Images and Words
And when I ask him why he likes the song so much, he just looks at me and says there’s something about it. I look back at him and ask, “It’s me, isn’t it? The girl in the song reminds you of me, doesn’t she?”
One step back and a step down, right foot forward and just zoom ahead. A step back up, one right and one forward. The right foot goes forward again, and you zoom ahead. It’s easy to just ram the accelerator and drive past everything, drive away from everything.
Back.
Right.
U.
Straight.
Right.
Left… and straight ahead.
I’m away from it. By now I’m zipping past everything on the fourth gear in my little 4-wheeler. Everything beside me zips past in a blur. The camera tries to focus on one object but the motion is too fast to allow the cameraman to focus on one particular object. Distances are changing. Focuses are changing. Before I know it, I’m 3 kms away from where I started. I look at my watch and it’s been a mere 2 mins ago that I was struggling to get rid of the brakes and just zip forward.
But where have I come? It’s not unknown territory. I’ve come here before. I come here everyday and look at the grey walls that run along it. The grey walls with the glass pieces so nobody gets in, or maybe so that nobody gets out. Barriers, security, blocks… It’s at every opening. But I’ve come here before. I come here everyday. It’s the farthest I’ve gotten. It’s the room I’ve locked myself in, to block out everything else that disturbs me. But I didn’t build this grey wall. It was already there. I didn’t put the pieces of broken glass there. They’ve been there since I knew it. Somewhere Poiccard was running saying he chose nothingness. Did I choose grief?
I found myself seated at a table this afternoon. I wasn’t alone. The sound of the piano was continuously playing in my head… “water can’t cover her memories, and ashes can’t answer her pain…” sang LaBrie to the notes of the piano.
I asked him why he likes the song so much, he just looks at me and says there’s something about it. I look back at him and ask, “It’s me, isn’t it? The girl in the song reminds you of me, doesn’t she?”
“She stares at the ceiling
And tries not to think
And pictures the chain
Shes been trying to link again
But the feeling is gone”
All Aboard Flight 666!
Finally the day came. I just saw Flight 666 – a documentary on Iron Maiden’s epic tour Somewhere Back in Time in the year 2008.
Wow is the only word I’m left with after watching the film. Literally larger than life experience… Just to sit and watch Smith go crazy on the guitars and Harris ‘tickle’ the bass up there on stage… well, projected :)
And Bruce!! Wow.. He just never ages, man! That guy’s a showman. Nicko, Dave, Gers… they’re all just brilliant – a brilliant blend for the world’s most amazing heavy metal band.
The film is an amazing hook into their lives backstage, especially on a tour like this. In a jet piloted by the Air Raid Siren, Bruce, himself, the film takes off brilliantly with Aces High and closes, as expected, with that epic hit Hallowed Be Thy Name. By the start of that song, I was already standing in the middle of the movie hall going crazy. And to listen to Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Powerslave performed live on stage was THE most amazing experience of my life.
Somewhere Back in Time, even through this film, served its purpose for me. To take me back into a timespace where Maiden performed tracks from their earliest album… This was indeed a celebration of the young fans, like Bruce said in one of the interviews. To watch Maiden perform songs that you’d never otherwise see or hear them perform in the year 2008 – that’s 30 years of Hardcore Heavy Metal! The film is just an amazing insight into the lives of these 6 crazy men. And the most amazing thing is, it doesn’t go into being a documentary about Iron Maiden, their history. It’s just 6 guys playing heavy metal like they always have, taking it like they always do… with, of course, a few rounds of golf and beer in the middle.
The most amazing bit in the film was their tour of Latin America. As Bruce was talking about their experience in Columbia, it reminded me of the concert in Moscow in 1991. The concert arena was surrounded by the army who whisked the people of all their belongings before the concert to ensure a ‘safe’ and ‘non-violent’ concert… Non-violent, and I don’t know what the army was doing there. One of the guys in Columbia said, “these guys are just against heavy metal”. That was the most amazing moment… It just said so much about how nobody understands the power of music as opposed to the power of the State, the Religion, the Army and all of those authoratitive symbols that we’re surrounded by. There was a Columbian priest by the name of Father Iron Maiden who had 162 Maiden tattoos on his body. Amazing, isn’t it, how in a country like Columbia where there’s a crazy tumultuous state of politics, nobody understands the need for music and curbs it… and in the middle of it all you find Father Iron Maiden preaching sermons of Maiden songs…. \m/
The response to Iron Maiden in Latin America was just so amazing, I felt like going to Latin America for a Maiden concert. The film brings out one really relevant point, although there’s also a literal mention of it in Bruce’s interview in the film. Music is like a cult for these guys, it’s almost like they’re fighting to win a football match, it’s everything that takes them away from all the political disarray. And to have Iron Maiden perform is like a blessing, especially if the band was banned for coming because of suspected ‘Satanic influences’ in their music. Every crowd in every Latin American country they went to could be heard singing… Ole ole ole ole… Maiden! Maiden!… What a frenzy… And the swarm that welcomed these guys in Chile.
It’s crazy how nothing else really connects us that deep, as music does. Generation after generation goes crazy after Iron Maiden… Heavy metal re-invents itself, but Maiden just stays where it is. Ask any heavy metal fan – from now, or 25 years back – and they’ll tell you Iron Maiden is still the best!
Up the Irons!!
P.S. – and it still will remain… a situation where there were only 8 people in the movie hall
