Iron Maiden win a Brit Award (2009)

The Fly blog post.

Great Brits

Feb 20 2009 12:57 pm, Joe Shooman

Amidst all the furore of the Brits there was one very significant - and might I add long-overdue – winner. For thirty years this band have consistently sold millions of albums, had top twenty hits and a number one, and toured to ever-expanding venues. Currently they’re packing out stadia in everywhere from Brazil to Bangalore; songwriters and musicians of the highest strata and they deserve every bit of respect we have.

People take the piss out of heavy metal because it is deemed as being faintly ridiculous; overblown guitar riffs, balls-out testosterone, daft hair and axe-weilding goons playing lead lines in harmonised fourths. The material’s epic, sexualised, rampant stuff. It is beyond doubt however that a metal band of the calibre of Iron Maiden in full flow stand alone as masters of their genre. Inheritors of the baton of rock n roll and it’s about time they were recognised properly. They’ve operated outside the establishment for so long that they’ve learned to live without it and although of late the media has softened in their attitude toward the growling roarers, since their heyday in the early-mid 1980s they’ve seen off any number of careers of other, lesser bands, several musical fads and, lest we forget, they've seen off several magazines.

Expect everyone to get on the bandwagon with Maiden from hereon in because with their Brit award they are now 'officially' UK Musical Treasures and they belong to us all. It wasn’t always like that; when Bruce Dickinson left in 1992 to pursue a critically-acclaimed solo career, the band’s time looked to be up. Even more so when grunge took the heavy-guitars-and-ridiculous-clothes mantle up and Steve Harris – driving force and bassist – kept his lads chugging along in the face of falling sales and all-round shrugs. In this dark period for heavy metal, Maiden sputtered along in ever-smaller college-sized venues with Blaze Bayley trying – and failing – to step into the mighty shoes of the impish genius of Bruce Dickinson.

 

Dickinson himself had only joined Maiden after previous vocalist Paul Di’Anno finally went off the rails in a satisfying haze of drug-fuelled mayhem. Dickinson, a history graduate, was probably glad to have shaken off his nickname from one of his previous bands, the also-excellent Samson. To whit: Bruce Bruce. (His girlfriend at the time, somewhat inevitably, came to be called Jane Jane.)

Surprisingly, Bruce rejoined the band in ’99 and their vast albums since then have been more notable for their expansive approach and, let’s face it, Classical Music technique. This is a band who have redefined heavy metal and what it means to be a musician in a rock group. For decades the UK has been ashamed of bands like Maiden, ghettoising them to specialist magazines and 2am rock shows. But now, with the power of the internet, the mobilising forces of the metal community have a more powerful voice than ever before. Or at lelast a more recognised one. This is somewhere that fans don't fall for the passing whim of johnny-come-lately fly-by-night instant gratification pop star faddishness; it's a lifestyle as much as a musical movement.

 

But let’s get one thing straight because it’s important.

Thsese guys didn’t need the acknowledgement or 'validation' of a Brit award because they’ve nothing to prove to anybody. It’s a triumph for metal, sure, but mostly for the influence and creativity and huge respect for their fans that the band themselves have always made central to their approach. Maiden were a great British band for twenty years before this pat-on-the-head was bestowed on them and they will continue to be so no matter how many awards or plaudits come their way. They rock today and they rocked on Tuesday. It’s what they’ve always done. Knighthoods would be more like it.

 

Wonder if Eddie slipped one up Duffy backstage?