snake plissken
Ancient Mariner
Zare said:
I was nearly sure the early part of the X Factour had plenty of smaller gigs with only a few hundred present. Meh, maybe I'm getting old and I'm mixing up tours.
I was nearly sure the early part of the X Factour had plenty of smaller gigs with only a few hundred present. Meh, maybe I'm getting old and I'm mixing up tours.
D
Deleted member 7164
Guest
The lowest attendance ever, post 1983, not including these secret gigs and some live TV shows and stuff, was Chicago @ VXI tour - 1500 people.
They carried full production for every show. It's simply not profitable to carry that kind of logistics to a town where they'll sell a few hundred tickets. Also consider that their gig at any city covers the area of at least 500.000 people, example would be one show in ex-Yugoslavia countries, draws people from whole southeast Mediterranean region. It's simply not possible that 200 people out of 500.000 potential would see Maiden, at any time.
It's safe to say that median average for these two tours was around 5000. They mostly played small arenas and big theaters. They played 2000 people small shows, yes, but they also played stadiums.
Anyways, there's and interview with Blaze, post TXF, pre TXF tour, it's somewhere on maidenfans.com or IMC. He is full of confidence, saying that he isn't worming up anyone's seat and he's there to stay. Harris also participated in that interview and i don't think Blaze would say such a heavy statement if they both didn't consent. Then hop to IMC, see bootleg comments / tour dates, for both of his tours. A substantial number got canceled due to his health issues, a product of long touring. He didn't perform generally well, he had great nights, but check out those comments - a lot of shows, botched lyrics, mumbled words, he even pretty badly misses timing on several occasions on same spots, and that's mostly on "his" songs, i won't even mention his struggle with Bruce's songs, relatively bad stage presence. He's a hell of a person and a hell of a musician / vocalist, but not up to Maiden live standards. He had to go, and they both consented on that one in late 1998.
If Blaze didn't have touring problems, he'd still be in Maiden. And we probably wouldn't be talking about the giants they're now, today. First the whole hype and the recovery of metal wouldn't happen without Adrian and Bruce rejoining, there wouldn't be three guitars, and they'd lose two supreme songwriters, each in his own department. I won't even mention Adrian's huge input on last two studio records, and Bruce's totally different, refreshing lyrics style, compared to standard Harris' storytelling.
As a person who likes early days, and loves Blaze's era, but still thinks that '83-'88 and 00's stuff is far above other periods; Maiden are untouchable and out of competition with the classic lineup. Harris, Dickinson, Smith, Murray, McBrain. With Janick in the game, it's even added value. But those 5 are what Maiden is mostly about. The complete '75-'82 period is the path to the classic lineup and those 4 albums. Each period in their career is worth something, each album has it's own meaning in the story behind the music on 2010's The Final Frontier. Turbulent '90s period is what led them to their, statistically in terms of average attendance and commercial figures, best period ever. The last 10 years. Ideas and methods summoned in the '90s helped, but they wouldn't be realized without the classic line-up.
I still remember 1999. Basically whole metal world hoped they'd be the main force that'll return the popularity of the genre, once again. To hold a concert in front of a quarter million people, once again. And they did it. Blaze had a substantial role in the whole process, he needed to front a band paving a slow way to the top again, and we should be thankful for that. God only knows how much pressure chap had on his mind.
They carried full production for every show. It's simply not profitable to carry that kind of logistics to a town where they'll sell a few hundred tickets. Also consider that their gig at any city covers the area of at least 500.000 people, example would be one show in ex-Yugoslavia countries, draws people from whole southeast Mediterranean region. It's simply not possible that 200 people out of 500.000 potential would see Maiden, at any time.
It's safe to say that median average for these two tours was around 5000. They mostly played small arenas and big theaters. They played 2000 people small shows, yes, but they also played stadiums.
Anyways, there's and interview with Blaze, post TXF, pre TXF tour, it's somewhere on maidenfans.com or IMC. He is full of confidence, saying that he isn't worming up anyone's seat and he's there to stay. Harris also participated in that interview and i don't think Blaze would say such a heavy statement if they both didn't consent. Then hop to IMC, see bootleg comments / tour dates, for both of his tours. A substantial number got canceled due to his health issues, a product of long touring. He didn't perform generally well, he had great nights, but check out those comments - a lot of shows, botched lyrics, mumbled words, he even pretty badly misses timing on several occasions on same spots, and that's mostly on "his" songs, i won't even mention his struggle with Bruce's songs, relatively bad stage presence. He's a hell of a person and a hell of a musician / vocalist, but not up to Maiden live standards. He had to go, and they both consented on that one in late 1998.
If Blaze didn't have touring problems, he'd still be in Maiden. And we probably wouldn't be talking about the giants they're now, today. First the whole hype and the recovery of metal wouldn't happen without Adrian and Bruce rejoining, there wouldn't be three guitars, and they'd lose two supreme songwriters, each in his own department. I won't even mention Adrian's huge input on last two studio records, and Bruce's totally different, refreshing lyrics style, compared to standard Harris' storytelling.
As a person who likes early days, and loves Blaze's era, but still thinks that '83-'88 and 00's stuff is far above other periods; Maiden are untouchable and out of competition with the classic lineup. Harris, Dickinson, Smith, Murray, McBrain. With Janick in the game, it's even added value. But those 5 are what Maiden is mostly about. The complete '75-'82 period is the path to the classic lineup and those 4 albums. Each period in their career is worth something, each album has it's own meaning in the story behind the music on 2010's The Final Frontier. Turbulent '90s period is what led them to their, statistically in terms of average attendance and commercial figures, best period ever. The last 10 years. Ideas and methods summoned in the '90s helped, but they wouldn't be realized without the classic line-up.
I still remember 1999. Basically whole metal world hoped they'd be the main force that'll return the popularity of the genre, once again. To hold a concert in front of a quarter million people, once again. And they did it. Blaze had a substantial role in the whole process, he needed to front a band paving a slow way to the top again, and we should be thankful for that. God only knows how much pressure chap had on his mind.
snake plissken
Ancient Mariner
Ahaaa, knew I wasn't going mad:
"But were the boys out there with him, for him, he wondered? Was he making a real connection? Two days earlier, Maiden had done a warm-up session at the tiny Sing Sing club in Jerusalem and Blaze had lost it, that point of contact, and the kids had voted with their feet. As he had made himself vulnerable in the new line-up's first public appearance, dozens among the 200-strong crowd had rushed to the toilets all at once.
Then there was last night, outside The End bar in Haifa, which offered an opposite omen. Half way through the set, in front of maybe 300 kids under a warm Palestinian sky, the practice session had suddenly taken off and the teenage boy's climbing instinct had been freed - sending scores of them scaling an olive refinery to get a better view of the gig."
Taken from this article: http://briandeer.com/iron-maiden.htm not a bad read if a little heavy on cliché.
"But were the boys out there with him, for him, he wondered? Was he making a real connection? Two days earlier, Maiden had done a warm-up session at the tiny Sing Sing club in Jerusalem and Blaze had lost it, that point of contact, and the kids had voted with their feet. As he had made himself vulnerable in the new line-up's first public appearance, dozens among the 200-strong crowd had rushed to the toilets all at once.
Then there was last night, outside The End bar in Haifa, which offered an opposite omen. Half way through the set, in front of maybe 300 kids under a warm Palestinian sky, the practice session had suddenly taken off and the teenage boy's climbing instinct had been freed - sending scores of them scaling an olive refinery to get a better view of the gig."
Taken from this article: http://briandeer.com/iron-maiden.htm not a bad read if a little heavy on cliché.
snake plissken
Ancient Mariner
Forostar said:
Yep, they played to 3000 or so in Israel a few nights later. I was just making a point that Maiden had done some really small warm up shows on the X Factour. Hell, I saw them play to a scant 800 on the tour, craziness.
snake plissken said:
Not wanting to prolong this tedious debate, but Maiden have always done small warm-up shows. If they didn't go under a completely different moniker (i.e. Charlotte and the Harlots, The Nodding Donkeys, etc.), they usually picked small venues in far-off regions, such as Israel, New Brunswick or elsewhere. This really only changed a few years into Bruce's return, and was all the same in the 80s and early 90s.
snake plissken
Ancient Mariner
Perun said:
Yeah I'm agreeing with you.
Perun said:
Thanks, Perun
I really don't agree with this. At some point there would have been a Maiden reunion. Maybe not in 1999 but there would've been one. Otherwise the band would simply just stop. They couldn't afford to get another singer, and it obviously wasn't working (in terms of sales) with Blaze.Zare said:
Imagine if they announced they were dropping Blaze and hiring another singer. They already lost tons of fans when Bruce left. I imagine that they would lose more fans. It's like the Anthrax thing, at some point, don't you get sick of them constantly changing singers?
Donner
Ancient Mariner
The show I was referring to was at the Hammerjacks Club in Baltimore, MD back in February of 1996. 200 is a low estimate which is my mistake. But there's no way there were more than 800 people there. It was a metal club/bar with a rather small floor and an upstairs. And it wasn't sold out, I do remember that.
There was NO production. No walk on Eddie, no amp drapes, no pyro, nothing. The only way we were certain Iron Maiden was playing was because they had a drape of the Man on the Edge art (the side view of the lobotomy) behind the drums, that was it. The craziest stage part was when Janick climbed on top of the PA stack at the end of the show and "threw" his guitar into the audience.
Fear Factory opened and at the time there were a surprisingly hight amount of folks there just to see them.
Sadly I don't have pics, it was 1996 after all, but it was a tiny tiny show.
A little over a year later I saw Bruce Dickinson at Jaxx in Virginia and it was packed but capacity for that venue is 500.
There was NO production. No walk on Eddie, no amp drapes, no pyro, nothing. The only way we were certain Iron Maiden was playing was because they had a drape of the Man on the Edge art (the side view of the lobotomy) behind the drums, that was it. The craziest stage part was when Janick climbed on top of the PA stack at the end of the show and "threw" his guitar into the audience.
Fear Factory opened and at the time there were a surprisingly hight amount of folks there just to see them.
Sadly I don't have pics, it was 1996 after all, but it was a tiny tiny show.
A little over a year later I saw Bruce Dickinson at Jaxx in Virginia and it was packed but capacity for that venue is 500.
D
Deleted member 7164
Guest
I didn't know that. It seemed highly illogical to truck the whole show around the continent, and then stop and play somewhere where you won't use it.