Corpus Christi lies humid and unhurried under a scorching Texas sun. The shining orb’s efforts to reduce the populace to mobile blobs of molten jelly are tempered by the gentle sea breeze that idles in from the Gulf of Mexico. With its palm trees and acres of topless bars, it looks uncannily like the opulent offspring of some bizarre artificial insemination experiment involving Soho and the Bahamas. It’s the sort of place where you could very easily just lie back and doze away five years of your life, except …
… except there’s this odd thumping noise that keeps tugging me away from my sunbathing daydreams. As the thumping gets louder and more desperate, it’s joined by urgent, then angry shouting, like someone’s having a blazing row with somebody who won’t answer back. Nostrils twitching with reborn journalistic fever, I intrepidly trace the din to its source.
Imagine my surprise when I find it’s emanating from Iron Maiden tour manager Warren, frantically trying to get some response from Maiden guitarist Dave Murray’s hotel room.
Eventually, seething with desperation, the tall bronzed yank applies his full force to the door and sends it flying only to find … no one. The room looks like a scene out of Earthquake.
Various drawers and items of apparel clutter the floor, and the bed is dishevelled and empty. But the window is wide open. Surely Dave hasn’t …
For one ghastly moment I sense another obituary coming on. And then Warren says, “My God”, ever so softly. Lying prostrate on the floor, looking white as a Dulux ad and wrapped only in a bed sheet, is Murray, sparko, and totally oblivious to the racket Warren has been making. Only the gentle movement of the sheet indicates any remnant of life at all.
After minutes of imploring and slapping to no avail, Warren just hoists him over his shoulder and carries him through a stunned hotel reception and on to the tour bus, ready for the long drive to Houston and/or the nearest hospital. With his flowing locks and near naked torso, I can’t help but recall vocalist Bruce Dickinson’s badge missive: “Easter is cancelled – they’ve found the body.”
It’s difficult to believe that this sad, comatose figure would, mere hours later, be sitting up, flashing that perpetual cherubic grin and dismissing the panic with a cheery, “I ‘ad a few over the eight last night”. Or indeed, walking into one of the aforementioned topless bars and, within half an hour, be spiriting away one delightfully huge-breasted artiste, Rachel (who reaches the parts most beers wouldn’t dare), with little more than an inebriated, “Let me take you away from all this”.
Face it, all tours come up with stories of reckless wastedness and maids who make beds from the inside, etc., but few do it with the Murray sense of style. Then again, few bands go about conquering the colonies with Maiden’s success, either.
Maiden’s relatively recent arrival in the HM headlines-hitting stakes shouldn’t be allowed to obscure the sheer staggering size of the waves they’re making across the globe. Their second album, Killers, was good and nudged into the US top 60 during their first US tour supporting Judas Priest last year, but the infinitely more accomplished Number of the Beast smashed a course right up to number 33, and has been in the US top 100 for a more than impressive 20 weeks, clocking up over a quarter of a million sales in the process.
And all this quite deliberately without trying to pander to US AOR radio, without watering down their metal muscle to churn out mechanical FM fodder, without putting out cover singles, without giving in to “corporate logic” bullshit for one soul-destroying moment!
The extent of their impact can be measured in other more human terms, too. Even in an obscure speck on the map like Beaumont, Steve Harris, the Maiden bassist and driving force, couldn’t walk anywhere without getting recognised and almost mobbed.
The sense of excitement that surrounded the rise of British new wave of heavy metal, of whom Maiden were the premier exponents, is being re-created stateside here and now, without any of the hype but with plenty of hard graft and A1 performances.
The only other British band from that perished period (yeah, perished, virtually every “new” metal act these days either consists of jaded old hacks or attains a level of originality and drive roughly akin to a News of the World headline writer after a Fleet Street pub crawl) to make similar impact in Reagan country are Def Leppard, but being more hard rock than heavy metal, they’ve done it in a far different, much more airplayable, albeit equally exciting, fashion.
But if the US is going great for our formidable ferrous five, so is every other major world market. There’s not one where Number was less than top 10, and here at home it smashed straight into the album chart at no 1.
In 1981, the Maiden sold over a million records worldwide, this year they’ve topped that already. They’ve played across four continents (only Africa has the pleasure to come) and are well established in every one.
And yet it was less than three years ago that the band went pro. It was only three years ago that they were regularly playing and packing out the Ruskin Arms in the heart of Cockneyland, full stop. It was less than three years ago that they first signed to EMI, now they’re that label’s fourth biggest act. And that’s what I call a fairytale success story.
Like every good fairy story, the Maiden’s Progress featured/s an ever-changing cast of heroes and villains. But for this stage of the tale, our characters consist entirely of:
Dave Murray – Dave Brown lookalike lead guitarist, 25-year-old son of Hackney, womaniser and constant smiler with a prodigious capability for alcohol intake pursued to the extreme for the purely philosophical purpose of “finding new dimensions”. An x-ray of his liver would have to be preserved in pure methylated spirits.
Steve Harris – dashingly handsome 26-year-old band founder, dynamic but self-effacing bassist from Leytonstone, suffers from obscure East End illness known to the medical profession as “supporting West Ham”.
Adrian “H” Smith – Dave’s guitar partner, also a 26-year-old Hackney-ite, his usual shyness and near-morose reserve is in fact a cover for … Melvin! Ade’s hideous Mr Hyde-style alter ego, no magic potion needed here, simply vast quantities of alcohol, are enough to complete the terrifying transformation and render our mild-mannered axe man a hotel-trashing, plane-delaying monster, prone to kiss or wallop anything that moves according to mood …
Clive Burr – 24-year-old demon drummer, good-humoured Leytonstonian layabout, who on rarer occasions than the H/Melvin changeover is similarly transformed into the foul-mouthed Kelvin … (when Dave Murray reaches that twilight zone between normality and coma, he becomes Nobby Tart, which is self-explanatory).
Warren – aforementioned bronzed tour manager, blessed with Casanova-like charm that renders most women putty in his hands. Even in that last citadel of morality, Salt Lake City, Warren managed to conjure up two bikini-clad “fans” eager to offer some, umm, relief to anyone in the mood …
Rod Smallwallet (AKA Roderick Charlotte Smallwood: the middle name comes apparently from an eccentric aunt who inspired many a Maiden chune) – Yorkshire-born manager and rugger player whose hard-worked-for reputation for Scrooge-like meanness took a severe dent when he bought me TWO beers in one evening! I fear for his sanity.
[Ross] Halfin – legendary hobgoblin-style Sounds photographer and Maiden camp follower who meets a just end later in our story...
Eddie – originally Ed the Head, 10-ft-tall Maiden-incarnate monster and bête noire. While the rest of our Cockney heroes remain unchanged by success, Ed has succumbed to temperamental tantrums like a regular little Shirley Temple. Turns out he’s demanding a longer slot on stage, a whole ox on every gig rider and, more outrageously, he wants to sing as well as dance – he’s really out of control. Thankfully I didn’t have to deal with him at all, as he’d stomped off in a huff with his mate Bigfoot …
Bruce Dickinson – 24-year-old Sheffield-bred new boy singer, biggest surprise of the lot. I’d been wound-up to expect a big-headed snob and found not only a charming and erudite companion, but also a performer of fine vocal abilities and a near peerless line in crowd titillation. Where better to demonstrate his prowess than tonight’s gig?
Down the front, the Corpus Christi crowd are giving a reasonable impersonation of a Japanese tube train rush hour, cowboys and Mexicans crushed together in a sweat-sodden melting pot and staring rapturously at the Maiden like they’re the people who invented sex.
UFO’s Doctor Doctor was the exciting (and instructive) cue number, and now Maiden are laying into Wrathchild with the enthusiasm of a rugby team on a free pass to the Reeperbahn.
Dickinson is the centre of attraction, a sawn-off Conan the Barbarian in tight red pants and indian boots, who sports viking locks and a Desperate Dan stubble you could light matches on, and careens around the stage like Bruce Forsyth with St Vitus Dance.
Sure, his vocal histrionics are very traditional, but believe me, few performers carry it off with such gusto. I used to love [Paul] Di’anno’s raw punky vocals and stable boy charm, but in terms of sheer professionalism, I have to admit he comes in a spirited second to this more capable Cro-Magnon crooner who never fails to get the Texican crowds going bananas and on several notable occasions winds em up to near hysteria with wordless gestures.
Run to the Hills carries on the impact with its poppier gallop familiar over here through video screenings rather than single release (Maiden have refused to bring out an American single). It seems to have touched a popular chord, and indeed tonight, one granddaughter of an old Apache chief had travelled all the way from Nevada bearing gifts as a sort of thank you.
From this speedy high they drop a couple of gears for the one LP track I found iffy, Children of the Damned, though it must be said that live, it works much better than on vinyl. It sounds epic instead of dated with more than a pinch of the Ozzy surrounding its slow sinister stroll through the vaporous pits of hell.
The ominous spoken intro of Number of the Beast comes next, and the band power into the devilishly dynamic pounder with a zeal that’s reflected in the ecstatic crowd response. Like them, I’m enjoying every minute, unlike them I’m also wondering, where have all the flaws gone (long time passing)? Maiden are on world champion form, a triumph of reborn metal mania, and by now Bruce is having to compete for crowd attention with the upfront Way-reminiscent thrusting and posturing of bass baron Bomber ‘Arris.
Not to be outdone, H and Murray swap guitar pyrotechnics, Dave excelling himself to these ears with that smashing first break on Number, while Clive Burr contents himself bashing out a solid beat from the rear. The set courses on coupling the rhythm of leaping chargers to wild guitar flurries and lyrics as evocative as the rampant rudery of 22 Acacia Avenue, and the more philosophical probing of Hallowed Be Thy Name. They hit like a wrecking ball on a brick wall.
Natch, Iron Maiden itself rounds off the set with Eddie putting in a menacing eyes-flashing appearance. But then, my pretties, something strange happens. Before the encore, a rather wretched handcuffed figure is dragged on stage and gets covered in shaving foam with a flan-flinger’s relish. Then he’s bumped with 8,000 people counting all the way up to 30. The wretch is birthday boy Ross “Lonely Loins” Halfin, and this is what you might call the Rock Band’s Revenge, sweet retaliatory justice that only reached its outrageous peak backstage post-gig.
Nonsense out of the way, Maiden finish off the sort of set Stevie Wonder would describe as “a blinder” with that barnstorming show-stopper of accelerating rhythms, Drifter, reaping a solid-gold, crazy-crowd reaction in the process.
Thankfully David didn’t repeat his Chicago Coliseum performance, where at the end of encore excitement, he hurled his guitar into the crowd – without remembering to take the lead out. It flew straight into the back of a security cop’s nut, and it cost a pony to soothe the headache.
Maiden’s “Special Guest” slot on the Scorpions tour has meant a relatively curtailed, albeit handpicked set. And on their current form, I wouldn’t want to be in the Krauts’ schuen for a truckload of frankfurters.
What’s equally amazing, considering the energy and enthusiasm that they’re injecting into every show, is that Iron Maiden are currently six months into their world tour and three months into the US part. They’ve played 115 concerts so far, with 90 more to go, swapping supports with Rainbow and .38 Special for the huge (like US top 10) Huns a couple of months back.
They stick with em till September 11, when they find a new headliner till October before heading out to Japan. Reading is the only respite of Merrie England sanity till the planned UK tour next March.
Still, how bad is that? There’s enough happening most of the time to keep most of the homesickness at bay. Like, all the horrendous tales of Rod Smallwood only remembering he’d “forgotten” his wallet when the bills come up. Like their very own Play Misty bird, a beautiful but very diseased and quite mad fan who’s turned up in every hotel they’ve stayed at. And like the .38 Special tour manager who decided they hadn’t said goodbye properly and kicked down H’s hotel door with a fistful of champagne bottles (cue Melvin’s reappearance).
Natch, I’m party to a few disgraces myself, not least in a hotel bar in Beaumont where me and Mr Dickinson were sharing some special American “Anne Boleyn” beer (i.e. very old and no head). Bruce was sporting some rather tasteful shorts that nicely displayed his hairy legs and red and white socks (I’m sure he’s a closet Charlton fan). Despite the fact that he’d worn the same shorts all evening in the same bar the night before, tonight the manager decreed them “offensive” and no amount of remonstrating would dissuade him.
With true cool, Bruce took his leave only to materialise minutes later in a “fuck” T-shirt with his offending limbs covered by a pair of tight jean legs cut off just under the same shorts. Nobody said a word.
‘Twas this advanced sense of the wizard prank that saw Bruce expelled from his boarding school three months before his A levels. Seems he’d defrosted the headmaster’s peas in a particularly novel way – by pissing on them in the cooking pot. Apparently this crime went undetected and very eaten until some grass spelt our hero’s urination.
Sadly, this put an untimely end to a titillating series of practical jokes, and consequent severe beatings (e.g. delivering his housemaster a ton of horse manure, etc).
A very colourful early history, which lack of space prevents adequate exploration of here aside, Bruce’s first name band was Samson, whom he joined after a history course/social sec stint at London’s Queen Mary’s College. Paul Samson had seen him in a previous band and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse, but maybe should’ve, as the Samson connection has still got him tied up in management wrangles (again of book-length proportions).
Without digging too deep into details, the way out, and the only way he’ll get to write Maiden lyrics, involves purchasing all the old Samson publishing rights, which might result in a cheaply priced double album Samson retrospective with band history, unreleased live material and so on.
It was the old Samson management who originally christened him Bruce Bruce (from the Python “poofters” sketch), perpetuating the nickname by making all the cheques out to that too silly moniker. As Samson developed, it was obvious that the band were evolving in very different direction, Paul towards the bluesy band of today, Bruce towards full-frontal metal, which made Maiden a logical home.
Accepting an invite from Steve last September, post-Di’anno, Bruce learned the set, rehearsed and got pissed with the band, and hasn’t looked back since. Especially not over here, where his frantic stage performance earned him a nobbled neck and a movement-restricting surgical collar.
For about a month, Bruce passed in agony through the mitts of various US quacks who proffered a frightening range of downers (one even prescribed horse tranquillisers) to deaden the pain, while one, who charged 80 notes for 20 minutes, recommended surgery. The wonders of private medicine, eh kids?
Eventually, and in even more agony, Bruce went to someone called a chiropractor (a non-surgical medic who deals with the problem, not the symptom), who sorted things out with the collar and cost about 20 quid.
Needless to say, Bruce is not that impressed with America. “It’s really overrated,” he snorts. “There are some nice people here, but most of them seem to think success means screwing someone who’s one step up the ladder. And their soap operas make Crossroads look like the Royal Shakespeare company.”
Verily, Yank culture has about as much depth as a toddler’s paddling pool. Worse, every British stupidity is expanded here to the nth degree. Would you believe there are religious maniacs in California who wanted the Maiden album to carry stickers warning of their “evil Satanic nature”?
Steve Harris has a good chuckle at it all. “People have taken it all out of proportion. They think it’s a concept album when it’s obviously not. There’s only two songs on that subject, and they’re obviously escapist, not serious devil worship or anything.”
*
Personally I rate the Number album not only as the band’s most complete achievement to date, but also as an In Rock-style metal classic destined to be hailed as such in years to come.
© Garry Bushell, 1982. An extended version of this article appears in Garry Bushell’s latest book, Riff-Raff, Rebels & Rock Gods please?
