“Because there’s no such thing as rock stars, there’s just people who play music
And some of them are just like us, and some of them are dicks”
– Frank Turner, Try This at Home
40 years ago today, on May 24th, 1985, Iron Maiden played at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. Accept was the opening band. For me this was a milestone in my life because it was my first concert.
Image from a 2011 show, not the 1985 one.
I loved music. Like, really loved music. I don’t think this was out of the ordinary for a Gen-X teenager, but at that point in my life things had been very unstable for the last few years. The two things I had to cling to were the Islanders being the dominant hockey team of the early 80’s, and music, and by this time the Islanders were in decline. Moving from town to town I got used to not having any lasting friendships, but as I’ve written before, the musicians were my distant companions.
This was long before streaming services made music widely available. You had a handful of albums or cassettes and you played them from beginning to end, over and over, until they wore out and you had to replace them. You learned all of the lyrics. You obsessed over the liner notes. You listened deeply in a way that only a teenager with time on their hands could do, and in a way that is difficult to even comprehend in today’s saturated media environment.
My Dad had just recently purchased our first CD player. He got a Tchaikovsky disc and I got Iron Maiden’s new Powerslave album. We took turns playing them. I listened to that entire album several times a day.
I heard Iron Maiden were coming to town and I managed to get a ticket to the show. I think they were around $15. The day of the show, my Dad dropped me off at the coliseum. Everything was new to me. The crowds, the excitement, the smell of the new concert T-shirts. Accept came out and played, which I enjoyed, but my excitement level was through the roof by the time Iron Maiden came out on stage.
Maiden put on a theatrical show with an intro video, a themed stage set, and giant versions of their mascot, Eddie, in parts of the set. None of it would seem out of the ordinary now, but this was an era when most bands simply went on stage with nothing more than they could fit in the drummer’s van. Iron Maiden definitely brought the music, but they made it into an event. Some dates on this tour were recorded for Iron Maiden’s live album and video called Live After Death, so although it’s a different venue I can still essentially watch my first concert over and over again. This was the height of the bands popularity in the 80’s, and it made a huge impression on me. I was initially disappointed because the music was not as clear as the recordings, but that quickly fell aside as I grew to love the fact that the music was alive, dynamic, and full of an energy and power that no recording could match. I was in love.
By the time my Dad picked me up after the show, the course of my life had changed. Live music became a passion of mine. I went to shows about as often as I could. At that point in my life I couldn’t ask for a better place to be, living just outside of New York City with easy access via public transportation. There were so many shows all the time that it seemed there was little time for anything else. As many great shows as I got to see, I still kick myself over some of the ones I missed.
As much as I’d loved that first show, I saw it alone. I vowed to never go to a show alone again. It’s a vow I kept for almost 20 years until I found myself divorced, but I refused to let that fact get in the way of a good show so I got used to going alone. These days I’d still rather go to a show with someone, but Sue’s tastes and mine don’t always overlap and I’m perfectly happy to go to shows by myself.
By the time I left New York I’d seen over 300 bands. After I moved to Florida I stopped counting. That was 33 years ago. I’ve definitely seen well over 1,000 bands at this point. Even as unpleasant and expensive as TicketBastard can make things in this age I still love live music. It almost doesn’t matter who is playing. If you call me up and say you have a ticket for me, I’ll be there if I can.
One show 40 years ago set me on a lifelong path of seeking out live music. In those years music has been my companion and my lifeline. The pace of shows has slowed down for various reasons in the last few years but I still find great satisfaction in finding a new band that I like, or discovering that a band I didn’t expect much from puts on a hell of a show. It has been such a joy to have music in my life and see so many shows over the years. Now I’m sometimes the weird old dude at a show, but that just means I’m aging properly. Rock on.