It was the summer of 1988, which was a weird time for me. In fact, let’s just make that the default statement for everything from 1974 through 1994 - it was a weird time for me. At any given moment something strange was happening.

This time it was the fact that the woman I had been “in love with” (read: had a totally dysfunctional, bizarre, sexual-play-but-no-sex relationship with since the fall of 1985) was now our best friend. The “us” in that “our” was me and Jen, my girlfriend of two years at this point. Jen and Rebecca, the friend-with-blueball-inducing-benefits, had been best friends since Jesus was a carpenter.

Did I mention that to this day, Rebecca carries a brand? Literally, she is branded with my initial. Just below her pubic line. A scar in the shape of a “J.” But I never actually had sex with her.

I don’t know. It just fell out that way. I ended up with Jen and Rebecca ended up at art school in NYC, hooked on heroin, so maybe it was a lucky break. But I digress. The point is, we were a permanent trio. We rarely went anywhere without all three present.

Jen, Rebecca and I went to many, many concerts together. Rebecca, being somewhat lax with disciplining her raging libido, would obtain tickets and backstage passes in the usual manner women get these things from crew members - with her boobs and her mouth. She always got three, which meant that I, the guy, was usually backstage at metal shows with the whore pass. Many is the odd look I got from tour managers and band members in the late 80s. I wasn’t your typical backstage betty.

Needless to say, Rebecca scored passes to Maiden’s “Seventh Son” tour at the RPI Fieldhouse. The RPI Fieldhouse was, and likely still is, a shithole. An aging building, a hockey arena built not for multi-purpose use, but primarily for hockey. It was a crap place to see a show. The ventilation was horrible, the sound was merely adequate, but if you weren’y sure of selling out the Knick (now the Pepsi Arena) then you played RPI or the Glens Falls Civic Center. Every decent-sized town has one or two of these places. They mostly seem to be called “Civic Centers” or “War Memorials,” or are named for a local sports legend. Crap places for the band, crap for the fans, but it’s the rare acoustically perfect, music-only venue that is commercially viable.

I got the tickets, general admission floor tickets. We were going to be front row if it killed us. This was Iron Maiden!. The only other band that mattered more at the time was Metallica. If God himself was playing drums for a re-formed Led Zeppelin, it would not have mattered more than seeing Iron Maiden.

We got there early, as we always did, so that Rebecca could work her mouth magic and get the passes. We conned our way to the very front of the line by Rebeca and Jen flirting with the four guys who were in front, then me handing them three joints as a bribe to let me in with the girls. We were first at the door. We were getting on that gate, center stage, front row, Bruce Dickenson’s codpiece dead smack in front of us all night. There was no room for failure.

Doors open. Tickets torn. We ran. We missed the center by about 6 or 8 people, but this put us about dead center between Bruce and Steve Harris, so we were O.K. with it. Frehley’s Comet was the opening act. For those who don’t know, that was Ace Frehley’s solo gig, Frehley being the former, and now again guitar player for Kiss.

He wasn’t good. This was during his really bad drinking and drugging period, and it showed in his work. It was sloppy, uninspired, and his cliched gimmicks were weak sauce without the circus atmosphere of Kiss to set them off. Plus, the burning guitar gimmick wouldn’t light...it was embarassing. He tried three times before it finally started burning.

So Ace was off. During the intermission, a tall, very big dude started flirting with Rebecca and talking to us. I remember liking this guy and thinking he was pretty decent. At some point we devised a plan to deal with the coming crush.

If you’ve never been front row at a general admission show, let me explain the crush. See, you are just standing there. No rows, no seats. It’s just you, your feet and the metal barricade in front of you. Everyone behind you - sometimes thousands of people depending on the size of the arena - wants to get closer to the band. About ten minutes into any given intermission they start shuffling forward step-by-step. This ends up with you being smashed against this hard metal barricade for about two hours.

Our plan was that the two of us, being strong, large fellows, would stand behind the ladies, arms around the women, hands clasped on the top bar of the barricade, arms locked. We’d become human shields to keep the womenfolk from being trampled. Suprisingly, it actually worked.

Until the mosh pit formed directly behind us.

I got slammed out of the way first by two moshing morons. See, thsi was the heyday of the metal moshpit, and we had a code. No women. No closed fists. No going outside the pit, no hitting in the back. These two morons were hitting everyone in sight, with closed fists, in the back. When they slammed Rebecca in the back of the head, we took special notice and I punched one of them on his next go-round.

His buddy noticed.

My new friend noticed.

Now, this is all while Maiden was doing “Wasted Years.” We squared off, and it was like the parting of the Red Sea - the crowd just backed up two or three people-lengths and left a hole for us. Security was right there on the other side of the gate screaming at us. I figured no way was I getting thrown out of Iron Maiden, so I backed down. The whole situation diffused.

Maiden played “The Clairavoyant.” Then came “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.” The pit starts up again. I get his in the back of the head. Same idiot. Rebecca’s bodyguard gets slammed by two of his friends. Jen gets punched in the frigging head by the idiot that hit me. He reached around me to punch her.

I hit him in the face. He staggered back, looked at me and smiled. It was on.

We’re making a scene. The band is playing but...umm...the words have stopped. WTF?

Bruse Dickenson is yelling at us.

From the stage.

In the middle of the song.

I actually heard him say “Eh, cut the shit you fuckers.” I stopped fighting and turned around. There he was, leaning forward on a monitor, yelling at us! He was standing in front of me, not 20 feet away, and had ceased to sing the title track off the album for which the tour I had paid to attend was named! Now...as big a dumbass as that made me, it was still a wee bit cool.

Security made thier way to us and snatched me, Rebecca’s wanna-be boytoy and the three moshing idiots. Then...it happened.

Bruce Dickenson watched Security snatch us up and yelled, into the mic, for the whole arena to hear, while the band was still jamming along, extending the bridge of “Seventh Son” to cover Bruce’s actions, “No! NO! Not those two...that other lot. Leave those two alone.”

He was pointing at me!

Bruce Dickenson saved me from being ejected. Afterward, the only way we figured it could have happened was that he saw the fight start and knows the idiots were hitting the girls on purpose. I never got to ask him, because even though we had backstage passes, we only met Steve Harris. Everyone else was indisposed after the show. Later we found out that there was a contest that the band and one of the radio stations had run together and they were all in a meet & greet room chatting with about a hundred contest winners.

Still...Steve Harris recognized me and said “Good shot, punching that guy in the mouth!” I kind of stood there and stammered “Gee, thanks Mr. Harris. He was a dick.” “Did you enjoy the show?” “Oh hell yes, best show this year. Love you guys, babble babble fanboy gush can I lick your boots sir?”

He shook my hand and moved on.

Iron Maiden rules.

I never could remember the name of the guy who helped me. Neither could Rebecca, because a man’s name wasn’t really what she was concentrating on at that time. Going back to the beginning of this story and my involvement with her, I kind of lucked out on that deal. My life, and my health, could have been much, much worse had things not gone as they had the previous summer. :)

As an aside, I love the Internet. Thanks to the Internet and all it’s tubes, I found the setlist from that night. I assume it’s accurate because, well, it came from a bootleg tape trader, and like, he has the tape of the show. Plus I remember the middle section for obvious reasons.

Moonchild
The Evil That Men Do
The Prisoner
Infinite Dreams
The Trooper
Can I Play With Madness
Heaven Can Wait
Wasted Years
The Clairvoyant
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
The Number of the Beast
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Iron Maiden
Run To The Hills

How awesome is that set list? I’m so making a playlist of that in iTunes as soon as I post this. UP THE IRONS! \m/

Comments on the original post

Posted by Drumwaster on 07/21 at 11:15 PM from an IP address in United States

Great story.

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