Iron Maiden, "Flight 666," and Rock Band: Reaching the Next Generation of Maiden Fans

I hadn't even heard of "Flight 666" and Iron Maiden's Somewhere Back In Time World Tour of 2008 until a few nights ago. My teen sons must have been watching something on VH1 because that was the station the television happened to be on when I turned it on. The first thing I saw was "Flight 666" written across the screen. With all the screaming and cheering, something told me that I was watching a rockumentary.

Ever notice how serendipity sometimes steps in and puts you in the right place at the right time? I immediately put the remote down and watched Iron Maiden's latest addition to the annals of heavy metal.

During the commercials, VH1 interspersed ads for the "Flight 666" DVD and the upcoming (June 9) availability of 12 Iron Maiden songs for download for the video game Rock Band. The tie-in was that some of the songs (four of them) were recorded live and were shown in the footage on "Flight 666."

Iron Maiden songs on video games are nothing new. However, dropping twelve songs at one time for them certainly is. The songs are available as an "Iron Maiden Pack" for both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. They're also available as downloadable singles for Xbox, Playstation, and Wii.

I remember the first time ever I saw an Iron Maiden album. I thought the walking desiccated corpse with the smoking gun on the cover was cool (and I still do). I thought the bent-syringe lamp post was intriguing as well. "Killers." Iron Maiden. I liked the sound of that, but I passed on buying it at the time, intent on buying something else. I wouldn't hear that album for years. In fact, I would not hear my first Iron Maiden song, "Number of the Beast," for another year. And if memory serves, "Run To The Hills" was the first Iron Maiden video this writer ever saw. Both songs are among the twelve downloads.

I bought 1983's "Piece of Mind" the first day it was available in the record store I frequented, having already heard the powerful "Flight of Icarus." I thought "The Trooper" was one of the most kick-ass tunes I'd ever heard. It is also one of the downloads for Rock Band.

I was hooked. "Powerslave," "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son," "Somewhere In Time" and others followed over the years and I bought them all, even went back and picked up Iron Maiden's first two albums as well. A fan of the guitar, Iron Maiden's guitar-driven heavy metal sound was right up my alley. Bruce Dickerson's rough howl was just menacing enough to tell the stories effectively that Steve Harris, bassist, penned for the band.

My collection of Iron Maiden albums, not to mention getting CD copies of the vinyl albums I already owned, is one of the reasons Iron Maiden has sold over 75 million albums over the years. Watching them fill up stadiums around the world and playing to hundreds of thousands in Brazil alone, one also realizes that there are Maiden fans just as dedicated to the band as the fans of the Rolling Stones.

Iron Maiden, at least for this writer, is exactly what heavy metal is supposed to be. Period. Fast, driving guitars and a pounding rhythm section. Throw in some well written lyrics, such as in "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," a musical translation of Samuel Coleridge's classic poem, and you have one of the greatest -- and unique -- sounds in music.

"Flight 666" was released the last week of May. It chronicles the movement of the band on their last world tour in 2008. Outfitting a 757 and painting a picture of "Eddie" (the desiccated walking skeleton that is their mascot) on the tail, Iron Maiden dubbed their tour plane "Ed Force One" and began flying the band, their equipment, the stage props, the roadies, and everything else they needed to their shows around the globe. Not sure if they could even get the plane off the ground at first, "Flight 666" shows the band's triumphant resurrection of their stage shows from their 1980's with an emphasis on their World Slavery Tour (in support of 1984's "Powerslave"), which the band wanted to do to give the younger audience a feel for what their concerts were like two decades ago. It seems that everywhere they went, the crowds just kept getting larger. Just to make the rockumentary a bit more interesting, Bruce Dickerson, lead singer and Olympic fencer, flew the plane.

Not too bad for a band that has been around since 1975.

"Flight 666" won the SXSW "24 Beats Per Minute" rock documentary award in 2009. Their live shows also garnered them a BRIT Award in 2009 for Best British Live Act.

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Sources:

"Flight 666," VH1 Television

IronMaiden.com