Too much time on my hands

Spring has turned to summer, we've had the longest day, we're over halfway through the year and the Yard arm has passed the mizzenhead. Or something like that. I should be spending a weekend in a field listening to music and drinking tequila for breakfast.

But I'm not. Not this year. This year might have been my 9th Glastonbury ( and 10 years since my first). But it wasn't. It's certainly the first year I've ever put my work before getting communally muddy. It's also good to have a rest.

So instead I enjoyed the dubious "Jay-Z controversy" and laughed at all the idiots proclaiming Glastonbury to be a 'guitar or rock' festival. They've obviously never made it to the Jazz World stage, or the green fields, or the circus area or wandered around the hybrid city that surrounds the pyramid stage. Perhaps they'd forgotten about the crowds who gather at the Sunday afternoon 'oldies' slot, giving the most rapturous reception to the likes of Dame Shirley Bassey, The Revd Al Green, Rolf Harris or Jimmy Cliff. Perhaps they'd forgotten that Rod Stewart once headlined.

What really made my day was that Noel Gallagher was one of the most vocal opponents of Eavis's plan to hippety up the G-Bury. The man who's band played possibly the worst show I've ever seen at Glastonbury and certainly one of the worst out of all of them. Keeping it real for da kids eh Noel?

There's no doubt that Glastonbury is changing, and that for some the direction is not a popular one. But Glastonbury is always changing, and yet it retains the small town sized muddle of madness drug addled open to all boot camp atmosphere that makes it unique and special amongst festivals. The detractors can rant and rave to their hearts content while they completely miss the point that Glasto is what it is for everyone who wants it to be.

From what little I saw on the tv, it looked like Jay-Z played a blinder.

Anyway. I did manage to spend an evening in the open air watching Radiohead at Victoria Park and enjoyed the mini-festival proceedings for a few hours. For many years Radiohead were a band who sounded better the bigger and more open stage they were on. I can't help feeling though, that with their focus now on the post Kid A years, the music requires a few walls to contain their new darker, urbanised, sound. Still a good show though, and a perfect sound, probably the best I've heard at an outdoor event.

Not so for Iron Maiden's Twickenham show last night where the winds blew guitars all over the place, like Eddie personified as some malevolent force of nature. Much as I hate Twickenham as a venue and its crappy sound, it's good to be able to nip round the corner for a gig and be home by 11 without having to leave early.

I can't imagine there was a great reason to have missed the Powerslave tour first time round. But it was about as magnificent as heavy metal theatre has ever been. Live After Death is one of the few live albums that's worth listening to more than once, as is the concert video (now DVD). The chance to finally get to see a 20 foot zombie mummy Eddie burst through that giant sarcophagus above Nicko's drum riser was to good to miss.

And so here they are, doing the greatest hits of the greatest hits, dusting off some of the old furniture. To the casual observer, participation in Maiden show might look to be somewhat ridiculous. Everyone standing up the moment the PA kicks in, shouting, punching the air, singing along really badly and realising you're only ever going to hit the high notes in Run To The Hills if you let an enraged gibbon work out its frustration on your balls with a pair of pliers and an eagle-eye Action Man. I felt a little out of place just being in the 1% of the crowd who hadn't bought a t-shirt.

But being at a Maiden show, and I have been to my fair share, is not about carefully studying anything other than your neighbour's beer stained armpit. The rules of cool don't apply here, so don't worry; throw them devil horns, and relish in the sheer beauty that so many are still so devoted to taking being silly so seriously. Bruce bounces around the stage like an eccentric English Tigger on a tea high, seemingly physically oblivious to the fact he first played some of these songs over 25 years ago. The rest of the band fulfill all those great rock cliches like throwing shapes, being really good at what they do, playing as hard as they can and making a show of it. They all seem like genuinely decent human beings who have earned their status by playing shit loads of shows, writing shit loads of great tunes, and never really letting it get to their heads.


Backdrops change, lighting rigs drop and tilt, Bruce plays the parts, and Eddie still stalks the stage thank God. It's everything you want from a Maiden show, and it is as marvelously fucking entertaining as it at times absurd. It's not Powerslave 2, more a joyful indulgence that celebrates the good old days without recourse to posthumous navel gazing. It's going to net them huge new bank vaults of wonga, and yet you never feel totally exploited watching those worms drop from Eddie's finger tips, because that's exactly what we came for and how can you be ripped off when they're delivering in spades? Although about that £50 ticket price and shitty sound...