Rod Smallwood: "Hartford Show Was Amazing"
"Anyway, to what you want to hear about the first show last night... Basically, it was amazing. Everything worked (which on a first night is always a massive bonus) and the band played really well — they obviously did enough rehearsal to be ready!!"Yes, we are playing the whole album, start to finish, with 'Different World' being the set opener. And personally l loved it — but it's no secret what l think of the new album! It's the best! We followed this with 'Fear of the Dark', 'Iron Maiden' (of course) then '2 Minutes To Midnight', 'Evil That Men Do' and 'Hallowed be thy Name'.
"l won't go into detail on the show itself as it would spoil it for you, but the set, lights and 'special effects' (a.k.a. what Eddie did next) are really stupendous. It's as good a show as we have ever done. And the reaction of the Hartford crowd was, l am sure, the best we have ever had there — and we have played there many times including opening our 2003 tour there too (so thanks to everyone who turned up for us).
"After the gig we invaded the Irish pub — McKinneys??? — all the band, tour managers, a couple of [guys from] BULLET [FOR MY VALENTINE] (who went down really well, which is good to see ), various friends who came along for the first gig from all over America, some guys from our label and Jimmy from Best Buy.
"Nicko [McBrain, MAIDEN drummer] has already gone off to Boston to get in a round of golf and tonight we are all going out for dinner then tomorrow is Boston which has been sold out for a couple of weeks. It will be the first time we have played in the actual city for many years as we have tended to play around there like Worcester. It's a new basketball arena and l am told by our agent it's a terrific gig. We know Boston is a great metal town and has always been good to us so definitely looking forward to it."
(Thanks: MaidenNorway.com)