Iron Maiden Go "Back in Time" in NYC: A Full Report, By the Numbers

Relying exclusively on 20-year-old tunes would typically be the sign of a band throwing in the towel, but Iron Maiden's Somewhere Back in Time tour is more like a band chewing up its own history and spitting it out for two solid hours. As a sort of make-up for the last tour, when the band played its latest slow jamz-laden album, A Matter of Life and Death, in its entirety, last night's show at New York's Madison Square Garden was all Eighties, all the time (fine, one song from 1992). The band sprinted out like a bunch of teenagers to open with a searing "Aces High," and frontman/band pilot Bruce Dickinson nailed every note with his storied air raid siren voice sounding no worse for the wear. Below, a scientific statistical roundup of the evening's festivities:

"Scream for me, New York City" entreaties: 13
Cheapest T-shirt: $35
Percentage of the audience ignoring the PCU "don't be that guy" rule and wearing an Iron Maiden shirt: >30%
Band members also breaking the rule: 2
Onstage soccer games during technical delays: 1
Combined ages of band members: 310
Appearances by Eddie, the band's 20-foot-tall zombie/mummy/cyborg mascot: 2
Instances of Spinal Tap-style gunning down of the audience with guitars: 3
Minimum amount of minutes Bruce Dickinson spent talking: 15
Better closing songs besides "Hallowed Be Thy Name": 0
The number of the beast: 666

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Song Stories

“Is It True”

Brenda Lee | 1964

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."

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