angL set for May 27 release.

On Friday night, March 14, I went to see Iron Maiden at the Izod Center, otherwise known to us locals as “The Meadowlands.” As I mentioned in a previous post, I was particularly excited to see this show because it was a pseudo-recreation of the Powerslave tour from 1985—which I was lucky enough to see at Radio City Music Hall when I was 16 years old.

Even though 23 years have elapsed since then, the band was in as good a shape as I’ve ever seen them. Singer Bruce Dickinson sounded as good as you could expect nowadays (far better than Ronnie James Dio sounded on last year’s Heaven and Hell tour), the group nailed every note perfectly, and the set list was the best Maiden list in years. Personally, I could have done without “Can I Play with Madness,” “Heaven Can Wait and of course “Moonchild” and “The Clairvoyant,” but how could you go wrong with “Revelation,” “Aces High,” “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “Iron Maiden,” “Two Minutes to Midnight,” “Wasted Years,” “Hallowed Be Thy Name,” “Powerslave” and various other gems?

And I’ll never get used to Janick Gers being the third guitarist in the band…he’s a fine player and all, but as an old-school Rivethead I just find his presence distracting and unnecessary. Sometimes, when there’s a major reunion in the rock world, certain players become casualties of war….just ask Bruce Kulick, Ripper Owens, and anyone else who ever got booted to make room for an original member.

That was my seventh time seeing Maiden since 1985…and how do I know that exactly? Because I’ve kept a concert log for as long as I can remember. Maiden was show #556.

If you care to view the entire list, click here.

Till next time…

JK

We certainly have no shortage of celebrity guitarists coming through our doors for interviews, photo shoots and video lessons, and this week was no exception. Yngwie Malmsteen made his first ever GW office appearance this week, and while I'm not the biggest Yngwie fan on earth ("I'll See the Light, Tonight" kicks ass though), it was still a thrill to meet the man we regularly hail as the god of gods. Steve Winwood, famous for his work in Traffic and Blind Faith (with Eric Clapton) was also a guest this week, and we just filmed a video interview with Gabriel and Alex from Black Tide.

They're group of under-twenties from Florida who who have a very classic thrash sound...while they were here I had them show how they play Metallica's "Hit the Lights," which is a song on their debut album, which comes out this month on Interscope. Nice guys, check em out if you're into precision riffing, flailing solos and upper-register vocals.

JK

160 pages of Gorgoroth, Immortal, Mayhem and more!