Maiden - June

Iron Maiden!

I desperately wanted to have a write up of the concert, this stupendous concert that happened on June 11. The desperation, more so because of not having written accounts of any of the 3 concerts that I'd attended till then - AR Rahman, Shankar Mahadevan and The Scorpions, in that order.

I was never a Maiden fan. All I knew is that they had performed in Bangalore twice, (both of which I shamelessly missed), they were from UK and they are all really old. Till I went to the Scorpions' concert in Bangalore, I didn't realise that people who are 60+ can have a great amount of energy.

Anyways, with Maiden, I started listening their songs much later, much much after I started listening to Scorpions. The first songs I had liked was from the album, 'Seventh son of the seventh son'. I really liked the way they linked the songs and had a theme, then moved on to Como estas amigos months, maybe years later. I never fancied them that much, you know.

All hell broke loose when Chetan and I started having discussions about 'Lightning strikes twice'. That went on from song to song and eventually I had a couple of favourites. All through this, strangely, I'd never heard of their entire work. Only after coming to the US, with a little more time devoted to listening music, I got their whole discography and went berserk.

Then, it was 'Flight 666' that made me really know about the band members and worship them. Maiden's songs are one of the highest rated and played on my iTunes. I'm very strict with rating, I must mention. No matter what state of mind I'm in, I listen to those leads of Dave Murray and it makes me cry.

So, when I learnt about their concert in Houston, I didn't want to miss the chance. I'd a fairly decent knowledge about their songs by then, and I knew how a live concert would be like. Just imagining Steve Harris and Dave Murray play gave me goosebumps.

With no much adventures on the way, we reached the venue near Houston at Woodlands. There were quite a bit of people, I must say. Dream Theater started the concert. I'm not a big fan, yet.

When Maiden came on stage, it was exactly the way I'd imagined it to be. Adrian Smith started off the leads of The wicker man, the rest came running in and then it was just explosive. I couldn't believe I was seeing them live. The ambience, the aura, their guitar riffs, Bruce Dickinson's vocals, simply put, everything.

Deftly, they moved from song to song, played most of my favourites - Blood brothers, Ghost of the navigator, Brave new world, Dance of death, Wildest dream, No more lies, Hallowed be thy name and lots more. The only songs I missed were Trooper, Revelations and Rime of the ancient mariner.

But nevertheless, it was like a dream. Listening to someone whom you adore so much, someone whom you worship. I still can't believe I saw them live. I remember, I couldn't hold back tears during Blood brothers and Brave new world. Gosh! It was a once in a lifetime experience. Shame on me for having missed their 2 concerts in Bangalore!

Up the irons! \m/

Time! The Time!

After nearly the busiest month ever, since I came to the US, I'm all set to officially graduate this summer, in the August of 2010. Don't know why, I don't feel very excited about it. But I'm happy.

Most of my blogs rant and rave about how things were, how things change(d) and destiny. Ok, maybe not most. But if one wanted to read such things, one wouldn't have to search for a long time in my archive.

June was supposed to be the Maiden month, and July, the Rahman month, christened so by me, in anticipation of the concerts that would be held in the months. June happened, the blog should happen soon too, [:D], but unfortunately, Rahman's show got postponed to mid-September.

Time is a very shameless entity, if I may dare to call it so. Like it is said, time changes everything. Time changes priorities, hell, it manages to change people. The kind of change is very debatable, something I don't want to get into in this blog. People fall in and out of relationships and few even state the clichéd 'Time teaches/heals everything'. If its an exam or a thesis defense like the one I just had a couple of days back, people get tensed. If its the same defense in progress and you go on blabbering, the time progresses pretty darn fast. If you are missing someone who's really thousands of miles away, you would feel time progressing very slow.

Thinking about the importance time has in our lives scares me. It is an entity that doesn't stop, no matter what, doesn't give a rats ass to what you feel, scared, lonely or happy. There would be situations which you wouldn't want to end, but time doesn't seem to care. Heartbeats get arrhythmic, every person would have experienced situations where in it would have felt like the heart would come out of the body and bounce away. Still, the second hand goes on at its own pace.

Such a divine creation is wasted, more often than not. Doesn't pain me. I do it all the time too. Only at times it occurs like a flash of brilliant light that reminds me for a few minutes that I need to work hard, that my brain is definitely capable of handling much more pressure than I have given it. Only once, till now, I've crossed that threshold, and it beautifully linked to my body's refusal to cope up with my mind.

All of us invariably end up respecting time, though it sounds a little too 'over the board', maybe? And why wouldn't we, after all its only time that can change the current time.