I originally saw this over at Metal Injection and it was just too good to not fucking share! Thanks MJ for this awesome piece!!!
On June 28th, 1983 Iron Maiden and Saxon stopped in Seattle to play a show at the Seattle Collesium (now Key Arena) for Maiden‘s World Piece Tour, bringing truckloads of gear, including a giant version of Maiden‘s mascot Eddie. And, as bands do, Iron Maiden brought their rider along which was four pages long detailing all of the tasty snacks and beverages both groups required to survive their time in the Emerald City. Van Halen made riders a part of rock and roll history when theirs banned brown M&M’s. Once upon a time for Guns N’ Roses it was all about smokes and porno mags, and later in their career, Mötley Crüe required they be told where the location of the nearest AA meeting the night of their gig. You might think that a rider meant to address the needs of Iron Maiden and Saxon would be full of all kinds of debauchery, but the reality is the items they requested for their Seattle gig was pretty goddam tame by most 80s heavy metal standards. Honestly, sans the hot English tea and Perrier, this sounds like what my kid asks for when I tell him I’m going to the grocery store. Now, this is not to say that the 1983 versions of Iron Maiden and Saxon (and their dedicated road crew) didn’t like to party. In all–as you can see in the riders themselves below, Maiden and Saxon also requested sixteen cases of beer (one case specifically for Saxon as well as a bottle of Remy Martin and Black Currant liqueur), and an assortment of vodka, gin, and cognac be on hand and chilled (if necessary) by 4:30 pm. Check out the rider in its entirety below.
Many thanks to artist Derek Erdman for providing the riders in this post. According to Erdman, they were found by a friend of his in an attic in Seattle and later published in The Stranger when Erdman was a contributor to the local newspaper in 2014.
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