29. Various significant dates in IRON MAIDEN history part2
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This article is from the Iron Maiden FAQ, by Vartan Narinian vsn@pobox.com and Steve Payne Sirpapa@aol.com with numerous contributions by others.
29. Various significant dates in IRON MAIDEN history part2
Oct' 80 - Dennis Stratton leaves the band, Adrian Smith joins. If Adrian
Smith had said no (again), the band's 2nd choice believe it or not
was none other than Phil Collen, now of Def Leppard fame.
Oct '80 - Women In Uniform b/w Invasion single is released. It reached #35
on the UK charts. Because of the cover, the Margaret Thatcher
one, this original cover was later issued as a covered sleeve, so
the original one is much rarer now.
Nov '80 - Maiden got offered TOP OF THE POPS again, and again did it live,
but it turned out to backfire...the sound levels were really
shitty, and they weren't allowed to play at full volume, and also
weren't allowed to have Eddie on stage (due to the 'family
programming nature of the show). :)
Nov '80 - A video is made for Women In Uniform. This was before the MTV
explosion (which began in summer 1981 I think, and MTV Europe even
later). This was pretty much the first video made for a rock
band ever at the time, except for Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.
How's that for trend-setters?!
Nov '80 - Maiden records KILLERS, with Martin Birch at the producing helm.
80/11/21 - Adrian Smith's first gig at Brunel University, Uxbridge (so that
the new lineup wouldn't go into the studio to record KILLERS in
a 'virginal' state).
80/12/21 - Gig taped at Rainbow Theatre, London, England. Due to technical
difficulties, half of the set had to be played a *2nd* time!
Actually, one of the sound lines went down about halfway through
the show, so such classics as IRON MAIDEN and Phantom Of The Opera
weren't gotten the first time around. 2+ hours of Maiden
altogether though! This Delta Production directed by Dave Hillier
came out as a half hour live EMI video in March 1981.
81/02/02 - 2nd album KILLERS is released. It reached #2 in the UK. Also, it
reached the top 60 on the Billboard charts, and stayed in the
chart for 17 weeks. It reached sales of 200,000 sales (four times
the sales of IRON MAIDEN) at the time. The song "Women In
Uniform" also appeared on the Australian release.
81/02/09 - Review in SOUNDS magazine deems Killers album as 'mediocre' and
a definite flop...and that Maiden wouldn't go far. What suckers!
81/02/17 - Beginning of Killers tour in Ipswich, Gaumont, England. Maiden
played 125 gigs in 6 months across Europe, Japan, Australia and
North America, taking in 15 countries and headlining everywhere
except the USA where, like Japan, the band was making their first
visit ever.
Feb '81 - All 3 concerts in Japan for May '81 were sold out in less than
2 hours.
First week of Mar '81 - Twilight Zone b/w Wrathchild single released. It
reached #31 on the UK charts.
81/05/21 - First gig in Japan (Killers Japan Tour), Kosei Nenkin Hall, Tokyo,
Japan.
81/05/23 - Gig at Kosei Nenkin Hall, Nagoya, Japan. The MAIDEN JAPAN E.P.
(aka "HEAVY METAL ARMY" E.P.) was recorded here. Mixed at Nimbus
9, Toronto. Produced and mixed by IRON MAIDEN and Doug Hall.
81/06/03 - First American gig (Killers US and Canada Tour), Aladdin Hotel,
Las Vegas, NV.
81/06/15 - Purgatory b/w Genghis Khan single released. It eventually got to
#52 on the UK charts, which was (at least until '88) the band's
least sucessful British single ever. The original cover design
for this signle was actually held over for a year, and eventually
used as the cover for THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST album.
81/06/21 - First Canadian gig, first gig in Ontario (Killers US and Canada
Tour), Concert Hall, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. They headlined the
1,500 seater here.
81/06/22 - First gig in Quebec (Killers US and Canada Tour), Le Club,
Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
81/09/06 - First gig in Yugoslavia (Killers Europe Tour), Belgrade,
Yugoslavia.
Sep '81 - Paul Di'Anno quits Maiden, and in comes Bruce Bruce/Air Raid Siren
Dickinson (from Samson). Steve Harris went right to Bruce for the
audition. Bruce was to have learned 6 songs...instead he learned
15. Due to legal problems with the collapse of Samson's record
label GEM Records, Bruce was actually supposedly prohibited by law
in actually writing songs for Maiden for the first year. This is
why the first songwriting credit Bruce gets is on PIECE OF MIND,
1983 with "Revelations", and shares credits on "Flight Of Icarus",
"Die With Your Boots On", and "Sun And Steel".
81/10/26 - Bruce's first gig (the first in a series of "break-in" gigs in
Italy over 5 days) in Palasport, Bologna, Italy. All the gigs
were sold out.
81/11/15 - Bruce's first concert in the UK, at the Rainbow Theatre, London,
England.
Nov '81 - The MAIDEN JAPAN E.P. is released, and climbed as high as #43 on
the UK charts. The US and Brazilian releases had an extra 5th
track, "Wrathchild".
81/12/23 - Maiden plays at the Ruskin Arms, London, England, under the name
Genghis Khan. This is also Dave Murray's birthday, so he gets
the pies in the face (a tradition for the band) on stage.
End '81 - KILLERS had crashed into every major album market in the world,
going top 10 in the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, and
Belgium, and going Top 80 in the USA. In the process it had gone
gold in Britain, Canada, and Japan, and double-gold in France.
Feb '82 - The NUMBER OF THE BEAST is recorded (having been written over Dec
'81 and Jan '82). All kinds of weird shit started happening to
them during these sessions: lights started going on and off in
the studio of their own accord, the recording equipment myster-
iously broke down, things were going 'bump' in the night, specif-
ically the band's gear which began emitting creaks, groans, and
other strange noises; Martin Birch (the albums's producer) crashed
his car on the way to the studio one night, into another driver (a
religious type), and the bill for damages was 666 pounds (he ended
up paying 667). They originally gave themselves 6 weeks to record
it, but it ended up only taking about 3 1/2.
82/02/25 - Beginning of the Beast On The Road tour, Dunstable, England. This
tour upped teh ante to 18 countries and an incredible 180 shows.
82/03/16 - During the gig at City Hall, Newcastle, England, the video for
the "Run To The Hills" single is filmed.
82/03/22 - THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST album is released. The album smashed into
the UK charts at #1 (and stayed there for the 2nd week as well),
and went on to surpass the sales of KILLERS everywhere. It also
reached #33 on the Billboard charts, strutting around the Top 100
for over 8 months, and clocking up sales of well over 350,000 in
the process (which meant worldwide the band had over-taken '81's
impressive sales of over one million as early as summer of '82!)
It also went top ten in Canada, going platinum in the process.
British fans also voted it the #2 Metal LP of all time in KERRANG
magazine less than 2 years later (PIECE OF MIND was #1). The
Japanese also included the song "Total Eclipse".
Mar '82 - Run To The Hills b/w Total Eclipse single released. It eventually
reached #7 on the UK charts, their first ever top ten single
(despite their lack of radio air play). The video the band did
for it with David Mallett featured Maiden live footage inter-
spersed with comic extracts from an old Buster Keaton movie,
though Buster himself couldn't be shown for copyright reasons. It
made TOP OF THE POPS when the single went top ten, and the newly
emergent MTV (which began June? 1981) showed it, too.
Mar? '82 - During the middle of the Beast On The Road tour, and with Run To
The Hills in the top ten, Maiden appears on TISWAS, the classic
Saturday morning TV slapstick show for kids of all ages - where
not even the threat of Eddie could deter the kids from throwing
creme pies at Maiden.
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