MAIDEN TRIVIA OF THE DAY

930427t.jpg

MAIDEN TRIVIA OF THE DAY – MAIDEN WORST CONCERT?

When talking about Maiden’s long career, many say that their lowest point was the years with Blaze due to the fact that the band almost stopped playing in big arenas to return to clubs or other places, sometimes even playing to just some hundreds and not thousands of people like they used to do, however, if one takes the time to research things a little bit deeper, it might find that things are a bit different to what many say.

The year was 1993, and as almost any Maiden fan knows, Bruce had decided to jump ship leaving the rest of the Maiden team with the difficult decision of going out on tour with someone who didn’t want to be there… Why not cancel and take the time to search for a new singer? The answer given to the media was that due to the fact that most of the tickets had been sold out long before, it wouldn’t be fair to the fans to cancel the whole tour, however the truth is that due to contractual obligations, if the band were to cancel, they were going to lose money and even more ground in the metal arena, but, was this a good decision…?

Let’s travel back in time, exactly 28 years ago, Maiden was scheduled to play at the Palasport in Turin, this was to be the first concert of the Italian leg of the tour and the band already had doubts about the decision they had made about going out with Bruce, this, due to the fact that some nights Bruce just didn’t seem to care and sing… But it seems like the worst was yet to come… First of all, the concert had really low sales which made the promoter think twice about going on with the concert. Then the gig itself, during ‘Prowler’, just the third song in the setlist that year, an Italian “fan” decided to spit at Bruce, who obviously got extremely mad and left the stage, which gave the crowd the strange opportunity to think about that time when Di’Anno got arrested and Steve handled the vocals for a moment before giving up, and leaving the band giving an almost instrumental version of the song.

After the previous event, all went downhill. Bruce just didn’t care anymore so while the band was giving it all, Bruce almost talked the lyrics, then sung for a bit, then went back to being bored, all in all it was kind like seeing two different persons on stage, especially on ‘Wasted Years’… ironically…

Stories about almost every date of every tour between 1975 and 1987? Is all here in the EDDIE MADE ME DO IT (THE RISE OF THE BEAST 1975-1987) which you can get at https://www.subscribepage.com/eddiemadedoit and remember, when you buy, you don't buy a book, you also help feed twins!
 
n770430.jpg

The Cart & Horses had become the house of Maiden. Since the first gig they had played at the pub on June 9, 1976 (which many consider the true birthday of Maiden) 33 gigs had been played at the place between 1976 and 1977.

The small break that the band took at the end of 1976, made Steve realise, thanks to the help of Dennis Wilcock, that in order to grow, the band needed to expand their territory however, things were easier said than done since the Punk & New Wave movement was in full swing, and most of the venues and record labels were only looking to book those kinds of acts…

By March 1977, thanks in part to the brilliant advertising campaign the band did in various music newspapers, with various catchphrases, most of them from Dennis' mind, such as "Amazing 'n' Electrifying", "Rock Kings of East End" & the famous "We shake, shock and rock, we make the rest look average stock", the band started pulling more and more fans, a fact that "unfortunately" led to the end of the relation of the band with their house pub, because of damages sustained at the pub… things definitely were not looking good for Maiden. Almost a month passed without the band being able to book a new gig until Paul Sears wit helped the band get a gig at the Bridge House, today, exactly, 44 years ago, and things started to change rapidly from this gig on…

You want to know the story before and after this gig, with loads of details that haven't been told yet? Get the EDDIE MADE ME DO IT (THE RISE OF THE BEAST 1975-1977) and learn it all! Get it at https://www.subscribepage.com/eddiemadedoit
 
Last edited:
View attachment 14432

MAIDEN TRIVIA OF THE DAY – MAIDEN WORST CONCERT?

When talking about Maiden’s long career, many say that their lowest point was the years with Blaze due to the fact that the band almost stopped playing in big arenas to return to clubs or other places, sometimes even playing to just some hundreds and not thousands of people like they used to do, however, if one takes the time to research things a little bit deeper, it might find that things are a bit different to what many say.

The year was 1993, and as almost any Maiden fan knows, Bruce had decided to jump ship leaving the rest of the Maiden team with the difficult decision of going out on tour with someone who didn’t want to be there… Why not cancel and take the time to search for a new singer? The answer given to the media was that due to the fact that most of the tickets had been sold out long before, it wouldn’t be fair to the fans to cancel the whole tour, however the truth is that due to contractual obligations, if the band were to cancel, they were going to lose money and even more ground in the metal arena, but, was this a good decision…?

Let’s travel back in time, exactly 28 years ago, Maiden was scheduled to play at the Palasport in Turin, this was to be the first concert of the Italian leg of the tour and the band already had doubts about the decision they had made about going out with Bruce, this, due to the fact that some nights Bruce just didn’t seem to care and sing… But it seems like the worst was yet to come… First of all, the concert had really low sales which made the promoter think twice about going on with the concert. Then the gig itself, during ‘Prowler’, just the third song in the setlist that year, an Italian “fan” decided to spit at Bruce, who obviously got extremely mad and left the stage, which gave the crowd the strange opportunity to think about that time when Di’Anno got arrested and Steve handled the vocals for a moment before giving up, and leaving the band giving an almost instrumental version of the song.

After the previous event, all went downhill. Bruce just didn’t care anymore so while the band was giving it all, Bruce almost talked the lyrics, then sung for a bit, then went back to being bored, all in all it was kind like seeing two different persons on stage, especially on ‘Wasted Years’… ironically…

Stories about almost every date of every tour between 1975 and 1987? Is all here in the EDDIE MADE ME DO IT (THE RISE OF THE BEAST 1975-1987) which you can get at https://www.subscribepage.com/eddiemadedoit and remember, when you buy, you don't buy a book, you also help feed twins!
Fear of the Dark from that gig was particulary outstanding...
 
The way Bruce fucks up on The Evil That Men Do from that gig always makes me cringe. The guy clearly had no interest in this gig anymore.
All that concert is just awful! Don't really think there's a worst one although in the private FB page for buyers they have been debating about some.... Funny trivia, Bob Sawyer himself answered that the worst concert was when this guy pretended to play the guitar with his teeth
 
98-tour-italy.jpg

MAIDEN TRIVIA OF THE DAY – THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR BLAZE

Rumours had started even before the tour… Maiden was going to disband? Blaze was leaving? Was Bruce coming back? All of these rumours were being denied over and over by the Maiden camp, but something strange was in the air and Blaze, as he admitted in private conversations, was feeling it, however, Harry kept telling him that he had nothing to worry about.

The unofficial start of the Virtual XI Tour was a great gig according to those who attended it, and gave the band and Blaze the boost of confidence they needed to kickoff a tour that was being scrutinized probably more than any other Maiden tour. Then came the official start of the tour at the Zenith in Lillie and the reviews came in… Most of them were positive but the press did mention that Blaze looked a bit nervous on stage and made slight errors in some lyrics. They also noted that even in small venues, the fans didn’t fill the place, a fact that had become evident even during the X Factour.

After the two dates in France, which could be considered, warm up gigs, the band traveled to Genova the day before they were supposed to play at the Palasport. In the hotel the band mostly relaxed and took the time to mentally prepare for the dates ahead, after all, Italy had been one of the strongholds of Maiden from the very early days. They also knew that the Italians fans were not easy ones so they had to be ready for anything.

Then came the day, 23 years ago today, it was the first last concert of Blaze as the singer of Maiden in Genova. Once again, there was no surprise with the audience… The Palasport wasn’t even half packed, as now the interest of Italians fans was low. Funny trivia fact about the crowd is that many fans were commenting about the fact that Steve could be Blaze’s father...

Then a storm of notes invaded the area, Nicko sat on his drum kit, the guitars erupted and Blaze took the stage, thing is that even with Futureal, a very energetic song, the band seemed tamed, almost like the statues that adorned the stage during the World Slavery Tour, probably due to the fact that some of the older fans in the audience didn’t hide their faces of disappointment at the band, however, the band carried on and all in all, from what those who attended it have told me, it was a very good concert, little did we know by then (or did we?) that this was the beginning of the end for Blaze fronting Maiden…

Want to know the story of the band in a way that hasn’t been told before? EDDIE MADE ME DO IT (THE RISE OF THE BEAST 1975-1987) is full of trivia and stories about what the band did between 1975 and 1987, get in at https://www.subscribepage.com/eddiemadedoit
 
Maiden at the Bridgehouse.jpg

MAIDEN TRIVIA OF THE DAY – THE BRIDGE HOUSE

The gig that Maiden played at The Bridge House in April 28, 1977, had been a great success, with lots of fans visiting the pub and of course giving the bartender extra work so Terry Murphy, the Guv'nor of the pub, decided to book the band for quite a lot of gigs. As a matter of fact, in 1977, The Bridge House was the place where Maiden played most of its gigs, and all of them were incredible and the place where most of the new songs that Steve, Dennis and Co. would come up would debut here.

It is also at The Bridge House where one of the oldest and most famous pictures of the Harris-Wilcock-Matthews-Sawyer-Murray would be taken (as a matter of fact, this picture was taken on the gig they would play today 44 years ago) and where the oldest and most commonly known version of ‘Prowler’ would be recorded here.

Want to know what more happened at The Bridge House? What songs debuted here? How Maiden grew up in the place while the Punk/New Wave era was on the high? EDDIE MADE ME DO IT (THE RISE OF THE BEAST 1975-1987) says it all, get it at https://www.subscribepage.com/eddiemadedoit.
 
the oldest and most commonly known version of ‘Prowler’
If it's the one on Youtube that you mean, I thought it was The Harrow, Barking and not the Bridge House, regardless of what it says in the video's description?
 
If it's the one on Youtube that you mean, I thought it was The Harrow, Barking and not the Bridge House, regardless of what it says in the video's description?

Yes, it is the one in Youtube and the uploader labelled it wrong.
 
IRON-MAIDEN-1998-Plakat-In.jpg

MAIDEN TRIVIA OF THE DAY – A HOT DAY IN DÜSSELDORF

The Philipshalle was clearly not sold out, and yet it was a bit difficult to find a parking space. The fans were lined up in in front of the individual doors, and not in a heap, as is usually the case at metal concerts. The sun was shining and it was warm. A perfect summer day in Düsseldorf…

Is May 10, 1998, and among the fans the discussion about Blaze singing abilities keeps coming up. The answer in most of the cases, and a very just one is that Blaze sounds totally different from Bruce, and so some old fans may not be able to deal with that, or they just don’t like new things anymore. It doesn’t matter, ‘cause when the band hits the stage is like when Lions were liberated in the Coliseum for the first time! Fans of the band erupt with emotion, especially when songs from the Di’Anno era (which are easier on Blaze’s voice) and a few classics from the Dickinson era come up in the setlist. "Murders In The Rue Morgue", "Hallowed Be Thy Name", "2 Minutes to Midnight", "The Evil That Men Do", "Fear Of The Dark" make some of the old fans happy, others keep expecting Blaze to be a Bruce clone and, as Harris did, expect too much of Blaze’s voice who definitely puts lots of soul into the song but just can’t reach Dickinson high notes. Then comes the encore which was received with loud shouts from the fans, and man IT WAS LOUD! But something else is going on, the band now seems tired (probably because of the heat inside the venue) and (as I was told) felt that that the fans weren't as enthusiastic as they used to be… Is it time to change the setlist? The singer? The music? We’ll find out that same year…

EDDIE MADE ME DO IT (THE RISE OF THE BEAST 1975-1987) the story of Iron Maiden in a way that never has been told before https://www.subscribepage.com/eddiemadedoit.
 
01. Front.jpg

MAIDEN TRIVIA OF THE DAY - LIVE AT THE RAINBOW!

Recorded at The Rainbow on December 21, 1980, and released today, 40 years ago, Maiden became one of the firsts bands to release a concert in video, making history forever.

The video was Directed by David G. Hillier and produced by Frank Mullan & Alan More for Deltafilm Associates and as most fans know, is not the full concert due to the fact that at the time there was no way to fit the entire gig on tape and make it affordable. It is also known that halfway through the set, Camera 3 went down and channels 2, 3 and 5 (Paul and Clive lines to the mixing desk!) started breaking down so number like 'Iron Maiden' and 'Phantom Of The Opera' were repeated after the encores. As a matter of fact, 'Phantom Of The Opera' in particular had to be reassembled in post-production (let's see if you can spot which ones are take one and which ones are take two)

What not a lot of people know, as Nicko says, is that this video helped Maiden to be featured on MTV's first day, with 'Iron Maiden' being the 16th video of the day and 'Wrathchild' the 35th.

There's so many stories, anecdotes and trivia facts that Maiden fans deserve to know and they're all in the EDDIE MADE ME DO IT (THE RISE OF THE BEAST 1975-1987) book! Order yours at https://www.subscribepage.com/eddiemadedoit.
 
870513-15f.jpg

MAIDEN TRIVIA OF THE DAY – BIG IN JAPAN?​

After the last date of the US part of the tour, the band went to sunny Los Angeles to relax for a week before departing to Japan. As it was the previous years, the band were followed by Japanese fans everywhere they went, especially by girls! But Japanese people, being Japanese, they always followed the band in a very respectful way, which allowed the band members to do more sight-seeing of Tokyo and Osaka. The highlight of this leg was, of course, playing the legendary Budokan for the first time, which the band had managed to sold out.

The funny thing is that, as Bruce told me in an exclusive interview, which you can read in the exclusive group after you purchase my book, and he comments briefly on his autobiography, they thought that the Budokan was a massive place when reality is that the place was no more than a medium-size gymnasium that gets used as a martial-arts centre. Also funny is the fact that due to how the Japanese people are “tamed” before the band went on there was a eerie silence that once the band hit the stage exploded in a huge roar by hundreds of fans that jumped and screamed without moving from their place.

Read the exclusive interview, learn trivia facts from all the dates between 1975 and 1987, and enjoy reading about your favourite band with the EDDIE MADE ME DO IT (THE RISE OF THE BEAST 1975-1987) book! Order yours at https://www.subscribepage.com/eddiemadedoit.
 
View attachment 14432

MAIDEN TRIVIA OF THE DAY – MAIDEN WORST CONCERT?

When talking about Maiden’s long career, many say that their lowest point was the years with Blaze due to the fact that the band almost stopped playing in big arenas to return to clubs or other places, sometimes even playing to just some hundreds and not thousands of people like they used to do, however, if one takes the time to research things a little bit deeper, it might find that things are a bit different to what many say.

The year was 1993, and as almost any Maiden fan knows, Bruce had decided to jump ship leaving the rest of the Maiden team with the difficult decision of going out on tour with someone who didn’t want to be there… Why not cancel and take the time to search for a new singer? The answer given to the media was that due to the fact that most of the tickets had been sold out long before, it wouldn’t be fair to the fans to cancel the whole tour, however the truth is that due to contractual obligations, if the band were to cancel, they were going to lose money and even more ground in the metal arena, but, was this a good decision…?

Let’s travel back in time, exactly 28 years ago, Maiden was scheduled to play at the Palasport in Turin, this was to be the first concert of the Italian leg of the tour and the band already had doubts about the decision they had made about going out with Bruce, this, due to the fact that some nights Bruce just didn’t seem to care and sing… But it seems like the worst was yet to come… First of all, the concert had really low sales which made the promoter think twice about going on with the concert. Then the gig itself, during ‘Prowler’, just the third song in the setlist that year, an Italian “fan” decided to spit at Bruce, who obviously got extremely mad and left the stage, which gave the crowd the strange opportunity to think about that time when Di’Anno got arrested and Steve handled the vocals for a moment before giving up, and leaving the band giving an almost instrumental version of the song.

After the previous event, all went downhill. Bruce just didn’t care anymore so while the band was giving it all, Bruce almost talked the lyrics, then sung for a bit, then went back to being bored, all in all it was kind like seeing two different persons on stage, especially on ‘Wasted Years’… ironically…

Stories about almost every date of every tour between 1975 and 1987? Is all here in the EDDIE MADE ME DO IT (THE RISE OF THE BEAST 1975-1987) which you can get at https://www.subscribepage.com/eddiemadedoit and remember, when you buy, you don't buy a book, you also help feed twins!

That has to be the most unprofessional performance by Bruce ever. Absolutely embarrassing/infuriating and showing a complete lack of respect for the thousands who went to that show.

Being spat at is absolutely disgusting and I can understand to a certain extent how he might have felt, but why make everyone suffer the consequences?
 
Last edited:
That has to be the most unprofessional performance by Bruce ever. Absolutely embarrassing/infuriating and showing a complete lack of respect for the thousands who went to that show.

Being spat at is absolutely disgusting and I can understand to a certain extent how he might have felt, but why make everyone suffer the consequences?

Because even the best of us can't function like perfect machines 100% of the time. Bruce was in a job he hated and was already out of the door with one foot. He may have had a particularly bad day and then he had to force himself to remain onstage after somebody spat at him. He may not even put up an intentionally bad performance, but he may simply have put all the effort into remaining on stage so that he couldn't even concentrate on his performance anymore.

We all had really shitty days at work, and this is what it was.
 
930517t.jpg

MAIDEN TRIVIA OF THE DAY – WAS DICKIE RIGHT?


Is no secret that 1993 was not the best year for Maiden. As a matter of fact, it was probably the worst year, however, let us not discuss that now…

After Bruce announced that he was leaving the band, almost a month before the new tour was about to start, giving Steve & Co. the hard decision to whether go on with the tour or cancel it, losing a good amount of money, and some horrendous performances by Bruce in some European cities, which made the rest of the band dread the decision of going out with someone who didn’t want to be there, Maiden touched their home turf for 5 concerts… And they were great! Which gives the perfect context to when Steve said “The worst thing was, if he’d been fucking crap over the whole tour, you can sort of understand it. When all the press were there, it was a different story. He had no problem turning on a performance then

At Wembley Arena, today, 28 years ago to the day, the band was received by a slightly subdued crowd at first, but Bruce, knowing that he had to keep the UK fans close to his cause, gave his heart and by the time the band was playing the third song of the set-list (‘Prowler’) it was like the Bruce that had sung in Europe was another singer. This gave a breath of fresh air to the band who quite obviously were enjoying themselves on stage as it evident by the pictures that were shared by music magazines such as Kerrang.

But nothing is perfect they say because during the gig there was a problem with the guitars that eventually got so bad that they had to stop the concert, well, almost stop, because Maiden is never one to sit idle when something happens. So the sound problems gave the crowd at Wembley something that they didn’t expect and that it didn’t happen at Maiden concerts since 1983 which is a drum solo by Nicko!

When he was good, he was very, very good, but when he was bad, he was fucking awful. He didn’t even bother with the singing part some nights, as far as I could see. But Bruce does play mind games – he acts like he doesn’t really know what’s going on around him half the time, but he never misses a trick.” Dickie Bell

Want to know the true history of the band between 1975 and 1987? NOW is your chance with EDDIE MADE ME DO IT (THE RISE OF THE BEAST 1975-1987) Order yours at https://www.subscribepage.com/eddiemadedoit and learn about the band in a way that it hasn’t been before!
 
Back
Top