Let’s Talk About MAIDEN ENGLAND

Nothing but tail­gating in a muddy parking lot, hun­dreds of Harleys lined up by the entrance, $11 beers, ALICE COOPER:

I got a grand total of 0 in-​focus pic­tures of Alice.

The set was short but stuffed with songs that everyone wanted to hear, obvi­ously Alice’s war­dobe is impec­cable, and the touring band was pretty great, Orianthi gives a hell of a solo:

Chuck Garric, Ryan Roxie, Tommy Henriksen, Orianthi

OF COURSE IT WOULDN’T BE ALICE COOPER WITHOUT THE GUILLOTINE:

OFF WITH HIS HEAD

Not pic­tured: custom Cooper New England Patriots jacket, cov­ering Pink Floyd during School’s Out (here’s a video of him per­forming it ear­lier this year in Montréal), bil­lions of Cooper bucks. One thirty-​minute line for the one bath­room in the venue later and it was time for MAIDEN ENGLAND 2012

These were my seats:

Can you see me? I’m in the back.

No, just kid­ding, I spent my entire shoe budget on these tickets, because I def­i­nitely didn’t want to stand in the rain and watch the whole show on the Jumbotron.

(Even though the lawns have the best and mud­diest pits.)

Bruce is like a little ninja, sprinting and vamping all over the huge stage dress­ings without missing a high note:

Vamp for us Bruce!

Nicko thun­dered away from his hidden spot in the set dressing (an ice wall with classic album covers, like a more-​metal Castle Black), Dave and Adrian par­tied all over the stage, while Janick hung out off to one side, showing up again to throw us a great solo with Fear of the Dark. He was also kind enough to turn over his instru­ment to our dearly beloved Eddie:

Awww.

Speaking of Edward, he just showed up again

Don’t you want to wall­paper your house in this?

…and again…

Number of the Beast

Seventh Son of a Seventh Son

Iron Maiden

The Trooper

…of course it’s best of all when he shows up on stage in a big explo­sion, and the on-​stage pyro makes you fear for your eyebrows:

HELLO

This was my first Iron Maiden show ever, so I have no words beyond FJSKDLFNKD over-​excited key­board mashing and gushing about how great it was, how much fun I had, how every­body should get a chance to sing along to Can I Play With Madness with both Bruce Dickinson and that wasted biker that’s puking all over the seats a few rows down, et cetera et cetera. I will say that my heart grew three sizes that day, when I was in line at the merch booth behind a bunch of little kids and their dad, all excited and talking about how awe­some it was. They were right.

Here are the setlists for Alice and Maiden, if you’re inter­ested. Stick around for the Monty Python singalong!