Rock Blogs from antiMUSIC's staff. Iron Maiden, Dio & Motorhead August 25th, 2003 – Long Beach Arena Long Beach, Ca By Keavin Wiggins

Back to Part I

Once the houselights came on and Motorhead left the stage, my cell phone rang. It was Harry telling me to get my ass backstage. So I found my way. We walked outside to have a smoke and Iron Maiden was pulling up. We got to say a brief hello to Steve Harris as he walked past. 

I finished my smoke and went off to find a bathroom and grab something to drink. At this point Dio was about to hit the stage and I was sweating my photopass, since there wasn’t one at will call. Not to worry, Harry was standing backstage with someone from the Dio crew that hooked me up. Dio was literally seconds from going on and the women from Dio’s crew walked me through the band stage entrance to the photopit… Just in the nick of time! 

One problem with photographing shows is you are so busy snapping away that you don’t really get to pay attention to what’s really happening onstage, so I pretty much missed “Killing the Dragon”, “The Last In Line” and “Stargazer”. After the three songs we were allowed to photograph were over, I headed backstage to get my gear all put away and then returned to the hall to catch the rest of Dio’s set. 

They were half way through “Stand Up and Shout” once I got back out into the arena and got situated but I was just in time for Simon Wright’s drum solo. Great stuff! I had seen Dio at the House of Blues last November when they were headlining their “Killing the Dragon” tour and that show proved that Dio still has it. Ronnie can stand up to any of today’s young turks and blow them off the f***ing stage. I didn’t expect Dio to top themselves this time, since they gave such an incredible show the last time I saw them, but to my amazement they were even better this time around! 

Ronnie belted out the hits, Jimmy Bain’s basslines and Simon’s drums pounded out the bottom end with Scott Warren adding that patented Dio keyboard sound to the mix but it was Ronnie and guitarist Craig Goldy that stole the show. They roared out a killer set of songs that spanned Ronnie’s career, both old classics and new that included “I Speed at Night”, “Dream Evil” which ended with a masterful guitar solo from Craig. But they saved the best for last and the screams of the crowd almost blew the roof off Long Beach Arena when the band launched into “Rainbow in the Dark”, which they only topped with an amazing “Holy Diver” and just when you thought it couldn’t get any better they broke into “Heaven and Hell”. 

Those in the arena definitely knew it was August as the sweat poured off of us. I don’t know if it was the heat in the venue or the heat on stage that produced the most sweat, but Dio had just delivered a blistering ten song set that would be almost impossible to top. 

The show could have ended there and I would have been more than happy. But now I was off on my quest to find Harry and see if he got me the hook up for a photopass for Iron Maiden. I knew getting it was gonna be a pain, since our Chicago photographer had tried and was told that they weren’t credentialing for web publications, only print.  I got backstage and found Harry, he introduced me to Iron Maiden’s stage manager and told him I needed a photopass. Their manager was reluctant as I expected, “a website, I don’t know.” But Harry threw in, “It’s for antiMUSIC.com!” and that seemed to do the trick the photopass appeared out of nowhere! 

There was still a little time to kill so Harry and I grabbed a smoke and mingled a bit backstage, ran into some friends, said our hellos. We dropped into Dio’s dressing room and chatted for a few minutes, then Harry asked me to get some pictures of Phil Campbell with Ronnie and some other folks. And of course I managed to get one of myself with Ronnie. Hell, I grew up listening to him I couldn’t let the chance pass by.  After a side excursion to the Motorhead dressing room with only Phil and Mikkey in attendance, and some pretty funny photos of Phil offering up cheese slices to everyone, we headed back towards the stage so I’d be there in time to get my photos. 

But we got a little sidetracked along the way. Harry seems to know everybody and someone who looked familiar walked up to us and gave Harry a high-five. Harry introduced us; turned out to be actor Peter Greene (he played Zed in Pulp Fiction). We b.s.ed for a few minutes then Peter said, “come on Keavin, go take a walk with us.”  I declined and opted to go find a bottle of water. I had a quick run in with one of Dio’s people when I popped my head in the dressing room to see if they had any water. It’s was pretty funny since I had just seen the guy a few minutes before in the same room and had even taken a picture of him with Ronnie.  I shrugged it off and continued my quest, to no avail, so I went out to a booth in lobby and got another kind of liquid refreshment. By this time, Iron Maiden was set to hit the stage in a few minutes so I headed back towards the stage and ran into Harry again. 

So we walked off towards the photopit and ran into Nicko on the side of the stage, Harry introduced us and we chatted for a few minutes. Harry joked to Nicko that I’d get a lot of great photos of him during the set, but Nicko flashes a big smile and said with that huge stage setup and drum riser, no one was getting any photos of him (turned out he was right). 

I got settled in and picked a prime spot to get some photos, joked around with a few of the other photographers, and waited….  The lights go down, it’s pure pandemonium in the arena with the crowd roaring for Maiden!  They hit the stage running with “Number of the Beast” and it was on! 

Iron Maiden’s known for their elaborate stage sets but the truth of matter is they could play on a stage with nothing on it but amps and they’d still blow the crowd away. We’re not only talking amazing musicianship here, we’re talking a high energy performance with everyone bounding across the stage like their adrenal glands are in overdrive, which they probably were! But the leader of this rock n roll happening is Bruce Dickinson, who makes sure he works the entire stage from the catwalks above the amps on either side of Nicko’s huge drum set to the eaves, which stretch out slightly on the right and left hand side of the stage. 

Nicko said a few days later that the band was bit hung over for this show and it’s wasn’t their best performance. But I couldn’t see how they could have improved upon it. For their second song, “The Trooper”, Bruce brought out a huge Union Jack which he waved furiously from the catwalks during the instrumental breaks in the song. At one point Dave Murray, Steve Harris and Janick Gers formed a line at the edge of center stage and played in unison, the crowd ate it up. 

This tour wasn’t like Maiden’s last one where they only played a few of their old favorites and instead concentrated on their latest album. They gave fans both old and new what they wanted, a look at the group’s entire career and they continued that with the third song, another favorite from Piece of Mind, “Die With Your Boots On”. 

Bruce is one of the best frontmen to ever grace the stage but when it comes to musicianship the entire group make up one of strongest lineups in rock n roll. The three guitar assault was just that, an amazing assault of complex leads with each playing off the others perfectly. Then there is Steve Harris, who not only penned most of Iron Maiden’s best songs but is easily one of the best bass player you are likely to ever hear. With that strong of a presence on bass, you need a worldclass drummer and Nicko is just that. They don’t come any finer.  Together they make up an explosive combination that has made Iron Maiden one of the most popular metal bands in history.

Continue (conclusion, photogalleries and Fan Speak)