle, during The Evil that Men Do song, in a signature style of the band!
During their last song, Hallowed Be Thy Name, I was almost on the verge of passing out. I was fully exhausted and I was mustering all the energy to pull through somehow. Ever since Maiden took the stage, I was in heaven all the time! At the end of the show, many fans just sat on the ground unwilling to leave the arena and relishing every moment of the spectacular show!
I've listened to Maiden's discography umpteen number of times, watched all their music videos, watched videos of their live performances like Rock in Rio, Donington Live 1992, Live at the Rainbow, Death on the Road etc. and I thought they were awesome. But believe me, watching Maiden live beats them all!!! It is simply mind-blowing and if I could make up a superlative degree of the word Awesome as Awesomest then that describes it!
Good news is that Bruce promised his Indian fans that Maiden would return again in another 17 months!!!
And I almost forgot...my cousin [John Brian] touched the drum heads when Bruce threw it into the crowd..but couldn't catch it..I so wish he did..cause I would have framed it.... All the moments were captured in a cellphone but I'm a complete novice in capturing videos and I guess all of you would have known the quality...but I should thank my friend for giving me his phone...for that one brilliant day....
Hail Iron Maiden!
UP THE IRONS \m/
Here are some of the pictures of the concert! FEAST YOUR EYES!!!
