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Oh..Oh! You cheeky! You slimeball! What did you do that for, you rotten terror Dave? You f'kin' put my own voice and verbals in the... you know, they've heard me trying to sing this f'kin' song now
Well how ya doing out there, you lot? Eh? Welcome yet again to Nicko's "not a lot of people know that, or knew that, or still don't... I don't know, whatever it is nowadays... number six." You are absolutely devastatingly spoiled, the lot of ya. You're out there in your greasy sweaty debauched horrible stinking little palms and fingers and all those horrible little bits and pieces that go on your hands... Are now the proudiest of possibly the most amazed Iron Maiden fans to own '2 Minutes To Midnight', 'Rainbow's Gold', 'Mission From 'Arry'... hoho! We shall talk about that later... And as you heard, that rotten Dave there will be tiddling the knobs in the control room, decided to wack the microphone on... 'Aces High', 'King Of Twilight', 'Number Of The Beast' live! Oh you, gosh, you've got such a package there! How can you still be sane, after this? I mean, goodness gracious, listen to me, I've been playing it for six years! Hahahaa! Anyway, no!
Oh gosh, Two minutes to midnight... cha! Released the 6th of August 1984. My third single with the band. I guess that must make the band's eleventh or tenth single, whenever. Don't f'kin' write in and say, "Nicko got it wrooong." or else I'll... ... give you some of that! And, it got to number 11 in the charts and this great British... oh by the way, earlier on I was thinking of trying to think... you know we had the Bleeding Bojack Company, which we all know who that is by now, right? Now there was another company that I sort of mentioned prior to this little speech I'm giving to you now, and I won't actually tell you who it was, but the kind of... the... the abbreviation of this I suppose you'll get it from, but I though we could call them the Mighty Tight Veg, what do you think? I mean, they haven't got any clue, have they? You know, I mean, nevertheless! Hahaha! Now then, we all know who they are, 'cause they've wimped out. Nevertheless, we still got to number 11 in the great British charts thanks to you guys again, and girls, and all them little guyettes and guygirls and znznzn... all them people sort of whatever out there... First released single off the Powerslave album, and yet again this album was recorded in the Bahamas. Yes sir, mmmm hmmm! Now, as we all know, '2 Minutes To Midnight', great song, good video... the first story format that the band had ever put out on a video rather than just sort of crazy stuff and... and... the norm, you know. Hehehe
'Rainbow's Gold' was a song written by some friends of the band's, a guy called Terry Slat... Slesser, sorry Terry I didn't mean to get it wrong... Terry Slesser and a guy called Kenny Mountain who ah... in a band called Beckett together, I do believe. I might have got that wrong... so f'kin' hell what if I have! You gonna do something about it? Huh huh? Come over here!
Anyway, now then, on the bu*t end of this here single was a track called 'Mission From 'Arry'. See? Now, those of you out there, still to this day some of you think that this was a choreographed piece of entertainment for all you guys and girls. Well I can tell you it f'kin' well was not. It was in fact the, if only, the very f... only argument I've ever had with Steve Harris. We were onstage in Allentown, Pennsylvania one evening... this was on the Piece Of Mind tour... when... although it was released on the back of a Powerslave single, it was actually recorded on the Piece Of Mind tour. And, I was doing a drum solo... you know, new boy in the band, do a drum solo Nick... get on with it. So in this period of time, Steve would go off to the back of the gig and change his... if he had a dodgy ba** string, or he... normally he would... but what happened on this night, he was changing the battery on his remote, or his... should I say his transmitter. So, he sent this guy around to tell Mike my drum tech to tell me to extend my drum solo, cause he weren't ready. But he didn't tell my drum tech or his tech didn't tell my drum tech, he told this guy who was sitting at the back of the gig who was one of the riggers, a guy called Paul who's no longer with the band, I wonder why? No, anyway, he said to him, "tell Nick to extend his drum solo." So I'm playing... ... and all that sh**, and I gets a tap on the back and this guy says "Ooy!" I go, "What!?" "Ooy! Blahahaey!" I go, "What!?" He's going "Heyheyhey ehey!" and he's pointing to Steve. I'm going, "EH?" He's going, "ah ah heyheyhey!" I'm going, "WHAT!!!?" He's going, "WAHEHAAHAHAYYY!" I said, "fu*k OFFFFFF!!!" Hahah... Jesus Christ, he made me fu*k!!! Oh! Anyway, what could I do?
I stopped, I gone absolutely wally, so I've come off the gig anyway... and cut the... to make a long story even longer, I've come off the gig and I gone in the dressing room and I said, "That f'kin' geezer at the back of the gig! What the f'kin' hell does he think he's doing? There he is, he's giving me all these verbal signs and all this stuff right?" I said, "I couldn't understand him, he was about three feet behind me instead of coming up and shouting in my lughole." Harris said, "I sent him." I went, "You what?" He said, "I sent him." I said, "What the f'king hell you doing sending him around to give me messages?" He said, "Well, I had... you know... play a bit more and you know, need a bit more time to change my ba** thing-a-me-bob." And I said, "I f'kin' care about that, this geezer made me f**!" He said, "Well look, you better go and apologise to him." And I said, "F'kin' right I am! I ain't f'kin' apologising to him, he made me f**!" He said... hahaha! That's the argument. We argued about fifteen twenty minutes, and it all calmed down, and Bruce came in and he got a bloody ca**ette in his back pocket, and he said, "Oi Nick! What would happen if he tried to tell you the lighting truss was going to fall on your head?" And I said, "Don't you f'kin' well start!" And 'Arry said, "yeah, he's got a good point, ain't he?" So we started the argument again and Bruce recorded it. And then at the end of this 'Mission From 'Arry' you'll remember this... 'Arry says... he grabs the tape... just before he grabs it, he sees this tape in the pocket and he's going "some (beep)'s recording this!" Hahahaha! So he got the tape, and that's basically how that all happened. But anyway, after this extravaganza, we thought it was so funny we had to let you guys hear it. And that's the only serious argument I've ever had with Steve in my life... all my life
So, that just about gives me enough time in this little "not alot of people know that number six, part six, or whatever", to tell you just a tad about Aces High, which as you know has got 'King Of Twilight' on it, and 'Number...' NOB! of.. 'Number Of The Beast' live. This song was released 22nd of... no it wasn't... heh! It was, it was released 22nd of October 1984. Chart position 20 that got to. Now, at the time we were rehearsing the Powerslave album, Steve was writing this single, I started to learn to fly airplanes in Jersey. And, I'd come home from the aerodrome, and I'd have the old... you know, twisting the old ends of the mustache, twiddling the old various bits and pieces... the hat and the goggles and the scarf... "Woah, tally-ho Biggles! You've bandits at six o'clock low, coming out of the sun, 12 o'clock high! Watch out, full power, bombs away Biggles!" You know, all that good stuff. And I think it sort of slightly influenced Steve to write this song, you know, about those Second World War Spitfire pilots and those guys. Hey, shhh... just between you and me, Steve... he doesn't like to fly. He hates it, he think's I'm an absolute nutcase! But, you don't tell him I told you, will you, because he'd be very upset
Anyway, 'Aces High', 'King Of Twilight'... great! What a package this one is for you! I wish I had more time to explain some more of the stories on '2 Minutes' and things like that, around that time. But I really do have to go now, I'm running out of time. Oh yes, just a little joke for you before I leave. Have you heard the one about the two queers? The were fighting over a manhole! Hahahahah! See ya, I'm off! Bye!