Iron Maiden 1985 (USA)
(Enlarged version of the 1984 Euro tour)
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The 1985 USA system used the same fundamentals as the European version of the rig, except that it didn't need the ground support leg option as this was a 100% arena tour and could be flown at all venues. We also made the 4 x double truss side pods into an extra arrowhead triangle flown extreme left and right. We used the same rigging points on all the mother grid for the underhung motors and picked up with 6 x 1 ton motors above the grid. We added a motor each side of the stage to pick up the offstage points of the arrowheads and 3 x points for the new 50' PRT front truss, which was loaded with 60 x 1k par washes and 4 underhung spots with Altman Orbiter Mk350 follow spots with Thomas underhung spot chairs.
We also increased the length of the 5 track Tas Stage drapes truss to 56' which gave us 8ft of 'parking' space for the drapes at each end, we could hang 10 x 40' wide painted back drops (all by Alan Chesters at Hangman). We hung this on 3 x motors.
We also needed the extra width for the Eddie Mummy on a cherry picker which burst through the drapes at the end of the show, coming up behind the split gold Eddie sphinx head, which was also on a track and was pulled back manually by a tech each side as the cherry picker mounted Eddie torso travelled forward, pushed by about 10 crew on the floor. This was a 2 wheeled standard road issue cherry picker boom arm with the basket taken off and the Large Eddie head mounted on the end with collapsible bandage covered mummy ribs that could concertina out as the boom of the picker extended, also enhancing the pushing forward' effect of Eddie coming at you. Paddy Fitzpatrick controlled all the boom arm movements with red lights and small pyro rockets in the eyes and smoke out of his mouth (Eddies, not Paddy's)
This is shown above a 60'x40' stage, the usual stage size we'd use, you can see how far out the offstage triangles would go, in the region of 74'
Close up showing the 5 x way tab track that held all of the painted scenic backdrops, many of them had 2 drapes per track. Also you can just see the gimble type yoke on all of the par 64's and 36's. The rectangular yoke was bolted top and bottom to the frame and the lamp itself had 2 bolts to the yoke. all the nuts were Binks nuts, that when tightened down would stay tight keeping the lamp focussed for the entire tour, this was a major timesaver every day. We used Binks nuts over nylocs as the lamps get hot the nylon insert in the nyloc starts getting soft and can melt resulting in no locking nut.
Picture taken about 12 noon on load in day, Nickos drums aren't up yet so this would be a just before lunch shot. You can see the massive amount of TurboSound TMS3 cabinets that Iron Maiden bought. In fact Maiden set up a production company (Total Productions) that owned everything in this photograph (apart from the venue). Many things on this tour became standards throughout the business.
We even carried the barricade built by Charlie Kail of Brilliant Productions, it was the template for all barricades used to this day. It had the fold down metal plate on the audience side, so that the first 3 rows of people stood on those plates and actually act as ballast, and on the stage side it had the shallow bracing with a step for a security person to lift out a fan at the front if they had problems, it had anti-skid rubber mats glued to the underside of the plates so that it wouldn't skid on a bare concrete floor. It was all carried in two 48" x 48" steel carts for the full 80ft.
Also Maidens rolling stage that we carried was in here, this was built and used first on the Slavery tour in late 84/85. This was the production used for the "Live after Death" live album and video recorded at Long Beach at the end of the tour.
The gold Eddie sphinx head revealed at the back for this song, this would split in half on one of the 5 tab tracks and the large Eddie on the picker would wheel forward.
The 2 sphinx head halves parked at the side with large Eddie doing his thing. In the shoulders were large motor bike front fork springs which meant Paddy could pan the body and lift and lower the boom to give Eddie quite good animation and realistic large monster bounce. Quite a few times Paddy would nail Bruce or Nicko on the head with one of the hands during the last song, none of that was intentional !!!
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