Maiden and America Commentary on Classic Rock
Classic Rock Revisited has posted an intersting article about Iron Maiden's relationship to America along with a review of Maiden's performances in Los Angeles this year.Read the article here
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Let’s be honest, “mainstream” America has never really understood Iron Maiden, despite the fact that the band experienced significant commercial success in “the States” during most of the ‘80s, which, not coincidentally, also coincided with the second wave “heyday” of the heavy rock/metal genre in general.
As someone who has closely watched the band’s spectacular escalation on the (truly) worldwide stage beginning with the first US tour for Killers, and also witnessed them go from the infectiously enthusiastic and no-holds-barred flag bearers for a patently new and distinctive brand of testosterone-laced metal (which they personally and irrevocably evolved to another level) to becoming the globally laurelled and lauded masters and still reigning kings of the genre (all the while maturing and expanding musically and yet still retaining the essence of that youthful passion and fervor), the ongoing American inability (thus far) to ever really see the light about the unique and commendable merits of Maiden continues to be, to say the least, confounding and even downright disappointing.
Oh, volumes (or at least another very lengthy essay) could be written as to the precise sociological reasons why (i.e. the band’s consummate, unwavering, and sometimes alienating Britishness; the constant ebb and flow of musical trends in America ; the unfortunate and erroneous high profile stereotyping of them as a rather juvenile or “satanic” band due to the double-edged sword comic-book Eddies and the early-days Number of the Beast furor; and, especially, the fact that - with characteristic stalwart and stubborn self-reliance and integrity - they never, ever pandered to American radio or any of the other mechanisms in the corporate music-superstar-making machine), that still does not erase the fact we Americans - and especially American Maiden connoisseurs - have lost something for it.
On one hand it is easy to say, “Well, it’s better that way!” -- since there’s always been a cult or niche aura that has been an important part of Maiden’s appeal. In fact, that’s probably the main reason that their prodigious international fan base, some of the most ardent and loyal ever to be encountered, consider the band pseudo family (“Blood Brothers” indeed!), or at the very least, their own exclusive and tailor-made club and icon for defiant nonconformity. No doubt about it, part of a “true” Maiden fan’s devotion is the “us-against-the-rest-of-the-sheep” individualism that the band embodies, and which serves as a formidable connection between the band and their admirers to an extent that few other mere musical groups will /ever know or hold court to. So, if Maiden had ever been really accepted, understood, respected, or even (gasp!) embraced by the American media (and thus public) in all its forms, then there’s no question that, for a great many, the essence of the crucial “outsiders and underdogs” part of their allure would have been sacrificed in the process.
On the other hand, this lack of long-overdue respect and reverence from America as a whole is also one of the reasons that the band, understandably, has obviously and significantly cooled on its initial ardor for America and Americans. (And who can blame them when such love affairs, whether individual or symbolically en masse, are always the product of a two-way symbiotic chemistry?)
Though thus far they’ve seemed reluctant to come out directly and say it in interviews and press releases, the band’s current ambivalence concerning the US market was first evidenced by the frustrated and indignant (if somewhat tongue-in-cheek) “rants” of the band’s venerable - and famously outspoken - frontman, Bruce Dickinson, during last summer’s Give Me ‘Ed ‘Till I’m Dead US tour (where, in impressively scathing fashion, he lashed out at corporate shills in the US music industry, the US lemming-like mentality, and even the appallingly apathetic and lazy “fat asses” sitting in the front rows at some of the shows).
But, a short time later, such disenchantment also seemed confirmed by the fact that the subsequent tour dates for latest studio album, the September-released Dance of Death, included only six shows - in just two cities - for the entire United States. (If not for the band’s popularity in Quebec, Canada, or the fact that they were already making stops in South American strongholds like Brazil, and also en route to Japan, even the six US dates may have been questionable.) In fact, this was the most abbreviated album tour by the band in the US - ever - despite the fact that Dance of Death itself is widely lauded as one of the best studio albums of their long and illustrious (25-plus-year) career, and even though the band continues to headline to ever-increasing numbers elsewhere. Since they’ve long been in a quandrum in trying to hit all their strongest countries worldwide (where they are also accustomed to being greeted with a much more uninhibited, ardent, and youthful zeal) and are now at a stage (and age) in their career when they are looking to cut down on the grueling marathon tours that they were renown for the past, it would appear that - at least for now - America has few, if any, trump cards left in the cost/benefit analysis for this mighty band.
And great as ever they are, beyond question, judging from the rarified two nights I was able to catch at LA’s Universal Amphitheater. Some reasonably could argue that if you’ve watched, heard, and seen a band live (innumerable times) for over more than two decades, that all pretense of objectivity has long ago been scattered to the wayside. Conversely, though, you also have the first-hand knowledge of the great past campaigns by which you inevitably compare any new chapters in the saga. And, no doubt, that is Iron Maiden’s biggest ongoing challenge - measuring up to the traces of their own lofty watermarks, particularly where their live shows are concerned, since it is in the realm of the “Live” stage where the band has excelled head and shoulders above most of the rest of their peers and contemporaries.
But let’s get down to the nitty-gritty: How is it that this band - with members all now in their later 40s - could possibly still be at its pinnacle LIVE when their trump card has always been their ferocious and relentless alpha-male physicality and melodic but stake-through-the-sternum sonic barrage? Well, upon the following list of reasons (long yet incomplete), drawn up in the context of the recent LA Dance of Death shows, I am confidently willing to rest my case:
Bassist Steve Harris and other band members are not just giving lip service when they continue to insist “we never take anything for granted” and “we only want to do it if we can give 110 percent.” Despite the fact that it was just three (Japan dates) short of the conclusion of a tour phase that had begun almost ten months earlier, the LA shows nevertheless attested that band has lost little - if any - of that said physical presence and power that first thunderstruck audiences some 25 years past. They may be (technically) old enough to be grandpas these days, but this sure ain’t your grandpa’s music - or even your dad’s for that matter, nor is it delivered with anything less than a degree of vigor that would put a hormone-pumped teenaged Tasmanian Devil to shame. (Fortunately, the American youth, somewhat MIA at recent Maiden shows in other US cities - though not the rest of the world - was in high profile in LA, and thus I had four such ecstatic and hyper-pumped “devils” standing right next to me at the second show - and wouldn’t have had it any other way!) In short, the desire and determination to deliver at an edgy full throttle is still remarkably there to the same degree that it was at the outset of the band’s career, with Harris and Dickinson, like perpetual Dorian Grays, still leading the charge.
The material for the DOD tour set was as strong and varied as that on any of Maiden’s past tours, featuring six cuts from the new album, “Wildest Dreams” (though that’s arguably one of the weaker numbers on the album), the title song, “Dance of Death,” “Rainmaker,” “No More Lies,” the semi-acoustic “Journeyman,” and the absolute climatic showstopper, “Paschendale.” In fact that last number would have been worth the price of admission alone, since it was a stunningly melded amalgam of rock-opera theatrics and sound effects executed in perfect synch with the mood, feel, and sound of the song itself, which is actually an elegy and homage to the horrors and heroism of WWI trench warfare. (Think All Quiet On The Western Front.) Bruce, as good a thespian as you’ll ever see, even with the austerity of the subject matter, took the pose of the doomed WWI private in full costume and barbed-wire backdrop, never breaking from character, and delivering on this song (and indeed all night long) vocals that were spot-on or even better than the recorded versions. As good as it is on the CD, there is no way the recorded version of “Paschendale” matches the live intensity and feel of the visual meeting the sonic. The lighting was literally “in tune” with the instrumentally evocative sounds of gunfire and missile bombardment, and the drama was similarly in step with the whole novella approach of the lyrical saga. (In fact, a whole stage show could have been built around that song and others like it, giving pause to wonder what a Maiden concert might be like - ! - if they ever did do an entire and deliberate “concept” album.) Unfortunately, most Americans (other than those who live nearer to the N.Y. and L.A. DOD tour stops) may now never witness the amazing performance of that song unless it is included, with full production, on any future US Maiden tour - but then that’s part of the whole problem: Thus far Americans, at least since the ‘90s, rarely ever seem to embrace the band’s equally worthy new material with the same enthusiasm as they do the “old standards” - good as those still are. But, rest assured, there were enough of those, too, to keep the narrow-minded and less progressive of the crowd well-pleased: The early era “Wrathchild,” and “Iron Maiden,” on to the classic “Hallowed Be Thy Name” and “The Trooper,” and then on to mid-period “Can I Play With Madness” and “Fear of The Dark.” Also added to the mix was the Blaze era “Lord of the Flies” (which, like many of the tunes the band produced during the mid-90s, is both distinctive and infectious, and yet obscure, due primarily to the fans’ resistance to any singer/frontman other than the mighty Bruce) and “Brave New World,” the title song off of 2000’s Dickinson/Smith reunion album. Not surprisingly, the set closed with the band’s two best known songs in America, the ubiquitous “Number of the Beast” and “Run To The Hills” - both in heavy rotation in the early days of MTV, which chanced to coincide with the initial burgeoning of Maiden’s own career, and which also serves to remind that the band, though once “chic” enough to be featured prominently in that vein of the American mass media, were smart enough, proud enough, independent enough, and tough-as-nails enough to have never relied on it!
Which brings us to a few other things on display at the LA shows that are also major reasons for the band’s continued relevance, dominance, and ability to continue one-upping themselves in the “live” setting: Professionalism, musicianship, and top-tier stage production (all thrown into one fine basket). Professionalism, though a vague term, was exhibited, for a start, when the band played on during the first show despite a bottle being thrown at guitarist Adrian Smith during his mood-setting opening solo on “Paschendale,” but even moreso when, during “Hallowed Be Thy Name,” Dickinson actually fell several feet down from the upper level catwalk and landed directly on the edge of drummer Nicko McBrain’s kit! The band - at first unwittingly - continued on for the several (long) seconds it took him to recover, but, more importantly, not only was that show completed with barely a hesitant hitch, but, though Bruce was undoubtedly bruised and worse for the wear, they also continued on for the following night’s performance with no perceptible handicap whatsoever. (In fact, the second night was the most multi-dimensionally well-executed Maiden show I have ever witnessed, despite one gasp-inducing and tense moment during the verbal introduction to the DOD material when a guy in the front rows sloshed a cup of ice chips up right up onstage and directly in front of Bruce - who then unleashed a tirade on said imbecile to the extent that it would have made a Shrinking Violet out of a Venus Fly Trap!) But that professionalism was also palpably there in other respects, too, like the flawless timing, and, most of all, with the confident (though never nonchalant) air and attitude the band emanated in that certain way only seasoned maestros are able to do. It’s a hard to define intangible, but you know it when you witness it - and when you hear it, too - and on that level, musicianship, Maiden were also spot on, from Bruce’s formidable operatic vocals on down through the most minute detail of the deceptively complex instrumentation. (In other words, the highly difficult was made to seem easy.) And, finally, both the sound (aided by the acoustically competent design of the Universal Amphitheater) and the detailed and extensive stage set (emulating a Medieval castle and in keeping with the DOD song and album art theme) and production, was up to - indeed exceeded - the lofty standards set (and perhaps best remembered) on such celebrated past campaigns as World Piece, World Slavery, and the Somewhere On Tour.
All that said - the well-established, unabating evolution and growth of this “prove-it-all-night” live band (and long-time icons of “British heavy metal” as a genre), which carried on right through to the conclusion of the DOD tour - for all that, just what is the prognosis for Maiden in America? As some of the band’s own lyrics succinctly put it, “there’s a thin line between love and hate” - but are we infamously fickle and nose-led Americans going to irrevocably come out on the wrong side of that “line” and adage as far as the Iron Maiden camp is concerned, unless we catch the ball before it drops and finally pay the devil (a.k.a. Eddie and Co.) past dues and just respects? After all, this is one band that has never kissed anyone’s ass, and America, for all its alluring “prestige” and commercial clout, is never going to be an exception. And, even more than that, Iron Maiden, to their credit, forged their own unique path to world-wide success, and, quite simply, they don’t even need to woo America to maintain their status quo. As record sales of 60 million-plus, along with many #1 albums, etc., in numerous other countries silently and statistically attest - They’ve done just fine, thank you, without us!
Nevertheless, though things like marketing strategies and timing are far out of the control of any one person or group in our mega-corporation run “public eye,” it would be nothing short of shameful to have another album and tour as extraordinary as the DOD one virtually slip right by us yet another time due to lack of adequate recognition and appreciation from the American mainstream, or even due to lack of notice by the band’s potentially broader natural fan base.
Alas, there’s no crystal ball to look into on any of that, but one thing is certain: as the band (via Steve Harris) recently and realistically acknowledged, “We’re aware that we can’t go on forever.” Though, after all, “it’s only rock ‘n roll” - on the behalf of the number (amongst potential millions) of teenagers I personally know of who’d still cry shamelessly in their first beers to even think that it’d be “all over” (when, for them, experiencing the fury and force of Maiden as a live band has only just started), but also on behalf of the rest of us “old-timers” who actually realize all too well what we’ll one day be missing - here’s hoping that America finally begins to understand and treasure what we had (or at least could - and should - have had more of) before the band’s long reign completes its final curtain call.
BRAVO!!! Well written and true to the last word.
the absolute truth...unfortunately
Well said !!
I'm totally agree, as i fan for the past 20 years and went to the DOD shows in Quebec city and Montreal, it's proven that up here, Maiden as been and will be as strong as they always be !!