The Bards Of War And Vengeance

I was frustratingly isolated from all the goings on of 1985. No heavy metal festivals, no collective cultural bosom of denim n’ leather, and certainly no dirty rock n’ roll women. My mother had little reason to warn me about girls like that; not when I was firmly ensconced in an educational gulag that shuddered nightly as seven hundred boys masturbated to the confused mental images of Matron and Other Boys’ Mummies.

The Quiet Room Concerts continued after the summer that saw me advance to the Second Year. I was initially thought of as a Bright Boy due to my performance in the entrance exam, but I had been quickly sent down from the top stream in a matter of weeks. Academic performance was of little interest to me, and sporting prowess was laughably unreachable. Fuelled on a diet of apathetic catering and tuckshop gorges, I lived for the end of the day and headphone heaven, and for the end of the week and the Saturday night spent metalling in the quiet room.

A New Boy had joined the Second Year, which was somewhat unprecedented as new intake were only usually accommodated in the First and Third Year. But then Oli was nothing if not unconventional. He was a straightforward soul, friendly but also easily distracted and prone to destruction, particularly self-inflicted. However some kind-hearted liberal had decided to send him to boarding school, rather than a Young Offenders’ Institution, after an infamous incident involving a pint of petrol, an old car tyre, and a small town High Street at the bottom of a hill.

Somehow Oli gravitated towards us metallers, myself, Eggy and Buggy, and we would often eschew the dismal delights of the Saturday Night Movie in favour of using the only turntable in the place. This was borrowed from the Mods, two confident and stylish Third Year Boys who would go through life being one year older, wiser and cooler than me. One had sold me my precious Maiden vinyl, the other owned the once-terribly-modish mono record player we congregated around while the sheepish masses watched yet another movie from Ipswich’s limited rental stock of straight-to-video cassettes. Our useage was tolerated, often greased by the bribe of a mars bar, but it was a fair price for being able to listen to the albums we hadn’t home-taped already. Buggy sometimes joined us, but then he and Oli never seemed to get along. Eggy was nominally our leader, as he was a year older, but a kind of egalitarian respect existed between us when in the Quiet Room and away from the hierarchical rules of orthodoxy.

At first it was fairly simple; live albums only, no cassettes. So Maiden Japan would get a spin, followed by the sound of Saxon’s Eagle landing. I had an Acca Dacca seven-inch which had a weakly live version of Let There Be Rock on the b-side, and we might even have time for Remember Tomorrow off of the back of my red Number Of The Beast single before the herd dispersed from the day-room to be shepherded off for showers and bed so the senior years could watch a decent movie with a 15 certificate, swearing and, on a good day when the Housemaster hadn’t followed vetting procedure, actual ladies tits right there on the tv screen.

Our routine lasted for only half a term before cracks appeared. Firstly Buggy started to drift towards Mod, although if it was acceptance he sought he would be bitterly disappointed. Secondly an album was released that completely destroyed our innocent ideas of what a concert was about, an album that set a new standard from its luxurious packaging to its fearsome content, an album that bisected the Eighties into before and after for bands and fans alike.

Even the first single, released a month before the album, caused problems for us. Eggy’s parents were up to visit him for his birthday, and they had taken him to Ipswich to buy the new Iron Maiden 12”. I was struck with hysterical jealousy, not only as it was my thirteenth in a matter of days, but also as I had tried unsuccessfully to access my limited funds held by the Housemaster so I too could have a copy. Eggy had left with his parents before I had chance. The brittle friendships of teenagers were not designed to withstand such treachery, so Oli and I vowed eternal animosity to the Birthday Boy, and we cemeted our pact while listening to an older Di’anno version of the song in question.

Eggy returned some time later, unburdened by Iron Maiden products; the single was sold out, not a copy to be found across the whole of Ipswich. Eggy’s father apologised for not being able to obtain a copy for me as he had intended after Eggy’s fraternal plea that I should not be forgotten, but the Schadenfreudlich feelings aroused by Eggy’s failure remained unabashed. The horrid superiority of being part of two against one felt far too good to let honesty and fairness get in the way.

Mind you, it could have been worse for Eggy. We could all have been girls, vicious, spiteful and endlessly inventive. The squall of animosity blew over after a few days but there was an ever-shifting balance of power now where once there was innocent friendship.

I had to wait, a full agonising week after release, until the half-term break to pick up my first store-bought Iron Maiden album. My parents took me to Fareham, the nearest town to our slopover brickbelt village. It was so ponderously slow a journey that it is still occurring at some levels of my subconscious, but then aren’t all levels of teenage anticipation at least vaguely reminiscent of Zeno’s Paradox?

The tension would build yet further as, after the harsh anguish of Eggy’s failure to obtain the Running Free single I was convinced the album would be sold out too. We went first to WHSmiths, knowing there was only Woolworths and a piddly Our Price as backups. I rushed up to the Top Twenty racks to search, and there it was at Number 2. Live After Death. I carefully lifted the cover, in its pvc sleeve, with the edges of my fingertips.
“Right,” said my father, “we’d better get you to a bank then hadn’t we?”.
Oh, what hulking despair! It was literally right in my hands! I was too entranced to argue so we speedwalked to the Midland Bank so I could withdraw the six pounds and fifty pence I needed. I chattered nervously as I pocketed the cash from my Griffin Savers kiddy account, which prompted some punky young adult to sneer something at me. I merely grinned back at the cut-price Lydon wannabe, who melted at the sight of my enthusiasm. It’s nigh on impossible to be nihilistic in a small town bank queue, no matter how spiky your hair is.

I had other matters on my mind, including the worry that a horde of metal fans might have descended on Smiths and snapped up all the copies. Or, even more idiotically, that the price had gone up and I could no longer afford it. My mind was so flustered that it stopped recording memories, the next thing I remembered was being in the back of the car, sliding the cover out of the WHSmiths bag and staring at that iconic cover.

Those days are long gone now, when having a twelve by twelve piece of art adorning the sleeve of your record kept your excitement up until you got home. I couldn’t stop staring at the brilliant detail of Eddie bursting from his burial ground, the deep night time blues shattered by the golden flames emerging from the broken earth, the lightning bolts, the headstone engraving. Then opening the gatefold cover to see Steve Harris jumping in mid-air in front of a giant mummified Eddie shot fire from his eyes, framed by all the other pictures of the band onstage. The inner sleeves with the lyrics and credits, the eight page booklet with the tour dates, equipment lists and other trivia down to the number of drumsticks used by the boy McBrain. I didn’t realise how spoilt I was, and how every album after Live After Death would fail to create that level of sugar-rush anticipation.

I had my headphones at the ready but Dad had other ideas as I slid the vinyl of the first disc down onto the turntable.
“I suppose I’d better hear what this lot are all about then hadn’t I?”

Oh God! How embarrassing!