Questions for older fans

I first got into Maiden when I saw the video for Aces High on Top Of The Pops....

My only sources for pre-internet information were The Friday Rock Show and Kerrang! (Metal Hammer was very amateur in those days, and Raw only started in '88

The Friday Rock show was where I heard for sure that Maiden were headlining Donington in 88, and in 92. It was also where I first heard Wasted Years, CIPWMadness, Holy Smoke and Be Quick... I get the feeling Tommy Vance wasn't the biggest Maiden fan in the universe, I think he was more of a Priest guy, back when there was still a real rivalry between the two bands.

Kerrang was good for tracklistings and The Big Interview before an album came out, and there was a great two page spread of a photo of the Somewhere On Tour stage set the week before  the Big Live Review. Albie and I have posted before about the review of the first proper gig with Janick. The worst was a headline on the front page when Adrian quit, which was the first I'd heard of it. I could deal with Bruce leaving, but not H...

Of course Mick Wall's relationship with the band meant that there was always a good long interview, sometimes over two issues, to pore over...

Not to mention the full page adverts, which was the only way to see the artwork before the lp hit the racks, and usually featured the tour dates too. The ad for Wasted Years said something about Maiden taking metal into the 21st Century, which has proved to be eerily prescient, but I don't think any of us who were fans at the time expected Iron Maiden would still be a going concern 24 years after that advert was printed....

Maybe us oldies could have a reminiscence section as there's some great stories about being a fan in the earlier years...

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Now playing: Pink Floyd - Echoes
via FoxyTunes
 
Whether he was a Maiden fan or not, TV was certainly the main reason for getting NWOBHM music out to us. And yes, I remember that posting about H been replaced. It was not fair on him and good on Bruce for sticking up for him later.
 
Do you mean it wasn't fair to H?  According to the biography, which is all I have to go on, H was replaced because he wasn't really "into it" anymore, and didn't like the direction Steve wanted to go after SSOASS.
 
What was said was that when Janick joined and went mental on stage, the talk of H and Dave Murray just standing there and doing very little became a bit too much. Comments were made about H being as good as a non-entity.

The fact is, Janinck got Dave Murray moving across the stage a lot more and the press jumped on it.

And yes, H was not 100% into it, but he did not deserve what was written about him after he left.
 
LooseCannon said:
As interesting as that would have been, I think it would have made the mid 90s album much worse.
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Agreed. Due to his range the X Factor's darkness would have been a VERY hard sell. Bruce would've been able to do it, but not Kiske... Or Matos for that matter as he supposedly ended third in auditions.

On topic, you meant it when you meant "old fans" lol. I became a fan at 15-16 back in '99 with BNW... I got nothing on you guys hehe.
 
Yea, i'm looking for the perspectives of people who preceed me as Maiden fans.  I've been blessed with the internet for a long enough time to never have had to rely on magazines and word of mouth metal news.
 
chaosapiant said:
What was written?  I sort of missed this as a kid.
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Basically, Janick got praised for been very active on stage and H was, well, sort of forgotten about. "Who needs Adrian Smith?" and so on (or something like that). I'll have to try and dig out the posting between me & Rolpol as it was detailed a bit more there I think.

It was almost as if his impact in Maiden was undone by Janick giving Dave a kick up the arse.
 
Well, it is a good thing that he got the band excited again, but H is godly, and should never be dissed.  I supposed they treated him like most people treat Di'anno now.
 
Onhell said:
On topic, you meant it when you meant "old fans" lol. I became a fan at 15-16 back in '99 with BNW... I got nothing on you guys hehe.
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In some ways I feel like an old fan because I was a fan back in the late 80's but because of the long break I had(from about 1993-2007) I feel like a new fan again, and I had to revisit all the old albums aswel as getting into the newer stuff too, the first time I heard BNW it had been out for 7 years so for me TFF is the first time since FOTD that i've experienced a new Maiden album at the time of release, I can still remember rushing home to play FOTD at either 12 or 13 years old and loving it, not so sure now though after relistening to it over the last few years, but the excitement I had last week when TFF leaked was the same as back in 1992, and when my CD arrived this morning it was like Xmas morning!
 
chaosapiant said:
Well, it is a good thing that he got the band excited again, but H is godly, and should never be dissed.  I supposed they treated him like most people treat Di'anno now.
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Typical music magazines. :down:

This is such an interesting thread! It really gives a sense of how it was like "back in the days". Keep on telling us stories! :applause:
 
Rikstewart said:
In some ways I feel like an old fan because I was a fan back in the late 80's but because of the long break I had(from about 1993-2007) I feel like a new fan again, and I had to revisit all the old albums aswel as getting into the newer stuff too, the first time I heard BNW it had been out for 7 years so for me TFF is the first time since FOTD that i've experienced a new Maiden album at the time of release, I can still remember rushing home to play FOTD at either 12 or 13 years old and loving it, not so sure now though after relistening to it over the last few years, but the excitement I had last week when TFF leaked was the same as back in 1992, and when my CD arrived this morning it was like Xmas morning!
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I've heard that from several "older" fans. Many left along with Bruce and did not come back until he did with BNW. I listened to them for the first time with Killers during a computer class freshman year, but didn't really pay attention or became a fan until I bought BNW... it was my first official CD purchase of my new collection (When I moved to the U.S all my CDs and most books stayed in Mexico until brought by the movers 5 months later.)
 
Another good one was the first time I heard the debut album (1989 I think), me and a friend had loaned the vinyl album from our local library and when we listened to it at his house we were blown away, the Phantom came on and we were like "hang on, thats off the Lucozade advert!", which featured the song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LtaD63zYoQ
Still reminds me of that advert all these years later
 
Rikstewart said:
Another good one was the first time I heard the debut album (1989 I think), me and a friend had loaned the vinyl album from our local library and when we listened to it at his house we were blown away, the Phantom came on and we were like "hang on, thats off the Lucozade advert!", which featured the song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LtaD63zYoQ
Still reminds me of that advert all these years later
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:lol:
 
As  a 7 year old back in 84' I remember my older 'hippie' brother bringing me in to his room and showing off all the 'new' albums of the day. Rush, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Ozzy, and I loved em all.  But then came the night he grabbed me and a bud from outside playing kickball in the street and said, hey you guys gotta here my newest album.

    He showed me the cover and I recognized the cover art, It was that crazy zombie with the black eyes I'd admired but was scared of from the denim Jackets..EDDIE!!  Then he spun the # of the Beast album, all the way through!!  I was "MESMERIZED" [pun intended]

I then asked him to show me the other Maiden Albums,he had  Killers and Piece of mind, and that was it!  After that my friends and I would hit the Mags, {CIRCUS, ROLLING STONE} watch the head bangers ball, crank up the KLOS Los Angelas whatever means to get Maiden info.  Powerslave was my first new album, as a  9 year old, it was my life.  I remember riding the bikes around at night in the rain or whatever, pocket full of Maiden tapes, and the Sony walkman blaring.  Man I was alive baby!!  Thanks for the thread, and the memories!  Now you young guns can imagine how it feels for us vets to get a new set of Maiden jams.  I feel like a kid again!!  UP the Irons!!
 
Well, I got crap reviews for SIT, SSOASS from that time on mags, still and the rest that followed I also have and we all know that these albums received and still receive a lot of shit and ridicule without reason (A mag from Brasil called Bizz had a headline for FOTD review, back in 1992, which reads "Smells like rotten flesh", just to give an example of the level).

I never ever thought of abandoning Maiden neither when Adrian left or when Bruce left. A lot really left them behind, but one thing I could atest is that most of 'em were and are guided by the media as the albums that get bashed they bash, too, the albums that gets praised, they do the same; so most were and are a bunch unopinionated retards, plain and simple (if only they had an opinion, I'd understand, but most are like pirates parrots). To me, Iron Maiden is like my team São Paulo Futebol Clube or whatever team one might support - I've stood fast with Maiden all the way long since 1985, through thick and thin, and all they did and do I still feel it was and is with sincerity and pleasure. Some idiot said on a TFF review that they exist only because there's still '14 year olds around'...well, in spirit, that's how I'll always feel about the things that are the worthy part of my life.
 
These stories are great, keep 'em coming!  I remember when my friend who I mentioned earlier let me borrow all his Maiden cassettes.  I'd dub them, then take out his case covers and xerox them.  I'd then attempt to color them in with colored pencil.  I then stored them in chronological order (I still do that.)  I'd listen to the tapes so often they'd warp, and i'd have to buy new tapes, then borrow his collection again.  I'm glad he was there when I was a kid; I was like a drug addict and he was my pusher.
 
Kids of the future - downloading on cassette. Care with the copyrights policy, ahn?! By the way, do you have a link to these cassettes with the covers? PM me, I think it's not allowed here. :lol:
 
I became a fan sometime at about 14 or 15 — between Beast and POM. I had been introduced to metal by a friend's older brother — Priest, Sabbath etc, and was hooked. I started prowling the record stores looking for something else to feed the beast. I bought Killers for the cover and NOTB shortly after, Played the hell out of both.

Vancouver radio rarely played metal, but I got a ghetto blaster (God, haven't heard that phrase in a long time) that pulled in KISW out of Seattle, which at the time was very metal friendly. It became my voice from heaven, my musical pipeline. First heard Piece of Mind was on its way when they played Cross Eyed Mary (it actually made limited rotation on the station at the time) and then heard Icarus.

Remember phoning the record store repeatedly to see if the album was in. When it finally arrived, talked my grandmother into driving me into the city to buy it. The cover and the record sleeve had absolutely blown my mind before I even got home. Put it on and never looked back.

Don't think I ever anticipated anything so much in my life and then have it actually deliver even more than I expected. Critically I might be able to make a case that another Maiden album is better, but emotionally that will always be number one.
 
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