The iron maiden

Saturday, March 17: The sleepy morning stupor vaporizes on seeing the adrenalised bedlam at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji airport at 4 am. Destination: Bangalore where the multitude of metal-heads in a self-imposed dress code of black shirts, complemented with torn and faded denims, are all headed for Palace Grounds, talking, breathing and living heavy metal music. The occasion is Iron Maiden's concert, the first ever of the heavy metal band in the Indian sub continent. And even their mascot Eddie, joined in, on a specially made "Maiden India" t-shirt, where the skeletal apparition is shown wielding a bat as he whacks a fiery cricket ball.
To my advantage and several others across the subcontinent, the concert dates were announced a month before, which made it wonderful for us all. I, for one, managed to get airline tickets for the price of an A/C train ticket from Vadodara to Bangalore; only I had to board the flight from Mumbai. Hey, who's complaining?Sleep was next to impossible on the train to Mumbai from Vadodara, when in lesser than 20 hours, I was going to witness Iron Maiden. Live. Oh the delirium. I couldn't stop my pessimistic brain from conjuring images of some mishap that would prevent me from attending the concert.
Arriving at the Chhtrapati Airport was like a scene before an epic battle. Armageddon? With Maiden playing it could be possible. Men, women and children, of all ages donned black shirts, each depicting Iron Maiden's iconic mascot Eddie, doing something nasty and violent to either himself or his aggressor. Perfect. I thought it was going to be a lonely wait till my flight took off at 8.30 am, but with these guys and girls in black, talking over heavy metal music, I was going to have the flight of my life.
After the usual post-9/11, airport security nags, I had my boarding pass, now only had to stop the same brain from imagining something horrific on my flight in three hours, but till then I had unlimited company.
Scanning left and right, I spotted a bunch of fans, long hair, straggly beards and dangling cigarettes, discussing Maiden's latest album, 'A Matter of Life and Death.' One was software professional, another claimed to be an RJ, while three others were engineering students. None of us knew the other, but Maiden, metal music and Mumbai airport made us seem like old friends. "It is more Maiden than the previous album, 'Dance of Death' with all the electronic sounds," said one, while another replied, "How does it matter? They all sound good." Yippee!
We moved into the airport, the RJ's flight was boarding. It was 6 am. The flight had about 15 Maiden fans aboard. A half an hour later, the software pro left with another 20 black clad revellers. And Till my flight at 8.30 am, each flight had about 15 fans each, not many Mumbai Maiden fans were going to miss the concert. And neither were those from Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and even Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Arriving at Bangalore we all felt on top of the world, nothing could come between the show and us, except for Force Majeure. But it was a beautiful, sunny Bangalore day. Typical.
After a dramatic and non-tearful reunion with long lost pals, we were headed for the concert arena, we had be right in front near the guard rails. The gates opened at 3 pm, but we took no chances, we were there at 2.30.
Now came the hard part, the waiting. The eager and charged up fans would have to wait an agonising five hours, before Maiden delivered us. After an impatient three hours, the show opened with Pune-based KTN, followed by Parikrama and then Lauren Hallis, a UK rock band. The hours flew past and the crowd grew impatient, till at last Hallis's performance was done, and we knew what was next.
The arena suddenly goes pitch dark and a church organ's ghostly strains tears through the air. The 25,000 strong crowd screams, they been waiting nearly a decade for this. Seconds later the lights kick in throwing a devilish red glare on the stage, centring on a backdrop with battle tank driven by a skeletal apparition and his minions. The screaming is now frenetic. The beast had arrived in India and Iron Maiden would leave their impression on us all for years to come.
The power chords assaults us while the deafening drums reverberates across the arena. Maiden's front man Bruce Dickinson does not stop prowling around the specially designed two-layer stage, and as he sings his familiar and distinct vocals seem to grab my insides and shake them about. All around the fans have their hands in the air, while other just stare awe-struck at the gods in their realm and keep bobbing their heads.
From the minute Dickinson entered the stage and began their first song 'Different Worlds', the audience became his. For the next two hours, we are his puppets, and do his bidding without question, whether it is to chant a few lines of a song, or compete with the other side of the crowd in a who-can-shout-louder match. The reward from Dickinson: "You guys are much better." Our side won. 'These colours don't run' follows', but not many in the crowd know the song. The slow haunting lilts of 'Brighter than a 1,000 suns' begins, it is song about the atomic bomb and the power used and abused by nations who own it.
Dickinson laments as he sings, "Burying our morals and burying our deadBurying our head in the sandE equals MC squared, you can't relateHow we made God with our hands."At the end of the song he trails off, "Holy Father, we have sinned."Makes you think.
Another song from the new album; ''The Ballad of Benjamin Breeg' and the band moves to their older tried-and-true numbers, starting with 'Wrathchild' which the band dedicates to the late Indian band Moksha's lead singer Leon Ireland, whose death in December last year was mourned by heavy metal fans all over the country. 'Wrathchild' then makes way for 'Trooper', amidst many cheers and everyone joins in the singing. One of their most theatrical numbers, Trooper has Dickinson in a red army uniform waving battered Union Jacks, which are finally flung away in contempt as the song comes to a close. The song seems to draw inspiration from Tennyson's 'The charge of the light brigade' and the way he waves the battered flag, I couldn't help thinking if Maiden were making a political statement here.
The crowd is a deadly concoction of all ages, from us 20 somethings to the mid-life crisis group, the geriatrics living the old days of rock and other hard substances and then the infants (read between 6 to 16). Chee, lets see an Enrique or one of tose wannabes draw a crowd like this. I feel I've blasphemed by uttering his name.
So far the bassist Steve Harris has been typically solid even as he runs from end to end, guitarist Janick Gers not as wild as he is known to be, drummer Nicko McBrain tries to dismantle his set with the thrashing, while guitarists Dave Murray and Adrian Smith seem to have the time of their lives belting out the solos and playing back-to-back with each other. And Dickinson just keeps gallivanting all over the stage.
Trooper segues to the ever famous and controversial 'The number of the beast', in which Dickinson refers to the mystical 666 after which comes 'Fear of the dark'. With a chorus with the same lines, Dickinson only has to scream, "Bangalore" and the crowd joins in perfectly, as if we've rehearsed it a thousand times. 'The evil that men do' came next followed by 'Iron Maiden', '2 minutes to midnight' and 'Run to the hills'. Gers gets into the mood, he displays his prowess with not just playing the guitar as he hurls it a good 30 feet in the air, snatches it out and keeps playing.
Technology amongst the crowd seemed to us at the time to be the biggest problem with crazed fans that did not seem to care about the music and were intent only on capturing a video of the band on their mobile phones which costs a five-figure amount. A sea of blue light obscured the band and stage frequently as they tried to capture Maiden on puny 2 sq inch phones. These mobile phone cameramen even got into trouble at some spots, with disgruntled fans using violence to persuade them to put their sets down.
Now then onto the revered 'Hallowed be thy name', a song without which no Maiden show can end. We knew this was the last one, and used what energy we had in our depleted bodies to sing with all our might.
However, it was not only us who were in awe of our metal gods. Maiden themselves said that we were one of the best crowds they'd played to. He did manage, "We have played a lot of gigs in front of a lot of fans, but never guys like you. This is a very, very special night indeed."
I knew it would be greedy to want more, but I only wished they sang their other epics like 'Powerslave', 'Bring your daughter to the slaughter' or 'Aces high'. Oh well.
But Dickinson would deliver me from greed, especially when he announced, "You have waited 17 years for this gig, for the next one, I promise you will not have to wait even 17 months."
For those of you who missed it this time, start scouring the Internet for Maiden's next gig in India, which could be sooner that we all think. Hope. I wouldn't miss it for all the money in the world. Metal is here in India, only to stay.
BOX:
The Iron Maiden concert in Bangalore last week signalled the genesis of heavy metal music in India, a phenomenon that has only been growing in the country in the last decade and a half. Last Saturday, Maiden became the first international heavy metal, not rock or hard rock, act to blast fans into a frenzied orgy of head banging and show them the meaning of a true heavy metal concert.
Sure, Bangalore had witnessed a lot of acts prior to this one, Roger Waters, Deep Purple, Bryan Adams, The Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull and Uriah Heep, but none of them rivalled Iron Maiden's display of energy and sheer power, though all the band members are pushing 50. That combined with an elaborate stage set-up complete with a battle tank and a 20-foot Eddie mascot, sealed the show as one of the best ever.
And those who missed Maiden's gig in Bangalore last week may have just missed the first chapter of heavy metal music in India. With the cult-band playing numbers from their latest album 'A Matter of Life and Death' and of course their older, better-known favourites, the Maiden concert was unlike anything Indian heavy metal fans had seen till now.