IRON MAIDEN Touch Down In New Zealand; Video Available
February 19, 2009, 15 years ago
3news.co.nz is reporting:
Metal legends IRON MAIDEN are here in New Zealand for two sell-out concerts.
The British band is one of the most successful heavy metal bands in the history of rock. In fact, today they can rightly claim to be Britain's best live act – beating Coldplay and the Verve to that title at the prestigious Brit Awards today.
This morning singer Bruce Dickinson woke up here with another notch in his studded belt, and Campbell Live was one of the first to congratulate him on winning best live act in this year's Brit Awards.
"The great thing about this award is that it wasn't voted for by people in the industry," says Dickinson. "It wasn't like, 'I'd like to thank the academy,' this is voted for actually by fans."The fans made Iron Maiden what they are today. Over the past couple of decades they have sold 70 million albums.
Ddickinson says he has seen three generations of fans grow up on their music.
"These are all young kids," he says. "Yeah, I'm sure there's guys my age down the back saying ''Number of the Beast', I saw that in '82 mate,' but for most of the kids down there it's brand new and it's really exciting, and that's what makes it really exciting for us. 'Cause frankly, if we went out on stage and saw mirror images of us staring back at us, we'd be going, 'God, who are all these old codgers, who let these guys in?' but you see a bunch of 16-year-old kids and it's musical Viagra, you know."Iron Maiden touched down in Auckland last night in their own private 757 airliner, personally piloted by Dickinson. Flying planes is Dickinson's day job - seriously. When he is not fronting Iron Maiden, he is a commercial pilot for Astraeus Airlines.
"The one thing I liked when I started flying aeroplanes, when you walk away from the aeroplane and you close the door, that's it - job done, your job is over," says Dickinson. "Nobody follows you up and says you've got an interview at three, and I thought wow, amazing people have lives like that. The one thing with rock'n'roll is that you're never off-duty."Read more here.
Watch a video at this location.
