Powerslave may have given the best 1-2 punch in heavy music history with the first two songs being “Aces High” and “2 Minutes to Midnight”, the latter of which is probably my favorite Maiden song, as I do have a pretty special place for “Fear of the Dark” from the album of the same name. So what’s to say about this record that hasn’t been said? Well, I’ve not written anything about it until now, so let’s get to it! The first thing to say is that I’m not sure which Iron Maiden album is my favorite, but it might well be this one, and for a set of damn good reasons. Hey, we get to write about Powerslave! Iron Maiden are probably one of the most ubiquitous metal bands in the history of this thing that we call pop culture and this by many fans’ estimation their best record. I didn’t sleep a second that night, and it didn’t matter. I also remember getting in my room, chilly as all hell after being completely soaked and soiled for the past twelve hours, getting under the covers, and putting “Aces High” on from my crappy Mp3 player. I can still lively remember the abiding rush of adrenaline and euphoria I felt when I got back home from the festival at 4AM all those years back, and to this day that sensation has been matched only a few times. The band’s longevity underlines its timelessness, and it’s crazy to think that in two years, Powerslave turns fourty-fucking-years old without having aged a day, unlike me and you. I’ve always enjoyed the themes and aesthetics they dig into on each separate release and song, but on this album they hit the kind of profound cohesion with absolutely everything that’s more or less left unattained on their later efforts. The album is also one of the few from Maiden where the less-known songs such as “Flash of the Blade”, “The Duellists”, and “Back in the Village” hit just as hard as the more revered ones. I’ve witnessed the band live a few times since, always having wonderful time, and always feeling a certain kind of surge of warmth somewhere deep inside when hearing tracks from Powerslave. The situation got redeemed few years later, though, when the band circled back here and even offered few deep-ish cuts from the album, including the nearly fourteen-minute epic “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. That felt very strange as well, since the likes of “Aces High” and “2 Minutes to Midnight” are the kind of legendary songs that are almost mandatory to play live. While they delivered a hell of a show amidst circumstances unheard of over here, that stung quite a bit. Due to rEaSoNs, however, the band didn’t play a single song off of Powerslave.
Coupled with the aforementioned importance of the band to me as a whole (as well as seeing them live for the first time), the young me was rather pumped about it. I knew and still know the album’s nooks and crannies in, out, and sideways, so of course it holds a special place in my heart. See, the first album I ever heard from Iron Maiden was, fittingly, Powerslave. Three or four hours later than scheduled, Iron Maiden came on stage, and the following two hours were nothing short of true bliss. Lo and behold, it was announced that, due to Slayer’s gear being the only band equipment that didn’t get fucked to high heavens, and their willingness to borrow it to both Alice Cooper and Iron Maiden, the event could proceed.Īlice Cooper put on a great show, but again, I wasn’t there for them. Iggy Pop came on stage and performed few songs in a man and a guitar manner, and it didn’t exactly help the situation, let alone reassure that better things were on the way.
After the worst had settled, everyone waited for an hour to hear updates about whether or not the whole thing will continue. It lasted for maybe thirty minutes, but felt like an eternity. Miraculously, only fourty people got hospitalised, two for severe trauma, with one casualty later on, as the second stage collapsed alongside all food and merch stalls being blown to shit and debris flying about. Literally.Ī thunderstorm of rarely seen proportions swept through the town, hitting the open area at the festival the hardest, after the finnish meteorological institute had issued a dire warning but the officials nationwide gave less than two shits about it. We found each other, exchanged greetings, and then the sky fell on us. We got in, he disappeared to the alcohol/serving area, and I headed out to find a friend of mine with whom we had agreed to catch up with once I arrived.
I was there to see Iron Maiden, a band that was a definitive staple in my musical upbringing and growth at the time. It was the late summer of 2010, we had just arrived at the gates of Sonisphere festival with my cunt of an uncle, listening the last riff of “Raining Blood” by one Slayer, whose set I missed becausethe said knobhead was adamant that it wouldn’t matter when we’d leave for the fest, for some fucking reason.
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