Iron Maiden 7/21/99
Nautica Stage Cleveland, OH July 21st
It starts off early at the hotel. It is around 2pm Eastern Time and my brother and I had just arrived 2 hours ago and we were waiting to check into our room. All of a sudden a long black van pulls up and out comes Janick and Dave plus some other guys. I was standing next to Janick so I decided to say Hi. He was super nice. We chatted about how the tours going and about how the shows went without Adrian. I then made my way over to Dave and he spoke about a different energy with Bruce than with Blaze. He also said that he beloved strat that he used up until 1990 was laid to rest. Dave was also quite cool. While I was talking to the guys my brother was speaking with Steve Lazarus who was also trying to get their rooms. He was most upset about the delay and was even more when they found out that the Hotel was performing early morning repairs (they had off the next day, so I imagine they did not want to be disturbed). So I had checked into my room and come to find out that the rest of the guys went to another hotel. Come to find out later that, as I was talking with Bruce on the phone, Nicko refused to stay there with all of the noise.

On to the show, the first band Clutch was not good. During Monster Magnet all I could hear were constant obscenities and when I did the music it was awful, however I did not see any of their show as I was waiting to go the meet and greet. Maiden was to go on at 9:10pm and the meet and greet started at 8:20. The big problem was that the meet and is meant for 20-30 people but in this case it was 120 people. So, Nicko, Bruce, Steve & Adrian came out all of which I took pictures with and hope to have them up soon. They were all real nice but I think Nicko was the most up beat. Rod came out at 8:40 and notified the meet and greeters that this would have to end. He apologized and said this was too big and did not know who set this up. He did take a couple of pictures and said they would be on the web site. I was in one of them.

The energy that was building was intense. As soon as the Churchill speech started it was nuts. There were 4,500 people packed into this out door venue. It was a great show with average sound. They could not have the complete stage and pyro due to the size of the venue, but it was still magical. They played the same set minus "Stranger in a Strange Land." I was a bit disappointed they did not play that. The Blaze songs sound pretty good but maybe with better sound they would have sounded better. The low point of the show was "2 Minutes to Midnight." Bruce had already asked people not to throw their drinks on stage but at the start of the song, Bruce got pissed after someone threw another drink on stage and verbally abused someone. He did not start singing until the chorus, which I must say he did not miss a beat and came in with out a hitch. Steve was also hit and did not play until the chorus. He was noticeably irate and made several non-friendly gestures to the fan. Bruce did mange to say Scream from Me Long Beach then said something to the affect of where am I, Cleveland. Scream for me Cleveland. The band did make a couple of mistakes but nothing the average fan could tell. The duel solos by Adrian and Janick were pretty cool and the three part harmonies turned out great and Adrian does play a good part of the show down tuned. It's hard to say what the highlight of the show was. There were so many. "Powerslave" was pretty cool with the fire and the mask. "Aces High" was a great opener and "Run to the Hills" was a great choice for a grand finale.

All said, the trip from Virginia to Cleveland was well worth the expense. I was able to meet a couple fans of my web, Chris Reidy and another person whose name escapes me at the moment. They both were great guys and I enjoyed meeting some fans of Maiden and of my site. I did also take some pictures of the show and hope to have them up very soon. .


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