Slave to the Maiden

Wow, it’s been more than a month since I last posted… Apologies for that. The thing is that I would’ve posted earlier and made a slightly more impressive pic if my (MY) computer was working. As in, the internet. Transferring everything onto the other comp seemed like an irritating job, so I ditched it.
Now prepare yourself for a huge-ass post. \m/

Saturday, the 17th of March, 2007 saw around 60,000 (I’m guessing) people make their way to the immense Palace Grounds in Bangalore, for a concert that some had been waiting for for (haha: forfor) more than a decade. Yes, bands have come and gone to India; some men have come here thrice, even… but each and every person in the crowd (apart from some aunties who looked really lost) knew that this was gonna be an unforgettable event… something truly mind-blowing. It was to be the first metal gig in India, and there was no better band to take away that virginity from us then the legends themselves; Iron Maiden.

Though the gates were to open at around 3 P.M, I knew many people who had been camping there since 9 or 10 in the morning. Insane, you say? No. They were just die-hard fans and any other place but the front row was a place not worth their money. My friends and I made a relatively ‘late’ entry, however. Arriving at the venue at 3:30 was absurd to some. The queues had been stretching out far outside the grounds. By the time we entered the place, the first ten or fifteen rows had already been crammed with people clad in black Iron Maiden tees. Our position wasn’t so bad… we were close to the stage and far from the Pepsi stalls (we realized it was a bad thing later on). In the monstrous crowd that quickly filled up the space, I managed to find a whole bunch of old friends from all over… some whom I haven’t seen in the past 6 years! As camera crew made their way on stage, the throng only got impatient, giving rise to the “Maiden! Maiden! Maiden!” chant that didn’t really seem to help. The sun was killer. Almost intolerable. And the wait for the opening bands was painful. I don’t know about the rest of the crowd, but around us, there was an array of individuals. Half were either drunk, stoned or both. Others were in the process of getting high… A guy squatting on the ground, sniffing something, getting back up and choking his girlfriend who seemed to be enjoying it was on one side. On the other side we had two lovers who had been together for two and a half years (I gathered this info. after eavesdropping like a sneaky fellow)… their parents apparently knew they were together but didn’t know that she spent the last two days at his house… Their fantasy love escapade seemed to have brought itself to the concert. Not a very pretty sight, I tell you. I ignored them when they asked me what the first band was called.
The first band was called F.t.N (Fuck the Name); a nu-metal group from Delhi who had recently won the ‘Campus Rock Idols’ thing… a title that they would soon realize didn’t carry any default glory. It could’ve been that the Bangalore crowd is highly unsupportive of foreign bands (ones from Sarjapur Road included) or it could’ve just been due to the fact that their set was monotonous, noisy and VERY disappointing, that resulted in the crowd responding with a “FUCK YOU” between every two-count. They were as wanted as baby girls in rural China and so, they abruptly stopped their show, gave us the fingers and proceeded back stage where they complained and cried. Pathetic.
‘Parikrama’ was next. They’re a well-established band and the energy and respect they brought to the gigantic stage was just in enormous proportions for them to get booed off. The band-mates were all so bloody talented and with the jaw-dropping vocals, insane violinist, fat guitarist (whose pudgy fingers deceived everyone), they set the groundwork for the legends that would come soon enough. Parikrama had the right interaction with the audience and with the all-original-composition set they played, they defied the words of every bad-mouthing critic. The critics also received a well-deserved “FUCK YOU” from both the band and the crowd.
There was a rather long interval before the next band came on stage. By now, all one could smell were sweat, weed and some disgusting coconut oil in the hair of the guy in front of me. The heat was intense and thirst had set in to almost everyone. Going to the stalls meant losing your place. No one wanted to risk it. “We’ll go there after a bit” is what we told ourselves.
Steve Harris’ (Maiden’s bassy) daughter – Lauren Harris – was to try and excite the crowd next. As she ran onto the stage, everyone was like “Oh shit! Hot chick!” but once the camera zoomed into her, the “Marry me, Lauren” shouts ceased. Apart from her talented band mates (the guitarist reminded me of Zakk Wylde) and her tight leather pants, the crowd got highly bored and continued the “Maiden! Maiden! Maiden!” chant. Her vocals sounded like the cries made by female pelicans being sexually violated. Yep, you know what it would sound like…Very, very disappointing.
“Maiden! Maiden! Maiden!”

After a long, deadly silence, the lights went out, the covers covering the huger fort-like structure came off, the “Matter of Life and Death” backdrop rolled in, the lights came back on and Maiden burst onto stage with “Different World”, setting the entire crowd in absolute euphoria. Insanity began here. Everybody went wild with headbanging, singing (completely off-tune…but who cares?) and jumping violently just to get a glimpse of the gods that stood before us. The heat, the stink and the cheering only increased as they played the next two songs… Then the backdrop changed. It showed Eddie (Maiden’s beastly-skeleton mascot) holding a tattered British flag, wearing a soldier’s outfit… “The Trooper!” everyone shouted… and that’s when they burst out into that popular guitar riff that everyone was so familiar with. This gave us all the high we needed. My thirst didn’t really bother me now… The show was too good to notice things like that… at least for now. Once our adrenaline levels were up, they played their other famous songs like ‘666: The Number of the Beast’, ‘Run to the Hills’ and ‘Two Minutes to Midnight’ but the song that everybody sang along to (and I mean EVERYBODY) was ‘Fear of the Dark’. You could actually feel the ground rumble as people jumped and echoed their voices through Bangalore, all in perfect unison. Brilliance!

With blinding-fast guitar solos, enormous amount of energy from Bruce Dickenson (who needs no intro), a dedication to the late-great Leon Ireland from Moksha, a bloody huge tank emerging from the stage – complete with Eddie popping out of the top – and a whole lot of stunts, the legends had the whole crowd captivated. By now, the thirst really got to most of us, and we finally decided to search for fluids. Everything was over and we were thirsty as hell. This is when they played ‘The Evil that Men Do’ where a 14-foot Eddie walked around on stage, making people go wild. ‘Hallowed be thy Name’ played as I almost fainted…eventually finding some guy who gave me a sip of water…
Bruce showed his enthusiasm by telling us that the response they got was amazing and they would definitely return… within the next 17 months, even! This statement resulted in the ecstatic cheers and overwhelming joy of the entire crowd. Maiden were coming back and it would be as amazing as it was this time.
The buggers have left us exposed to the international scene now. India is going to be the next Budakon, I know it!
But nothing pleases me more than the fact that I can brag to everyone (like how Bruce said: to your kids and grandkids) that “I was at the first Maiden gig in India… the first metal act down here… and it was out of this fucking world!”