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

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

More Song Stories entries »

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