Scream for me, Oshkosh!
After all the excitement and hard work of the fly-in it's usually a good idea to take a long weekend to recover. About 3 weeks ago Janet sent me the following cryptic message:
"Can you mark Friday, Aug. 5th off all day, please. Its a surprise, and I'm not telling you what, but if your foot were well rested and able to operate rudder pedals, that would be a great help ;)"
As instructed, I presented myself at the Weeks hangar at 11am - thinking she'd probably fixed me up with a ride in an exciting aeroplane. It couldn't be a long trip away because, as Janet knows, I'm going to Ozzfest tomorrow to see Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath. Maybe she's lined up a bit of formation flying with the T-6 people, or… more hopefully... Jimmy Leeward hasn’t taken his Mustang home yet...
No sign of Janet on arrival, but Gregg was there blowing up the tyres on the Citabria. So we stood around chatting and I said after all the build-up this had better be a good surprise, like, none of the $100 hamburger nonsense. Gregg's enigmatic smile raised my hopes, but they soon fell again as I saw Janet taxiing over in her own plane. As they got closer I spotted a tousle-haired young lad in the back of the Nanchang. "Oh, Janet’s taken John Hopkins' son flying again" I said to Gregg.
They shut down and I ambled over to find out from Janet what the big surprise was. The next words out of my mouth were -
"F------g hell !!!"
Disembarking from the back seat of Janet's plane - instantly recognizable now - is none other than Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson!
Now... a bit of context here... a quick web search tells me that Iron Maiden's "Run to the Hills" was released in February 1982. I bought that 7" at 11 years of age when it was in the charts, and remember taking it to the Rosehill Junior School disco and asking the DJ (headteacher Mr Pilborough) to play it. "Pilly" had a good look at the sleeve and said to me "Adam, the kind of music you listen to says a lot about the kind of person you are." I didn"t quite understand what he was talking about at the time, but the words stayed with me.
Anyway, the point is that for the past 23 years (yikes) I’ve been listening to Maiden, analyzing their sleeve art, going to their concerts, wearing their t-shirts, watching their videos & DVDs, visiting their website... and here, getting out of Janet's plane grinning all over his face, shaking my hand and talking to me is their legendary frontman Bruce Dickinson!
Janet, this is definitely a good surprise!
In the past few years Bruce's love for aviation has become well-known. He's often flown the band around on tour, and when not with Iron Maiden, flies a Boeing 757 for UK charter company Astreus. As long-time readers will recall about 18 months ago Bruce flew Daniel (and 100 other fans) on flight 666 from London to Maiden's show in Dublin. He's recently done a TV show with Discovery called Flying Heavy Metal. Janet tracked him down through an airline pilots' website and didn't find it too hard tempt him up to Oshkosh on his day off before the show on Saturday.
Although I was still in total "shock & awe" from the surprise, within about 10 minutes of conversation it was abundantly clear that Bruce is (a) very passionate and knowledgeable about aviation and (b) a top bloke. The former always helps with the latter, but he's also intelligent, funny and easy to be around.
We hung around Weeks chewing the fat, then went to buy some sushi & sandwiches from Pick n' Save where Bruce had to pay because I forgot my wallet... oops! I wasn't thinking too straight for the first couple of hours. There's a young lad works on the checkout that I've talked to a few times because he wears an Iron Maiden t-shirt under his Pick n' Save uniform... sadly he wasn't working but just wait 'til I see him again!
I called Howard in Burnley who was not 100% believing the incredible story I was telling until Bruce took the phone and talked to him!! LOL.
Later in the afternoon we went over to Pioneer where Bruce flew in the Travel Air and did a nice low pass, then we toured the Museum.
Next, back to Weeks from where Bruce & I went up in the Citabria to get his 3rd new aircraft type in his logbook for the day. We flew a low approach down Munsil's strip, did some stalls, steep turns and wingovers, one of which turned into a stall turn. Bruce has done some instructing in Decathlons so it wasn’t too much of a shock and he did a very nice job. Even the landing wasn’t a disaster and much better than I would do in a 757 J
Dinner and a few Spotted Cows at the Vintage with Gregg & Trish, back to our house for some kip, then up bright & early next morning for seats on a post-maintenance shakeout flight in the B-17 with the Air Academy interns on board. Turned my back for a minute and Bruce charmed his way into the left seat grinning all over his face J
Bruce next got to transition over to Pioneer with Sean in the Spirit of St Louis replica. Two more types in the logbook before breakfast… left seat in a B-17 and NX-211… why do the words 'spawny get' come to mind??!
We hooked up with Jim Soyk who had been on the original Ozzfest trip with me & Gregg. We had tickets for 3 very ordinary seats on the pavilion, but when Bruce made a phone call and started talking about "the very best backstage passes"... we were all smiling! After lunch at our house and Janet took Bruce back down to Milwaukee where he had an appointment with a Lear 45...
Burnley have lost their first game of the season but nothing can spoil this day. Anyway, we’ve had a great day in the cricket and look all set to level the Ashes series at 1-1.
Jim, Gregg and I shot down to the basement, turned up the amps and, bashed out some serious ROCK for an hour, before hooking up with Sean and heading down to East Troy where we rendezvoused with Janet. She had dropped Bruce off at Mitchell Field and hopped over to East Troy in the Nanchang. Bruce made a spectacular arrival (warning, 10MB download) in the Learjet, from which he dispensed tins of Boddingtons after landing.
A van had been sent to pick us up and we are whisked through all the gates to the backstage area, and deposited right in the middle of the rock n' roll circus. Wow. A bloke is shouting "get out of the way, Ozzy's coming through" as Bruce leads us towards the Maiden dressing rooms and suddenly you remember that the pilot you've been hanging out with for the past 24 hours is actually a major rock star... people are anxious to please. There's some food laid out at one end of Maiden's dressing room and some Coronas get cracked and downed without touching the sides... adrenaline is working overtime. Steve Harris walks in and starts fixing himself a butty. Steve Harris! Legend! Like Bruce, he looks in better shape than I do and we talk about football for a bit.
Bruce is very generous with his time and takes us all up onto the stage area for a look around. We see how all the equipment is set up, how the crews move the different sets on and off the stage... we even see how the big Eddie works but are sworn to secrecy! Even though it's very exciting to be here and to see all this, I can see how the glamour would eventually become ordinary. These people are working, just like anyplace else
Bruce goes to get changed & massaged and we watch Mudvayne from backstage. Not my thing, really, and the sound is poor - all double bass drum. The crowd seems moderately interested at best. We head backstage but are thwarted in our effort to get some food & drink. It doesn't matter. There's Adrian Smith having a last minute tab before the show, there's Nicko & Janick.
I am calling Daniel & Howard back home and babbling with excitement.
Doctor Doctor by UFO plays over the PA, the sign that Maiden are about to come on stage. I make it through the security cordon but the rest are stopped until rescued by Bruce, who escorts us to a good viewing spot. The Ides of March intro tape plays and Maiden kick into gear.
I won't share the setlist because Daniel is seeing them at Leeds in 2 weeks and doesn't want it spoiled. But it was bloody good… all classics off the first 4 albums. I've seen Maiden from the other side of the fence plenty of times and had already formed a high opinion of Bruce's ability as a frontman. From the band side of the stage, it's even more obvious. A master at work. The same crowd that had been almost apathetic for Mudvayne were gradually brought to life and Maiden left the stage an hour later with the whole place on its feet.
There was a nice security guard backstage who showed the best place to view from and brought water for us to drink. He had an Iron Maiden tattoo and said that the song Hallowed Be Thy Name meant a lot to him because he'd been on death row for 10 years and, at one point, 4 hours away from being executed... said he listened to it a lot during the 11 years they had him banged up inside... I got his name and his story actually checks out. Surreal.
As soon as Iron Maiden finished, the atmosphere changed… Black Sabbath’s security got aggressive and threw us first out of the stage area, then out of the backstage area completely into the main public arena. The clock had struck midnight and the fairytale was coming to an end. We stayed and watched most of the Sabbath set. Ozzy has not been well but I thought he sung pretty well, and the band sounded good. Geezer Butler is a legend. After Tomorrow was the highlight for me. Without transport (Bruce had to head off with the band) we snuck out a back entrance rather than get mixed up with 35,000 concertgoers. After some anxiety when every single taxi company refused to come and pick us up from a nearby hotel (because of the congestion) we hitched a ride with 2 pizza delivery people.
Janet and I stayed in East Troy overnight and overflew the Alpine Valley amphitheater the next morning. Stopped in Watertown for lunch on the way back up to Osh Vegas.
I told Janet that I've been to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen and I've been to 10 Downing Street to meet the Prime Minister, but - to me - it wasn't as exciting as that. And I really mean that, it was the surprise of a lifetime!
So that's the words. Gregg has very kindly dumped all the pictures everyone took (the good, the bad, and the ones with me in them) into a gallery on his website.
11:22:54 PM 
|
