My wife totally rules.
Birthday Prezzie = ticket to IRON MAIDEN!
Tee hee hee hee.
Giggling like Fanta laden child (you know, before the headaches and vomiting)
I've been a closet fan of Iron Maiden for a long time. (As it transpires, you can take the chap out of Tokoroa....etc etc)
I think it must trace back to a YMCA camp I attended as a youngster. There were dozens of cheery faced youngsters such as myself there, and one TERRIFYING walking cliche of a metal fan, complete with the combat boots, the black-on-black-on-black ensemble, the trench coat, the array of safety pins (handy though they be), the poor hygeine, the well practiced sneer and the raising-of-the-horns to signal "Yes", "No", "Understood", "Good Morning", "I Hunger" and "May I Kill You Now".
He had been shipped off to "enjoy the invigorating countryside" by some sort of youth offender program. (I guess). We were all perhaps 11 or 12 and this guy was maybe 16 and unbeleivably terrifying. He had to shave more then than I do now as a 31 year old for gods sake.
He turned out to be in my cabin, and after some initially tense social manouvering, we reached an amicable agreement for co-habitance: I agreed that he could play his Iron Maiden et al tapes all day, every day, at whatever volume he desired and he agreed not to make fun of my yellow shorts with sunbathing frogs on them and to not eat my spleen when I was sleeping.
It worked out well.
For some reason we gravitated towards each other and I spent a fascinating week while the other cabin inhabitants feigned sleep or ran into the night screaming as he (I can't for the life of me remember his name - I think it might have been Satan) ran me through the intricacies of "Metal". There they were in all their glory, Judas Priest, Motorhead, Sabbath, Uriah Heap (what in the hell happened to Uriah Heap?), Slayer, Megadeth, Metallica....all this at a YMCA Camp people!
Village People be damned.
It really was a whole new world and this guy was so passionate about it. He pointed out similarities, influences, ideological differences and subtelties in amongst a genre I would never have willingly explored on my own. In particular he covered the bonkers, very involved and at-the-time-terrifying (yellow sunbathing frogs people) cover art, in particular that of Maiden. It's something I feel the youngsters of today, what with their "downloading" and "burning" will miss out on - it was cool.
It was a grand week. Listening to the entire "The Number of the Beast" album until the sun rises over the Hunua ranges after solving the problems of the world all night as an impressionable 11 or 12 year old with someone who might just snap at....aaaany....mooooooment......certainly leaves an impression.
So even though they are old, old, old men now, I am very, very, very excited to be going to see the Maiden live, live, live in concert. And to my nameless, terrifying benefactor, I shall raise a glass and tip my hat, even as I mark the nearest exit in case someone comes for my spleen.
IRON MAIDEN!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
In other news:
Saw this a wee while back and snapped it there and then. It's a hard-drive-TV-Video-Recorder doodad with a 1 Terabyte Hard drive. That's a lotta Simpsons reruns folks.
Toodle pip.
PS- do yourselves a favour and download "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" from Maidens 1984 Powerslave album. Make a cup of tea, set aside 14 or so minutes, and press
"play". You'll thank me.
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