Maiden !! Maiden !! Part 1

Ever had a very excited feeling inside your body which is waiting to come out no matter what? It seldom happens with the dreary life that many people lead nowadays! Excitement always causes a person to secrete more and more adrenaline into the body providing the surge of energy that one requires! And believe me, that was what had happened to me while I was standing on the Palace Grounds in Bangalore amongst a stupendous crown rumored to be close to 20000 in number. All bodies on grounds were filled with enough adrenaline to run a marathon! The atmosphere was tingling with excitement waiting for the arrival of Iron Maiden band.

Earlier, on my way to Bangalore by bus, I was accompanied by my room mate and of course there were a score of Maiden fans on the bus too. We did not discuss Maiden on the bus but yeah I was up almost half the night revising the Maiden songs! The fever had had me in its grip!! JJ. Those who are hard core rock fans and those who understand rock would probably understand why people are so crazy about rock concerts. We reached Bangalore in the morning. The show did not start till 5:00 in the evening. So to cut the time, we went off to Brigade road. The fever had also gripped the city. Black t-shirts were seen with maiden prints everywhere. It was like Bangy had gone into mad frenzy about wearing black Maiden t-shirts. We suddenly realize the density of the crowd expected to turn up.

We reached the concert grounds at about 5:00 having left early to beat the traffic which we obviously could not because it’s the Maiden concert!!! First time in India. Bruce Dickinson, the all time favorite vocalist, was coming with the band. Iron Maiden had flown in the entire stage to India. For the record, a similar concert in Rio de Jaineiro, Brazil had over 2 lakh people attending the show. Freaky? Its not! It’s exciting.

Nevertheless, we were right there in the 15^th row from the stage waiting for Maiden to arrive. The opening act was performed by the winners of Campus Rock Idols whose finals were held here in Pune. Next came the famous Indian rock band Parikrama to increase the tempo of excitement. With known numbers like But it rained, they really set the atmosphere for the grand finale. Next came Laren Harris, a big letdown. She did not rock at all but well all was acceptable since Maiden was going to come next.

You would not believe the haze that the cigarette smoke was creating. It is often seen that rock concerts attract a lot of smokers and dopers. But it is not that they are attracted to these concerts. Usually rock idols are heavy smokers, drinkers and dopers which most of the times cause the fans to become one too. For your information, the lead vocalist of System of a Down ( rock bands always have weird names !! J ) spends almost $200 in a day on dope. The person standing next to me was clearing in ecstasy after having smoked away a lot of grass!! And abuses are like the second word that comes out of the mouth while you are there. Interestingly, it was worth noticing that Maiden too uttered a lot of abuses but all is uncensored and allowed since it is Maiden. Imagine one of us uttering any such words in public! Bang!! Indian culture protectionists would appear out of thin air and take you off the stage and file a PIL and whatever that is possible to make you realize that you have made a “great” mistake and a mockery on the “civilized” Indian culture.

Everyone was trying to make some or the other excuses to go one line further to watch Maiden up close. “My friends are standing in the front” or “My girlfriend is shorter in height to be able to see from behind you” were some of the reasons that were heard. Also one more thing that we came to know which was funny was the fact that the train which had arrived that morning ( 17^th March by the way ) , was almost filled with fans wearing black t-shirts. The passengers were literally frightened out of their wits seeing the black colors everywhere ( also the color of conspiracy and unknown ).

And suddenly the lights went out !!!