The Salvation: Somewhere back in time.

I have never witnessed so many mood swings in single day or it looked like a single day from 13th of feb to 17th of feb. I had witnessed pre-gig anxiety and then I am having post-gig depression, they ain't just terms, I can really feel them . There are no real words, I know of, which can describe this state of mind, the level of entropy is highest, I am questioning every action of mine, the futility of everything is so apparent. I am incoherent and clueless, feeling as if I am killed. I am unsatisfied, cold and hungry for more.
This is damn third time, I am seeing IRON MAIDEN live, but I don't feel that I had enough. First time they played a good number of songs; Second time, they played 16 killer songs and they annihilated anything and everything that was under the influence of that thing called "IRON MAIDEN". I thought then, it was the best, I ever had. But this time, they were more murderous and to add to it there was an AWE FUCKING SOME crowd of Banglore. Fuck, I love the metal crowd of b'lore so much , I wish I could carry them along with me everywhere.
Unlike B'bay, there were no shitty-bang-bangers in the crowd of b'lore, so this time I have nothing to curse. This time, I have seen devotion at one of its best.

I will no more detail on stupid journey, I would rather focus on things that really matter in this mindset. So, the previous evening, I went to styx. This time late night, and the crowd was fucking amazing. Ladies and gentlemen let me declare a proclamation in the history of Indian metal, "styx is the best metal pub in country, unexceptionally". I happen to met two Sri-Lankan guys, who wanted me to join their band, but I am untalented so I can't contribute to their music, but I told them that I will support them as a fan. So when in styx, you ought to pay homage to gods, how? its simple, Scream! sing! headbang! or simply go round and round crazily!!! They were playing things like Amon Amarth, Satyricon, Kreator and when they played Sepultura's territory, FUCK FUCK FUCK, every single soul was headbanging, the energy level had tripled, It can't get any more insane. Every maiden track played in Styx was preparing a ground for the Mayhem, that is to take place the next day in palace grounds.

Third visit to palace ground, I still had those butterflies in my stomach. I sometimes act so weird, I thought what if we lose the tickets? that was so paranoid. I felt relieved once we entered inside. The setup was same as it was during Megadeth concert, except for the force one machine, which I really was not interested in seeing.
As we entered some band was playing, probably synaps or kryptos, I didn't bother much to notice them, because I was in a different kind of trance. While some folks were busy getting booze, I was looking around for fellow devotees and music merchandise. We finally entered the gig area, on the smaller stage De profundis, one of the band from UK were playing. The band was pretty tight and they put on the good show. I was not very conversant with their music, but it had elements of symphonic black metal and thrash. Vocalist and drummer, were two of my favourite members. We went out again and had some chit chat and looking around for jaw drooping beauties, with fags in their hands. Now Ms Lauren Harris was performing, I don't want to curse her, but she should not play in Metal concert. I know she is an honest artist, but with so many lunches on her daddy's pocket, she should stand on her own, now. We didn't bother to hear her anyway. Next in line was Ashley and the silver bug from Italia. I have a piece of advice for them, instead of focusing on those skinny dresses and all those sensual theatrics, I would have liked, if, they have put on some good music. Mr. Ashley, all that sensual dance was not quite apt, I mean you don't have that level, where u can do whatever you want, Sorry! but, you are not Rammstein.
Parakrima performed next, they were tight as ever, they performed pretty well minus that violin thingy,which i don't like, appears more like a gimmick. Anyway Nitin malik is kind of frontman I love most, his vocals resembles to Bon scott and he is full of humility. He is a popular man in rock circles in India, but still he chants "maiden" with same enthusiasm as any metal head would do. Now crowds were getting really really impatient, so Parakrima performed just one more single and they left with the chants, Crowd was roaring with "MAIDEN" "MAIDEN" , every'damn'where.
The anxiety was growing on me, as the stage and setup is getting ready, Maiden tend to take their own time, which drives me crazy. I can't, I really can't wait. While I was waiting for the ground lights to go off, those DNA folks played some lame tricks by playing some songs with full sound.
Finally they lifted the veils and the intro played, Jesus Christ! the all new intro with "Transylvania", the roars went loud, louder and loudest. Everyone knew, what is coming. As soon it stopped, the next throat slicer came down, "Aces high", Drums shaped as before, Nico Macbrain were beating snares violently, but with out any signs of effort. Bruce came running wearing same pants with those small patches, he wore in live after death. "Rolling, turning, diving, going in again Run, live to fly, fly to live, do or die", I almost felt like somebody has stopped all oxygen. Even before I can "phew", they started next riff, Dave Murray was on the killing spree, the same mild smile, the brutality was evident.... I screamed my lungs out "2 minutes to midnight The hands that threaten doom". I love Bruce, when he asks for 'SCREAM FOR ME BANGLO', the decibel level reached the new high, Bruce goes again SCREAM FOR ME BANGLO, this time previous record is broken. I had never seen Adrian with two pronged guitar, I was in surprise, what is to came, and I now seek apologies to my lord Maidens for being hazy with this track due to my own preconceived assumptions. They played wrathchild,which I was not able to participate, due to fatigue and lack of cognizance. Oh holy devil, I felt like such a sinner. Bruce started talking now, making some witty remarks. He told crowd that they were about to bring pyro techniques, to which crowd responded madly, then he told Indian laws doesn't allow that, I was like "fuck the bloody authorities". Next came the surprise number in form of "Children of the damned" It was hurled across me with such a force that I never came out of it. Next leads were started by Janick Gers, I had heard this one live once before, but in Paul Di'ano concert, who originally sang phantom of the opera. I banged my head left-right, up-down round and round, each note was hitting my nerves, I had a certain numbness when that triple lead by Dave, Janick and Adrian hit me.
The red uniform and fluttering of Union Jack and the back ground of The trooper, "You'll take my life but i'll take yours too". Bruce threw Union jack, this time two of them one after the other, crowd howled again. As if we didn't had enough, Bruce appeared in Nordic mask, the background changed to Eddie faced Sphinx. Power slave, whose lyrics are really hard to grab, but crowd thoroughly enjoyed. Steve Harris was shooting with his guitars, impact of bullets from his guns were right on the chest, I bowed down to him in order to express my gratitude for all that he has accomplished as the band leader and a great musician.
Then Bruce started talking about Nature and human, I fucking knew its time for "the rime of ancient Mariner", he told us to go and get some Samosas and break this is going to be a long 13 minutes song, I fucking said "NO, Bruce we are bloody here just for you". So as he says Samuel Coleridge's Rime of ancient mariner, there was echo back from my throat. The background changed to the fallen ship, Bruce appeared with black winged dress. 13 greatest minutes of my life, euphoria, ecstasy, second fucking time, I am listening one of the greatest songs of all times. "water water water everywhere, nor a drop to drink". God forbid the time to move on, I want to stay here, forever.
Before next track crowd were chanting "maiden" "maiden" so loud for almost 2 minutes, Bruce has to sit down and wait and when he asked "is that all", I almost said, "No", "maiden" "maiden" all again. He now talks about his love for India and he tell about the interview he was to give on "why people love Iron Maiden so much in India?", I wish I could have told him that its not jut love, but people worship Iron Maidens here.
So this time you better run for your life, run to the hills because white man has come across the sea and conquered our hearts.... This time Dave was playing with guitar around his body and smiling as ever.
There were no overture, there were no introduction, the first cymbal beat, fuck, Dave on spree again, The hand goes in the air, Maidens have that magic, "ho ho ho ho", this time crowd sings in chorus, entire Palace ground was singing. As the first lead approaches, the crowd goes completely nuts, every starts jumping, everyone is shifted 4-5 feet from their places. Bruce sings "Fear of the dark" and gives that hysteric laughter, Steve Harris is jumping and running here and there with his guitar. The crowd goes again "ho ho ho ho ho", everyone sings "fear of the dark". When the song reached its end, I was dumbstruck in utter awe. I felt like crying. Even before I could have controlled my self, there came the same chime, the same drum, the same lead by Dave, FUCK! FUCK!! FUCK!!!, the crowd started spreading itself for the moshing and head banging. It was getting more and more wilder, Everyone was singing in unison "I am waiting in my cold cell, when the bell begins to chime", when Bruce gave that last scream, everyone was jumping and headbanging, I was not expecting that kind of mayhem. I kept banging my head until I had a sudden jerk in my head, which looked like a pulled muscle, I was horrified, I wont be able to headbang any more. But I collected my self back and went on. For the first time I have ever seen Dave Murray splitting his legs while playing guitar. The song left me sore, my neck in utter pain, my head was blasting with shooting pain.
For next song "Iron maiden", I couldn't do much of those rituals, I was standing watching Janick gers doing that Angus young type duck walk, which looked a little funny on him. "See the blood flow watching it shed up above my head. Iron Maiden wants you for dead"; Come and get me lords, I am all yours.
Bruce started thanking and saying we love you all, I felt lightening-struck, I said "that's it???". The crowd encored Louder and Louder "more!" "more!!", "Maiden" "Maiden", restlessness was growing on me.
They returned back with the "number of the beast", Adrian smith went on rampage with leads and then Janick gers were displaying all sorts of theatrics with guitar; throwing it up in air, then circling around with guitar very very violently. "666" was in air, I can feel that number around. The song finished with some smoke kind of thing coming out from the some vents in the stage, that looked so damn amazing. The next number was "The evil that man do", to which crowd responded so damn well. 12 feet live EDDIE was walking on the stage, and he was hitting the guitar of Janick gers, then he was shooting Steve with his gun and while leaving he was jerking off, HAA HAA!!! For the last song, I again went blank, because of same stupid dumb reason, I felt like a sinner, again, they played "sanctuary", which I have heard only very few times. The song was stopped in between and Bruce started talking about the Iron maiden movie "Flight 666", he said that there is going to be loads of India in that movie. then the song resumed. As the song stopped they started thanking and all and they said they will come again next year with all new studio album. Then Janick pretended to throw the guitar towards audience, which he never did, lol. I felt like my pulses has stopped, how come they can leave so early??? I wanted more, there was huge bloodlust. My entire body felt so heavy when I was moving my steps out towards exit, I knew, they wont come back. I felt like drained and left in wilderness, all dry and alone, oh Gawd! they should have played atleast two more songs. But I later realized that they have played almost same number of songs, but my appetite has grown too much for metal. I donno how to finish this write-up, I am so dazed right now, All I can say "UP the IRONS", thou are my lord, I thank thee for all the great music thy hath created(RESPECT \m/)

Somewhere back in time: THE PLIGRIMAGE

I won't write this one with sapota, my alter ego is too minuscule, when you are talking something as Juggernaut as IRON MAIDENS themselves. There are times in life, when death seems bigger than life and Iron maiden are the masters of death. These are those moments where you think life is worth being given away. Nothing could be bigger or better than this, Insane bliss served in a plate in front of your own eyes. Although I have seen Maidens before, but trust me this one was Mightier and this time they were IRON MAIDEN to the core and they were in groove, and when Maidens are in groove they are merciless and ruthless. I am still in that mist around me, which is revolving round my head and everything seems repeating somewhere on a faded screen.

There are times when your patience has gone for a toss, your cool quotient goes into negativity and anxiety takes you over. I don't have tickets with me and I was waiting for my friend, who ought to have tickets(Thank you Raseel for the tickets and for the great company), my mind was making all forms of stories of mishaps happening around me and me missing the show. Today no hottie could have taken my attention away, I was just in the mood of being drowned in that flood of blood. I saw all forms of devotees wearing all forms of weirdest clothing(I would rather say they were hip and cool.) one can imagine, all possible rock band T-shirts and all Iron Maiden T-shirts manufactured till date.Unlike last time we didn't go inside to see that torture called as Lauren Harris and we even didn't go to see Parikrima, we just waited them to finish. I would say this has saved a loads of torture we suffered last year.

Bombay is not usually cold or something, but this time it was colder and wind was blowing, but inside with strong audience it didn't felt that much. Stage was dark and some veil was covering Maiden art, but it was mostly visible because of the that useless veil. Suddenly they played some song with initial drum thumping, people started shouting and all, thinking it was Maiden, but sooner everyone starting swearing for creating this false drama. Inception of gods is always wonderful and when you know they are here, you are awe-stuck. Two giant screen, both showing video of fighter planes from world war 2 and damn it, you this goddamn riff, Oh Mah Fuking God this is "ACES HIGH", Gods are here; As soon as lights are switched on you see Bruce running here and there madly, Crowd roar in joy, jumping, head banging , air guitaring, all devotees are offering their initial offerings to the deities. I can't believe my eyes all KNIGHTS of metal there standing right in front of my eyes, second time; my joy has multiplied more times than i can count. Before you can think anything, here comes another killer "2 minutes to midnight", Oh my god, entire band is standing lined up and playing it in killer fashion, flawlessly. After the song Bruce starts talking, you love him when he talks, what a frontman!!! His first sentence is "How are you Mumbai?" and audience screams madly. Then he takes out his cap and while rubbing his hairs he says something to which audience laughs hard. Bruce Dickinson is known for his fantastic English sense of humor in which he mixes audience pretty well. This time Bruce was wearing some short jacket over some shirt or something and wearing a trouser with many patched pieces of cloth like leaves on a tree; this reminds me of one of the greatest maiden concert live after death, in fact "Somewhere back in time" was no lesser. The next song which they played was "Revelation", Oh my fucking lord please have mercy on my soul, I could not recognize this one and felt like killing my self for this grave sin. In fact not much were able to recognize it either, I began to understand that this time Maidens are on killing spree and playlist is going to be insane. In between the song Bruce raised his hands to indicate something, I don't know what am i suppose to do, I have never seen this song live before. not just me but entire crowd was lost, none of them were familiar with this one. Next song was Tropper and Bruce was running maddly with Union Jack, waving it all across and singing on the raised thin platform on the stage. He did one insane thing this time, he threw union jack across the stage and it stuck as if were suppose to be held there. One funny incident happened that the flag got stuck somewhere and it got torn, but Bruce is smart enough, he managed it pretty well. Now here came his Signature cry " SCREAM FOR ME MUMBAI" , with all my might and force I screamed madly and so did everyone. Then he started making some English jokes and crowd looked here and there, since they seemed least familiar with english humor.
Next came "run to the hills" and "number of beast" in a row my heart sank with joy. In between you can see Janick Gers moving guitar around his body insanely, Oh man what a site. Next Bruce came with a large mask, he looked like some prehistoric nordic creature, he sung Powerslave entirely with that mask on. Now he started talking about this tour and his love with India and a city called as Bombay, which he read in some book. Finally he said that next song is about a bird and is an old song and then he gave many hints, I knew that rime of ancient mariner is coming, Bruce came with bird like attire, I always wished to see this song live and this was like living in an intoxicated dream. Since it is a very long song and in-between this song literally stops and then some small leads and riffs plays for few seconds, crowd thought the song is finished, I thought "what the fuck!!!! what a fucking bunch of posers are here", they did not know this song??? anyway the song picked again and this time Andrain smith played some face melting solo. Next came Moonchild, the beginning of this song is awesome with Dave Murray opening song with acoustic guitar, "Seven deadly sins Seven ways to win Seven holy paths to hell And your trip begins Seven downward slopes Seven bloodied hopes Seven a re your burning fires Seven your desires". Bruce finished this song with his killer high note scream hitting fourth octave. Now he talks about wasted time and all and made a clear inception of Wasted Years. Next came this song which leaves people perplexed "Iron maiden cant be faught, Iron maiden cant be sought. Oh well, wherever, wherever you are, Iron maidens gonna get you, no matter how far. See the blood flow watching it shed up above my head. Iron maiden wants you for dead. " How fucking true, I wanted to offer my heart taken out with my own hands for such a great song, Thank you Maidens. This song is simple song but with Powerful operatic Vocals of Bruce Dickinson, song reaches its peak. They said we are leaving and you want us next year, I thought this is time for an encore, but sad enough Bombay fans were fucking lame, they don't know how to greet the Holy Maiden, bloody filthy wannabes, knows nothing about metal concerts and Eddfest rituals. And some one from crowd shouted "want my money back", I thought how dare you "fucking dirty slimy motherfucking son of a stinking whore" dishonor the GREATEST HEAVY METAL Act on the planet. I just wanted to chop of his balls and mince them and mix with blood from his dick and feed it to dirty swines.
Anyway, Maiden came back and this time they had come to give an ultra fatal dose of what is going to pop your eyes out. They started with Clairvoyant, Raseel went mad at this song, he almost felt like crying, man what a riff, Steve Harris was using his Bass guitar as Machine gun killing everyone in crowd, I stretched my hands and bow before him. Eddie came in between doing some tricks with Andrian Smith, wow!!! a 10 feet tall live Eddie. Then came this sublime and clean stick work of Nicko McBrain, Jesus christ!!! this is it!!! "The fear of the dark", the hand goes automatically in the air "ho ho ho ho" and then that killer lead you just start jumping and head banging. Bruce pushed it little higher with that typical Devilish laughter, I was mad in frenzy, what a vocalist. Next number was still a madder one, "Can I play with madness" , Oh God, I am still playing with it. Then Bruce started introduction asking some one from crowd his name, then he said every one can't be introduced, so he said all of you are maiden fans, and he introduced all band members one by one and finally himself. Then came the moment everyone waits for when Maidens are playing, "Hallowed be thy Name". Dave Murray played killer lead with his cute smile and effortless finger motion on his guitar. My neck was aching with whiplash, my throat was hoarse, my feets were killing me, but I sang and banged my head, both my hands raised in honor of gods. I sang and banged throughout the song as if it will never happen again. The concert came to end with band members throwing drum pads to audience and Adrian Smith doing acrobatics with his guitar madly. Oh Holy Goodness!!! what a concert ! I am in eternal bliss, I want to cry my heart out, I want to kneel on my knees and thank the beast for all its brutality. As my feet started moving towards the gate, I feel a heaviness, I am undergoing a trauma, a pain and a pleasure of memories, I am heavily under Post Gig Depression, I have no cure for this one. I am just waiting to some more heavy shit in near future to get out of this depression.

MetalHead's Pligrimage to EDDFest.

Before i start anything, some terms need to be explained.

MetalHead: Metal head is a person, who listens to excessive Metal and considers Headbanging a religious practice. He goes to all gigs and rock concerts and headbangs and shows devil's horn, if he likes something or the middle finger otherwise.
Metal: Metal is a subgenre of rock music, which has very heavy guitaring and drumming and sounds like if some metal is being thrashed ruthlessly.
EDDFest: I can write and entire blog on Iron Maiden, but will explain briefly. Iron Maiden's Mascot is called Eddie or Ed Harris or Ed Hunter, so the rock festival in which Iron Maiden Performs is called EDDFest.

So here i begin. This was around 01:00 hrs at very-commonly-visited Pune Railway station , which needs no description, as there is nothing much about it. All three of us were dressed in black, as part of tradition of visiting a rock concert. We were have same bakarchodee and we were laughing(can call it roaring) like mad men on all kinds of weird jokes, till the train arrived. No, the bakarchodee didn't stopped in train for next one hour, and we were bothering people inside the bogie. As soon as, we settled down we noticed people around us were more wierder, dressed fatally and much more deadly, it took us less than a blink to understand that these are those metalheads and according to me all devotees, who were going to pay visit to thier deities. Somehow we managed to sleep. Next day, the day was boring, three biggest bakarchod of all times(this is no exaggeration) were silent and saying only things, which were barely necessary. Besides us were sitting two bengali guys and with thier getup it was mostly confirmed, that they are also devotees like us. By night 22:30 hrs we managed to reach Bangl00r00 cit. I called up deeban to ask him the address. The autowallah left us at some Mantri Elegance instead of Mantri Elite, so we have to walk, in the mean time Deeban has a chance to call Surender and do some bakarchodee(man, Deeban is again one of the biggest bakarchod of all time). By the time we reached Mantri elite, Deeban thought we have been robbed by autowallah and he posted the news on the network, which we knew.... we have to explain to everyone as to what really happened. So here we reached Elite, Man Deeban is a lucky bastard, he lives in the palatial comfort with all luxuries at his disposal. Gupta had a sore throat(okay, this is one of the reasons we had a quiet journey), so he went down to sleep. Deeban and Rajjo are old chums, so they were having bakarchodee for long, i joined them for quite some time, but after some time i also surrendered myself infront of the Mighty Sleep. Later Morning we had a grand Break fast, courtesy Deeban. Then we headed to Styx(pronouced as sticks), this is the best rock pub in the country, no competitions, hands down.
As we entered we saw many devotees, you won't believe me but 12:00 hrs in the afternoon and pub was full, and as then they played maiden, man the crowd went mad. Then they played "I disappear" by Metallica, "PainKille"r by Judas, "Symphony of Destruction" by Megadeath and "Master's of the puppet " by Metallica, Oh my gawd ! people were singing, headbanging and shouting, it appeared as if reahersal for the concert is going on. Then i noticed the Bengali dude of train with a real real hawt bong babe, all of us had our mouth open wide for a long time, until she realized that we all are staring her. We finished our drinks at styx and headed for domino's. Then we next went to YeswanthPur Railway station to put our bags at cloak room but to my greatest suprise they keep bags only upto 20:00 hrs, I said WTF man! We then headed to the sacred place, which was called Palace grounds. As we were about to enter the ground, the security asked us to take out our concert passes, Gupta shouted "Sir, I have lost my pass", Holy Christ Man! WTF! how can you fuckin lose the pass. I was mad, Rajjo was sad and Gupta, he started running back to locate the pass. God of Rock were favoring us, Gupta got the pass, I felt like tears in my eyes and wanted to slap him really hard. Then I and Rajjo had a great opportunity to fuck the Mighty Untamable Bakarchod Gupta, which we utilized to the fullest. We entered the Palace Grounds, it was ram packed with 20,000 strong crowd, full of people like us, it was scorching heat all over, sun was showing no mercy on the devotees, "but no one can deter us from doing what we believe", i suppose was the answers to every problem that stood infront of us.

After waiting for 1 and half hour in the heat, FTN appeared on the stage, crowd has some sigh of relief and every one started screaming and shouting. I saw 5 Delhi dudes, too young, full of energy, highly talented on the staged. The lead vocalist was very charismatic-on-stage and carries persona to control crowd. So he started with chants of "Maiden" and you can see the chants of "MAIDEN" everywhere. But this time FTN was sounding very bad, I think they didn't had sound check or something, but were sounding pathetic. In Pune they controlled, in fact owned the crowd, but they had little or in fact zero luck in Bangl00r00. There is a difference between an International Rock concert and Campus level rock competition, which was apparent here. The crowd in Pune at campus rock idol were college crowd, most of them were nu-metal listeners and loved "throats", very much and were there to do mosh pitting, without understanding much of music, but here in B'lore the crowd was much more mature and were listening to Maidens for long time and in short most of them were true rock devotees. Coming back to FTN, they made biggest mistake of starting with thier originals, as crowd had zero interest in listening nu-metal and gothic, so they were shown middle finger, FTN subsequently got raped liked anything. At last, they tried to sing Korn, but till that time crowd was killing them and were hardly listening. So FTN had to leave the stage like losers.
Next came Parikrama, they were sounding too good, clear and loud, which made me realized FTN were bad. Parikrama's Lead vocalist sounded like ACDC lead vocals Bon Scott, he made remarks like "This is the greatest day of his life" (to which i agree whole heartedly) and Chanted "Maiden" for some time. They played some of thier OC's which were pretty awesome. Then the band's Violinist played mostly same stuff with different speed, so the crowd went mad about the voilinist, as if he is some jimi hendrix of voilin. According to me, he sucked a big time, if you had heard a full time violinist, you will understand, what i meant, in country like India you will find violinst better than him in circuses, and if I talk class, then the classical musician who plays violin, are so good that violin starts singing by itself(okay that was a hyperbole). But , here the crowd was all metal people, so to them voilin was new and they thought it was simply too good. Anyway Parikrama finished with huge applause. They were indeed, very good.

Next came Lauren Harris Daughter of Steve Harris(i will revert back to him a little later), she was a real Hawt Babe, one worth watching English Beauty. But the songs she sang were totally out of sync with what crowd were here to listen, she was singing some alternative or pop rock or i donno what? But no body like it. Mind it, in India Metal fans are very explicit on expressing thier opinion and don't give a damn who it is?
So one can hear the chanting of "U Suck" and middle finger in the air, but she thought that all the shouting was applause, so she sang another 5-6 songs. Holy Christ, we were feeling like being killed. The wind was not blowing at all, people were standing too close to each other, i really felt the lack of oxygen and had to breathe with my mouth facing towards sky, dope and smoke was in the air, some of the girls started fanting and my feets were aching as if they will kill me. Rajjo and Gupta were in similiar state and we were thinking to leave the goddamn concert. Somehow Lauren finished, when she was leaving, i thanked god for having mercy on us.

Stage was all dark, revered silence all over, we we sweating, feeling like being screwed for nothing. suddenly i noticed drums were being beaten like military parade. I knew this is the time............ this is nobody else other that Nicko McBrain. Holy christ man!!!! i saw the drum set appeared like eddies' face and then i saw picture of Eddie in the Tank. Here was the band. Crowd went mad, people were shouting screaming and chanting "Maidens!!!" "Maidens!!!" all over. Iron Maidens and MegaDeth are probably the biggest and most repected name among the metal lovers in India(I am not talking about all those kids, who love alternative and punk). They are the pioneers of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, in my words they are the gods of NWOBHM. I saw five English Gentlemen standing like mighty knights. The first one who got attention was off course, Bruce Dickinson, the great operatic singer, whose voice has given greatest edge to Maidens. Second person whom i noticed was Steve "The Eddie" Harris, one of the most repected man in the history of rock, the man behind the band, one of the greatest bassist ever, along with all this he is the main songwriter and composer for the band. He was wearing his trademark 3/4th and his fingers were so fast on the guitar that you can not see them. I was too too happy to see him.
Bruce started singing "different world" form new album a matter of life and death and on the screen above them, they displayed tank and eddie look-alikes, while singing Bruce was running here and there and Dave Murray and Andrain Smith were standing together and holding the guitar like a gun and were shooting towards crowd. Man! what an awesome site was that. Then they sang "colors don't run" and "incarcination of Benamin Breeg", the crowd was humming the tunes. Bruce started talking now and when he said in his typical british accent "scream for me, banglo' '', crowd was shouting at the peak of their voice. Then the light went out and the next song was "The number of the beast", oh man! i had goose bumps all over my body. While he sang tropper, Bruce was wearing a red coat and waving Union Jack, then he sang "run to the hills" and then he sang "Iron maiden", which i didn't like since Bruce has totally different way of singing song, whereas that song was sung by Paul Diano originally. Suddenly lights were off, drum was sounding like i have heard thousands times before and crowd started waving thier hands in the air and sound of the "Ho ho ho ho ho!!!" was in the air. This was "FEAR of the Dark", crowd went berserk, absolutely crazy as Bruce started singing. This was the moment i was here for, i was jumping and singing. Everyone else was also jumping and i was pushed by the wave of people, which came from behind. Afterwards it was difficult to even breathe, everywhere you see people falling on each other and some trying to survive. As Bruce laughed in his Devilish way, i felt a wave of happiness in me. After this song he sang one more song form new album and one or two more song, after which they have shown the tank on the stage and Dave Murray was moving guitar all over his body insanely. Then Bruce made an announcement "we will come back again" and he said "you don't have to wait for 17 years". We thought it is over, with heavy feets we started walking toward the exit. But the crowd was not in mood for such a small exit, so they shouted "we want more". After sometimes, they all appeared back, I said "yes". They then played "evil that man do" and "2 minutes to midnite", then they brought a huge Edie on stage, who was dressed as a tropper and his eyes were glowing dark red. Finally they sang the greatest song ever by Maiden - " Hallowed be thy name". This song is one song which all Maiden fan loves and considers it to be sacred. So here everyone was singing with them and i was banging my head, throughout the song as a symbol of my repect to the band.
Those moments were most precious moments to me. I wanted to keep listening to them live for as long as possible.I heard that many people were in tears, some of them bowed to Maiden on thier knees, I know this sounds insane but for Maiden people can do that.

Well we were here on Yeswanthpur station, tired like anything and struggling for sleep. Somehow(God knows how), We left the B'lore with a sigh of relief, but the next day was hot and we were feeling like dirty pigs and were totally dehydrated. By now Gupta has regained his powers, so we were having good bakarchodee sessions one after the other. I was in utterly bad shape, but then i remembered my last B'lore trip, where i have travel on the bonnet(or whatever is the right word) of the bus, so i thanked god for all that he has blessed us with. Finally we reached Pune, with memories that will remain, throughout my life.
I know that the day when Metallica will turn up to India, i will be mad and will be more happier than this, but as for now, i am very much contended.