Man, I'm going through Maidens withdrawal.
I first heard of The Maidens through a friend of mine who is good friends with Nick Fuoco-the local promoter here in NY. A female tribute to Iron Maiden seemed like a worthy novelty, and as time passed, a local show here in Binghamton (Downtown Quarterback) was booked. Our local radio station-WKGB-played some Maidens tunes, and I knew that I just had to check them out.
Saturday at The Quarterback was insane. I never would have predicted such and enthusiastic turnout for anything having to do with old-school metal like Iron Maiden. The VH1ers could not be tamed! Even the local death metal guys who hate everything, were convinced of the Maidens' prowess from the moment Aces High kicked into allegro. The elderly staff at The Quarterback wasn't quite prepared to deal with that kind of physically imposing crowd that threatened to envelope the six-inch high stage. Besides the fact that the "fire" effects kept getting knocked over, no real damage was done. It was the best show in Binghamton in quite some time.
Sunday night I traveled an hour north to Syracuse to check out the Maidens at The Bridge Street Music Hall. This is a large, beautiful venue with high ceilings, a huge stage, and a superior sound system. Unfortunately the crowd was smaller than hoped for. I think you need about 400 people in that place to look good though. Not to happen on a Sunday night in Syracuse. The after-hours was attended by the Nick the promoter and all of his local friends, "Eddy," and Minimurry also attended. One out of four Maidens isn't so bad. Sara is the festive one. I got home around six AM, and prepared for my after-hours decision to make the road trip to NYC on Wednesday.
Nick and Chucky "Love" picked me up around 11:00 AM Wednesday morning. Only an hour behind schedule! Not bad in music time. We got into The City about 3 hours later, and spent the day finding the Tribeca Rock Club, trying to park, and wandering around with our redneck heads in that position that turkeys have been alleged to have drowned in.
The Tribeca is a bizarre kind of place in which the band dressing area downstairs is larger than the whole club upstairs. It seemed like the club was more suited to stand-up comedy that live music, but then something weird happened. This local band called Gods of Fire (www.gods-of-fire.com) took the stage and performed a sort of parody of neo-classical, Maidenesque, Fates Warning type of stuff to an ever-more crowded and enthusiastic club. Plastic pants, a faked death, costume black angel wings, soaring metal vocals, extra-long songs, dueling guitar solos, and overblown poses were all crammed into their 45-or-so minute set. These guys belong in Prague, and singer: Prometheus Unbound assured me that within a year, "God of Fire would be in Europe." During the singer's costume change, a well-dressed announcer came out a delivered a monologue in which he referred to Prometheus as "your hero and my pawn." Weird shit. Funny...kind of.
Next up was Nicks band "Cold Ethyl"-an Alice Cooper tribute who brought even more props and side performers. These included and electric chair, "Alice" battling his captors, and fake blood.
It was truly the night of stage props, and the Iron Maidens were no exception. The fire effects, fire extinguishers, pre-recorded Maiden intros, and multiple Eddies ruled their set. The girls come with approximately three "Eddies," but the local Maiden tribute band brought along some of theirs as well. I really liked the "Redcoat" Eddy with blue jeans. Get some white pants, dude.
I made the mistake of buying a couple of disposable cameras and I have too many pics of the whole trip. I really wanted to snap a picture of the Maidens when they were all "primping" and shit, but I was forcibly prevented seconds before pushing the button, and a bright red door was slammed in my face. Ooh, female domination. I'm still giddy.
The crowd was definitely into it, but the highlight of the night was the last song when Alex Skolnik (www.alexskolnick.com) sat in for The Trooper. His solo ripped, and afterwards, Alex, The Maidens, Nick, Chucky "love," and I all went out to breakfast. I really dug Testament back in the day, and I was a pleasure to hear Alex talk about anything musical.
After breakfast, Nick, Chucky, and I drove to Jersey City and crashed at a house rented out by the band Superthrive(www.superthrivejc.com/main/index.html). These three guys and a chick were nice enough to leave their door open for us, let us crash, take showers, etc. In the morning, all the guys in Superthrive were gone, and Chucky, me, and James, who lived in the house, smoked lots of dope and talked about life and stuff.
Eventually we left Jersey City and headed homewards. Nick and the Maidens were playing that night (Thursday by now) in a town called Ithaca at a place called The Haunt which is about an hour from my home of Binghamton, NY. I wasn't going to go, but my roomate and her man were looking for something to do, so we hit the road for Ithaca.
First up was a local band called Boiler. Three piece "dirt metal." Not quite cookie monster, but definitely gravely vocals and heavy guitars. Two of the members of Nick's band Cold Ethyl didn't show up for the gig, so on went the Maidens. By now it was clear that they were going to kick ass wherever they went so another show description would be redundant.
That weekend there was a festival called Nikstock after...you guessed it; Nick Fuoco, the main organizer and participant. All it did was fucking rain the whole time. About forty bands played this drunken, muddy, overnight camping, weekend festival including The Iron Maidens and Nick's other band; Tempter. The other members of Cold Ethyl were MIA at this point so Tempter was the headliner on Friday night. The Maiden's, who were scheduled for Saturday, were nice enough to come up for Nick's birthday celebration on Friday during Tempter's set and hit Nick with six cream pies. The ladies braved the rain and the mud for a while, and I had the pleasure of a nice long conversation with Wanda about music, the road, education, etc. I just love the way she says "spooge." After Nick's cream-filled assault only Minimurry and "Eddy" hung out for the rest of the evening.
Saturday was the final rain filled day of Nikstock when the Maidens played. They were the highlight of the festival, and everyone trodded through the mud and braved the rain to be in front.
After the show, the girls packed up and shipped out, and I was somehow saddened. As I type this, I know that in a short time I'll be heading back to work and the regular life, and this mini-Maiden vacation is over. I had a blast all week, and I hope that the ladies hold true to the promise that "We'll be back in about four months." I'll be counting the moments.
Patrick Picarsic
Binghamton, NY
www.oneonta.edu/students/picapj71
picapj71@yahoo.com
I first heard of The Maidens through a friend of mine who is good friends with Nick Fuoco-the local promoter here in NY. A female tribute to Iron Maiden seemed like a worthy novelty, and as time passed, a local show here in Binghamton (Downtown Quarterback) was booked. Our local radio station-WKGB-played some Maidens tunes, and I knew that I just had to check them out.
Saturday at The Quarterback was insane. I never would have predicted such and enthusiastic turnout for anything having to do with old-school metal like Iron Maiden. The VH1ers could not be tamed! Even the local death metal guys who hate everything, were convinced of the Maidens' prowess from the moment Aces High kicked into allegro. The elderly staff at The Quarterback wasn't quite prepared to deal with that kind of physically imposing crowd that threatened to envelope the six-inch high stage. Besides the fact that the "fire" effects kept getting knocked over, no real damage was done. It was the best show in Binghamton in quite some time.
Sunday night I traveled an hour north to Syracuse to check out the Maidens at The Bridge Street Music Hall. This is a large, beautiful venue with high ceilings, a huge stage, and a superior sound system. Unfortunately the crowd was smaller than hoped for. I think you need about 400 people in that place to look good though. Not to happen on a Sunday night in Syracuse. The after-hours was attended by the Nick the promoter and all of his local friends, "Eddy," and Minimurry also attended. One out of four Maidens isn't so bad. Sara is the festive one. I got home around six AM, and prepared for my after-hours decision to make the road trip to NYC on Wednesday.
Nick and Chucky "Love" picked me up around 11:00 AM Wednesday morning. Only an hour behind schedule! Not bad in music time. We got into The City about 3 hours later, and spent the day finding the Tribeca Rock Club, trying to park, and wandering around with our redneck heads in that position that turkeys have been alleged to have drowned in.
The Tribeca is a bizarre kind of place in which the band dressing area downstairs is larger than the whole club upstairs. It seemed like the club was more suited to stand-up comedy that live music, but then something weird happened. This local band called Gods of Fire (www.gods-of-fire.com) took the stage and performed a sort of parody of neo-classical, Maidenesque, Fates Warning type of stuff to an ever-more crowded and enthusiastic club. Plastic pants, a faked death, costume black angel wings, soaring metal vocals, extra-long songs, dueling guitar solos, and overblown poses were all crammed into their 45-or-so minute set. These guys belong in Prague, and singer: Prometheus Unbound assured me that within a year, "God of Fire would be in Europe." During the singer's costume change, a well-dressed announcer came out a delivered a monologue in which he referred to Prometheus as "your hero and my pawn." Weird shit. Funny...kind of.
Next up was Nicks band "Cold Ethyl"-an Alice Cooper tribute who brought even more props and side performers. These included and electric chair, "Alice" battling his captors, and fake blood.
It was truly the night of stage props, and the Iron Maidens were no exception. The fire effects, fire extinguishers, pre-recorded Maiden intros, and multiple Eddies ruled their set. The girls come with approximately three "Eddies," but the local Maiden tribute band brought along some of theirs as well. I really liked the "Redcoat" Eddy with blue jeans. Get some white pants, dude.
I made the mistake of buying a couple of disposable cameras and I have too many pics of the whole trip. I really wanted to snap a picture of the Maidens when they were all "primping" and shit, but I was forcibly prevented seconds before pushing the button, and a bright red door was slammed in my face. Ooh, female domination. I'm still giddy.
The crowd was definitely into it, but the highlight of the night was the last song when Alex Skolnik (www.alexskolnick.com) sat in for The Trooper. His solo ripped, and afterwards, Alex, The Maidens, Nick, Chucky "love," and I all went out to breakfast. I really dug Testament back in the day, and I was a pleasure to hear Alex talk about anything musical.
After breakfast, Nick, Chucky, and I drove to Jersey City and crashed at a house rented out by the band Superthrive(www.superthrivejc.com/main/index.html). These three guys and a chick were nice enough to leave their door open for us, let us crash, take showers, etc. In the morning, all the guys in Superthrive were gone, and Chucky, me, and James, who lived in the house, smoked lots of dope and talked about life and stuff.
Eventually we left Jersey City and headed homewards. Nick and the Maidens were playing that night (Thursday by now) in a town called Ithaca at a place called The Haunt which is about an hour from my home of Binghamton, NY. I wasn't going to go, but my roomate and her man were looking for something to do, so we hit the road for Ithaca.
First up was a local band called Boiler. Three piece "dirt metal." Not quite cookie monster, but definitely gravely vocals and heavy guitars. Two of the members of Nick's band Cold Ethyl didn't show up for the gig, so on went the Maidens. By now it was clear that they were going to kick ass wherever they went so another show description would be redundant.
That weekend there was a festival called Nikstock after...you guessed it; Nick Fuoco, the main organizer and participant. All it did was fucking rain the whole time. About forty bands played this drunken, muddy, overnight camping, weekend festival including The Iron Maidens and Nick's other band; Tempter. The other members of Cold Ethyl were MIA at this point so Tempter was the headliner on Friday night. The Maiden's, who were scheduled for Saturday, were nice enough to come up for Nick's birthday celebration on Friday during Tempter's set and hit Nick with six cream pies. The ladies braved the rain and the mud for a while, and I had the pleasure of a nice long conversation with Wanda about music, the road, education, etc. I just love the way she says "spooge." After Nick's cream-filled assault only Minimurry and "Eddy" hung out for the rest of the evening.
Saturday was the final rain filled day of Nikstock when the Maidens played. They were the highlight of the festival, and everyone trodded through the mud and braved the rain to be in front.
After the show, the girls packed up and shipped out, and I was somehow saddened. As I type this, I know that in a short time I'll be heading back to work and the regular life, and this mini-Maiden vacation is over. I had a blast all week, and I hope that the ladies hold true to the promise that "We'll be back in about four months." I'll be counting the moments.
Patrick Picarsic
Binghamton, NY
www.oneonta.edu/students/picapj71
picapj71@yahoo.com
