Blaze Bayley

[CA Bryers]

I think if Maiden sat down to have an open and honest discussion back then, about the strengths and weaknesses of Blaze, about how rigid they want to stay, downtuning or changing arrangements and so on, the Blaze era might've been more fondly remembered nowadays. Not saying that they'd necessarily been more successfull, but maybe the consensus on him would be somewhat more positive.

100% agree. I would think after a few rehearsals before the tour, the range issue would've been apparent, but nobody said anything, I guess. Had they worked to the strengths of his voice and downtuned, yeah, I think we would've had a total hidden gem era through and through. There are plenty of videos of Blaze singing Bruce era songs in the correct key for his voice, and he sounds really good, IMO. We could've had an era of very different and darker Bruce era renditions on top of the two albums that have steadily grown in acceptance--The X Factor has, at least. I still hope more will come around to Virtual XI as time goes on.

My opinion on this is that you don't lose anything by trying. I think the chances of him picking someone he doesn't know to write it is pretty slim unless he reads your stuff after you contact him and he *really* likes it. I also think that if you do it - you kinda have to do it as a labor of love and not expect super much in return.

Agreed. If I do drop him a line, I'm not getting my hopes up that I'll even hear back. It's more about offering help since I'm able and have a window of time coming up, and yeah, I'd send him some ebooks of mine for him to try out and see if I'd be the right fit.

I have one bootleg that he forget tbe lyrics and start mumblinh the song

Ah yes, The Eternal Flame bootleg (or one of the variations). A few verses of Fortunes of War that went horribly awry.

 

[CA Bryers]

He was a lot better in 95 and 98 than 96

Agree, his voice was good and blown in '96. It's too bad the best quality recordings for posterity of that tour are from the dead end of it in South America.

 

[dickinson1978]

100% agree. I would think after a few rehearsals before the tour, the range issue would've been apparent, but nobody said anything, I guess. Had they worked to the strengths of his voice and downtuned, yeah, I think we would've had a total hidden gem era through and through. There are plenty of videos of Blaze singing Bruce era songs in the correct key for his voice, and he sounds really good, IMO. We could've had an era of very different and darker Bruce era renditions on top of the two albums that have steadily grown in acceptance--The X Factor has, at least. I still hope more will come around to Virtual XI as time goes on.




Agreed. If I do drop him a line, I'm not getting my hopes up that I'll even hear back. It's more about offering help since I'm able and have a window of time coming up, and yeah, I'd send him some ebooks of mine for him to try out and see if I'd be the right fit.



Ah yes, The Eternal Flame bootleg (or one of the variations). A few verses of Fortunes of War that went horribly awry.

Yes that one.

 

[srfc]

Ticket booked for the Whelan's show, was a really great show the last time doing mostly Maiden stuff, but would prefer the Tenth Dimension this time instead of more Maiden

 

[07-SMS:A1L]

How humiliating would that be, to have to open for the bad you used to be in? I think Maiden would look like cunts if they made that offer.

This has many times before in Maiden history, Adrian Smith’s band Psycho Motel opened for Iron Maiden at Rock City in Nottingham, UK, on 2 February 1996. Paul Mario Day (with More) opened for Maiden in 1981. Bob Sawyer opened for Maiden with Praying Mantis in 1980. Steve uses old Maiden members as openers for British Lion all the time, Doug Sampson and Airforce, Tony Moore for example.

Happens with other bands too. Charlie Dominici, the original Dream Theater vocalist, opened for DT in Europe with his solo band in 2007. His O3A Trilogy featured some truly great music!

 

[naranja]

Always felt bad for Blaze that he was a good 5-10 years younger than the rest of the boys in the band and he was the one obviously heavily balding to the extent that he had to wear a hat for the Virtual XI tour.

Yeah Steve's hairline had crept back a good few inches but he still had the same thick unruly mop of hair on the rest of his head.

Yeah Davey started to develop a bald spot by the Virtual XI tour but you really don't notice it all that much really until a decade or so later when he had a transplant. Like rock in rio and death on the road are after the virtual XI tour and he seemed to cover it quite well.

Jan and Nick apparently just have immortal hairlines like George Lucas.

Just randomly occured to me after watching some footage of Blaze from the X Factour. As soon as he started to sweat every gig he suddenly looked like he had no hair. Poor bugger.