Tag: new wave of british heavy metal

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.