Tag: iron maiden

Tough Day Ahead

Today is going to be long and difficult. It’s 9:28am and I am already exhausted. Yippee, right?

I got home at about 12:20am this morning. I had a glass of water and went to sleep a little before 1:00. I woke up about 5:30. Yeah, I’m tired.

The show was fun. I think for the first time I may have seen Iron Maiden showing its age a little. We know the drummer had a minor stroke not long ago, and he’s let it be known that there are things that he used to be able to do that he is no longer physically able to do. Was that why the set was somewhat lacking in classics? Maybe. Was that why the band was… and I mean this in the most respectful way possible… somewhat less than tight? Probably not. I mean, as great as a live band as they are let us be frank with ourselves and admit that they were never really that tight. They always had their moments where things would lock in and the results would be spectacular, but over all? Yeah, they could be sloppy. Rhythmically, mostly. Tempos were always a little weird. Guitar leads and vocals would slide in and out of time here and there. These aren’t criticisms at all. Not at all. It’s just how they play. Always has been. It’s just that last night those moments seemed maybe a little more frequent and maybe a little more obvious. Vocally there were some struggles. Timing wise for the most part, but pitch wise too. Bruce is 66 years old. Over all he was amazing, as usual… he just wasn’t quite as perfect as he used to be.

Again, these are not complaints at all. Not even a little bit. They are just observations from a picky music school nerd who clearly loved every second of the show… and I clearly loved every second of the show. It was great.

The highlight for me was Fear of the Dark. I used to think I was the only one around who really dug that song, but the crowd went berserk when they played it. We were in the back row of the middle level and couldn’t see the stage at all if we stood up. Still, when Fear of the Dark started half of the people in front of us stood up and went nuts. I guess I’m not the only one who loves that particular song.

They only hit the first record (still my favorite) once. They played Iron Maiden… the song from the album of the same name from the band of the same name. It was one of those moments where the tempo was alarmingly slow, and Bruce let the crowd sing a lot of it. Totally understandable, but the second that Dave Murray started playing it, your humble narrator here was on cloud nine.

Now if he can also just get through the work day so he can get himself a little more sleep. Hang in there, tired people!

Random Sunday Night Thoughts

This week’s episode of The Penguin doesn’t launch for another 40 minutes so I am going to write a blog post to kill some of that time.

You ready?

Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith posted a picture on instagram today (at least I think it was today) that was taken backstage at a Maiden show in Toronto. In the photograph is one Mr Alex Lifeson who apparently is an Iron Maiden fan? Larry and Mike and I are going to see Maiden in less than two weeks. Do you think there’s a chance that Alex Lifeson will be at that show too? I hope so! I think it would be the best thing ever to watch Big Al air guitar to The Trooper. That would freakin’ rule.

Tomorrow is Monday. Back to work for everyone. Sad, painful, depressing. All that stuff. I have a small mountain of paperwork to do this week. I need to find a way to not be distracted by other work responsibilities so that I can get it all done as soon as humanly possible. I have the day off on Thursday because I wanted to be home and off the clock in time to run our house’s Trick or Treating.

I have one very important non-work responsibility that I have to take care of tomorrow. Well, two actually. I need to pick something up at the drug store for Jen tomorrow before work. That’s not what I am writing about, though it is important. The thing that I am writing about will also hopefully happen before work. I need to buy five tickets to an NCAA hockey game. UMass Lowell (my and my wife’s old school) at University of Vermont (my step daughter’s old and my step son’s current school). Harry and I went to a game last year. This year Jen and Bellana and Harry’s girlfriend are going to go too. I need to get the tickets in advance because I am crazy and don’t want to wait.

Hockey… as a family… how cool is that?

While on our day trip to Burlington, Vermont today, I took a camera with me. A film camera. Dad’s Pentax K1000 with a roll of Kentmere 400 (black and white) film. I shot about two thirds of the roll. I know for sure that I completely and utterly mangled a few of the photos, but one or two might come out okay. If the weather is okay on Thursday (Halloween) I might use the morning portion of my day off as a photo morning. I keep talking about Boston…. maybe I could go to Boston for a little while?

Okay, we’re now 25 minutes away form a new episode of The Penguin. I think I am going to post this literary masterpiece now and listen to some music until the show is released on the MAX app.

Happy Sunday, everyone. Have a good night.

Paul Di’Anno

We got some sad news from the land of British Heavy Metal from the 1980’s. Paul Di’Anno passed away.

Paul Di’Anno was the original singer in Iron Maiden. Well… original? Not sure, but he’s the singer on their first two records and their original demo and all that good stuff. He was either fired or quit or maybe a little bit of both in about 1982 or so, I think. He was replaced by Bruce Dickinson who quickly became a legend and the band exploded in a huge way after he was gone. I’ve heard the story from a bunch of different vantage points and they all are different enough that I don’t really know what happened. All I know is they were pretty big before he left and huge after.

Di’Anno was in a slew of bands after leaving Maiden. None of them were anywhere near as big, but he seems to have pretty much always been working. I think there was some jail time in his past somewhere too, and in recent years he had a bunch of health issues. He seemed to reconnect with some of his old band mates in recent years and everyone seemed happy to be in touch with him again.

At this point I will do what I always do when a public figure dies. I will make it all about me. Sorry for the narcissism.

I first heard Iron Maiden when I was in Junior High School. In seventh grade our bus driver, at the request of one of the eighth graders, would play The Number of the Beast album during our bus rides. He only ever played side two and we only ever heard the title song and Run to the Hills, but he played the cassette almost every day. It wasn’t for me. Ironically, it was Bruce Dickinson’s voice that really turned me off. I eventually came around, but at that time I was not digging the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Sorry.

Fast forward to my senior year in high school. All of my friends… all of them (I think)… were Maiden fans. I was the odd man out. Once in a while someone would force me to listen to something, and it was the then-current release, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, that almost brought me into the fold. It’s basically a prog-rock record disguised as metal. It wasn’t bad. I didn’t hate it, but as with Number of the Beast, it just wasn’t for me. Close, but not quite.

Not long after that, my soon to be college roommate Larry took one more shot. He told me that the very first Iron Maiden record had a different singer and the sound was much more raw. He put the album on and that was it. It was less grand and (dare I say it) operatic and more… punk? I think the band used to get pissed when people said they were punk-ish, but that’s what I was hearing… and that’s what I was liking. What sold me on that album was two things, really. The lack of production value (ironic since I was about to go to college to study audio engineering) and the singer. Paul Di’Anno. Bruce Dickinson is better in literally every measurable way, but I will go to the end of my days preferring Paul Di’Anno. It’s not you, Bruce, it’s me.

I devoured that first album. Then I checked out the second album, Killers. The production values went way up and the energy changed. I really liked it, but not in the same way as the first album. I found a copy of the Maiden Japan live ep and that was better. The rawness was back. I ate those three records alive for a while and eventually I started opening my tiny little brain up to some of the post-Paul Di’Anno stuff and by then I was ready to give in to it and Maiden became one of my favorite bands.

Their run of releases up to 1990 was unbeatable. I saw them for the first time in 1990, which was unfortunately when the wheels were sort of falling off the bus a little. I saw them again in 2000 when they were very much finding themselves again. I saw them a third time in 2019, a few months before the pandemic arrived, and while they are senior citizens now, they still have it. Whatever IT is, they still have it. I am going to see them for a fourth time next month. I’m looking forward to it.

And it is all thanks to Paul Di’Anno’s performance on that first album. That’s what opened the door for me. That’s what opened my brain.

Paul Di’Anno has passed away at the age of 66. Rest in Peace. Thanks for the music. Thanks for the energy. Thanks for the grrrrrrrrrrr. Most appreciated.

The New Wave of British Heavy Metal

The 1980’s live forever ’round these parts.

Not really, but also kind of really.

Back then we used to go to see most of the big concerts at the Worcester Centum in Worcester, MA. Most bands avoided Boston itself and went about 60 miles to the west to put on their shows at the Centrum. Partly because Boston is tough to get around in a big tractor trailer truck, but also because the only real place to play in the city at that time was the old Boston Garden and Billy Joel said it best when he said even hockey games sound terrible at the Garden.

The Centrum was smaller but easier to get around. Almost all of the big arena bands played there. The stadium bands played the old Foxborough Stadium, but the arena acts went to Worcester.

My first show ever, Triumph was at the Centrum. My first four Rush shows were there. I saw Boston there when they played six sell outs on six consecutive days. I saw the eight man version of Yes there on the Union tour. Absolutely stunning show touring an awful album. I saw a ton of great shows there.

My friends Larry and Mike saw Iron Maiden there in 1988 (I think) when they were touring the Seventh Son album. They asked me if I wanted to go, but I hadn’t caught on to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal thing yet. By the time Maiden returned in 1990 I was fully on board and we all went back to Worcester to see them.

The Worcester Centrum is now called the DCU Center but it’s still the same building. The last thing I saw there was an AHL hockey game back in… 2001? Maybe? I don’t think I’ve been back since.

That changes in November. I just bought tickets for me, Mike, and Larry to go see Iron Maiden once again. It’s going to be freakin’ epic. I saw them that time in 1990, then again on the first tour after Bruce and Adrien rejoined in (I think) 2000, though that show was in Portland, ME. I saw them again at the venue formerly known as Great Woods shortly before the pandemic hit. Was it August 2019? It might have been 2018, but I think it was 2019. And now, come November, I am going to see them yet again at the venue formerly known as the Worcester Centrum, yet again.

Bring on that New Wave of British Heavy Metal one more time, people.

Do you think they’ll play Die With Your Boots On?

I hope they play Die With Your Boots On.

Happy Eclipse Day

Today’s the day! We get to experience a solar eclipse. In my neighborhood we’ll see the moon block about 90-something percent of the sun. Where my step kids live, they will get to see a total eclipse. Here’s hoping the weather is clear for them and they will get to see it.

Channel 5 news in Boston was kind enough to give the start-peak-end times for both Boston (which isn’t where I live, but it’s close enough) and Burlington, VT (where the kids live) in one handy dandy infographic!

The only question that remains is… are you ready for this? My wife and I sure are…

Now if the work day just takes it easy on us so that we can sneak outside for a couple of minutes to put those groovy eclipse glasses to work. Fingers crossed.

Coming Home Tomorrow

My step son is coming home tomorrow. Have I mentioned that? Do you/they know it’s christmas time at all?

Jen just came into my bedroom/office/work nook and said that to her, today feels like Friday. It was a great minds think alike moment because I had been thinking the same thing all day. It’s only Wednesday but it totally feels like Friday. That’s going to make the next two days suck. I checked my work schedule tomorrow and it’s blank. I don’t have any meetings booked at all. It’s almost creepy.

My christmas wrapping is almost done. Did I mention that? I’ve still got a couple of things on the way (package delivery, a symptom of ‘Covid Christmas Too’) but as of now, everything I have to wrap is wrapped… and there are still 10 days left until christmas. That is also almost creepy.

I was going to do car music this morning, but I didn’t. I did a couple of errands instead. I snaked the drain like a faux plumber. As it turned out, I was able to sneak in everything I had left to do during lunch. You may have noticed that there wasn’t a lunch break blog post (no you didn’t. No one did. No one should). Two songs need both rhythm and lead guitar parts. Four just need lead guitar. Two more are already ready to mix. Music, ya know?

Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden has a podcast. World class fencer, airline pilot, novelist, metal god. The dude has range. It’s called Psycho Schizo Espresso. It’s Bruce and a psychologist talking about stuff. Okay, I’ll give it a spin.

Four minutes until the work day ends. Fingers crossed nothing comes my way during those four minutes, because I am cooking dinner tonight and the oven is already pre-heated. Chicken and Quinoa. They should call Chicken and Quinoa, ‘The Robert’ because it’s pretty much the only dish I am capable of making.

Three minutes to go…

Okay, clicking Publish now.

No Hidden Meaning

September 3, 2019 was not a noteworthy day. At least I don’t think it was because I didn’t post anything to this blog that day.

I haven’t missed a day since. What’s the count on my current streak of consecutive days with at least one post?

I promise there is no hidden, secret meaning. It’s just a coincidence, m’kay?

I Should Have Known That One

In last Sunday’s episode of The Walking Dead there is a scene (no spoilers) where Eugene is talking over the short wave radio.  He is trying to find a record to play a song to whoever he is talking to and he can’t find it.

I now know why he couldn’t find it.

The song was published in 2010… there is no way it would have been released on vinyl.  C’mon guys, you should have thought that through.

(okay, at this point I realize that I am not sure that he was digging through vinyl.  I just assumed that but he might have been digging through CDs.  I have to watch again to verify)

Worse than that?  Later in the show he sings the song and I didn’t recognize it.  I can’t say for sure, but I doubt I’d ever heard it before… but there is a chance I might have actually seen the band who wrote it do it live.

It was an Iron Maiden song.  It’s not from a record I really know at all, but I still should have freakin’ known it was an Iron Freakin’ Maiden song!  I am such a tool!