2 months ago
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Iron Maiden: Infinite Dreams
Thames & Hudson, $100
The boy was about eight. He was wearing an Iron Maiden T-shirt like his dad, and every other frantic soul in the men’s room, as the Rod Laver lobby bell shrieked its three-minute warning. “There’s no time for that,” Dad growled as the little feller paused to wash his hands. “They’re starting!”
I share this cherished memory not to disparage the Maiden fraternity’s hygiene standards, but to illustrate its commitment. For generations, officially spanning 50 years this Christmas, the British metal institution has spun a Boys’ Own legend unsurpassed in the genre’s history for loyalty, spectacle and wearable merchandise.
This book is for them. At 2.7 kilograms, the heaviness gag writes itself. Thick, glossy pages are designed for lurid impact: a no-brainer given the cult’s undying appetite for comic book horror, sci-fi, war and apocalypse, as depicted on hundreds of T-shirts, record sleeves and posters in the evolving form of murderous zombie mascot Eddie.
Conceived by artist Derek Riggs circa 1978, Eddie is the ingenious face of a band whose real-life narrative, globe-conquering statistics aside, is less than thrilling. It unfolds between the pictures in brisk prose as West Ham football tragic/bass player Steve Harris collects his band of brothers then bends the world to his will.
Photos of his 1976 pocket diary itemise early London pub gigs and personnel. “Sept 16. Third gig at the Cat & Horses. Received £10. With John — fitted in really well — good guitarist.” John doesn’t last, but the bassist’s penchant for orderly, documented progress is already as clear as the annotated timeline at the book’s far end.
No, it’s not Spinal Tap, it’s Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson on stage in 2018.Credit: PA
Gritty leather, tight jeans and dodgy vans give way to hilarious Lycra, sweat bands, ecstatic stadiums and full-on passenger jets with Eddie snarling on their tailfins. Stunning graphic art and increasingly elaborate stage designs alternate with hero shots of the band in alleys, backstage bathrooms and in full flight, crotches astride monitors and guitars splayed in showers of sweat and pyro.
Culture-wise, Maiden is the anti-Motley Crue. Party anthems have no place in sets bristling with Poe, Coleridge and Shakespeare; history, prophecy and mythology set to galloping riffs. Sure they like a drink, but there are no girls, girls, girls at all in this telling. Nor any drama that isn’t settled with the dignified restraint of gentlemen. Their family bond touchingly endures as members weave jovially in and out of the tale.
The moral panic of American church groups and other knee-jerk nonsense is touched on, but at this stage of the game, the unequivocal triumph of Eddie and all who rock in his shadow is the only story worth telling. Overthinking is not an option. “Do some pyramids,” is Riggs’ brief for the insanely detailed Powerslave album cover. “We want a tank on stage with a f---ing big gun,” is another that comes thunderously to pass.
Close-up Guitar Selection spreads are strictly for fans who know their curly maple fingerboards from their Rockinger vibrato systems, but who doesn’t love a drum kit painted to glisten like Satan’s own stained-glass coffin? Galleries of video stills, the band’s own Trooper-brand beer labels, T-shirts, T-shirts and more T-shirts can keep your eyes prowling one spread for half an hour.
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One sumptuous death allegory — Eddie commanding an army of skeletons across a twilit wasteland — comes with a typically blunt caption from artist Tim Bradstreet. Maiden “don’t change or evolve a whole lot, they just show everyone else how it’s done,” he opines. “They don’t get old.”
Until they do. Singer Bruce Dickinson survives a cancer scare in the last pages; drummer Nicko McBrain retires after a stroke. “We should be acting our age,” guitarist Dave Murray tells manager Rod Smallwood over a round of golf. But there’s no time for that. Maiden’s Run For Your Lives world tour continues in 2026.
Meanwhile, chances are high that there’s a boy in your life who’d relish this rollicking escapade this Christmas. (Plenty of women love Maiden too — Japan’s new prime minister among them — but good luck spotting any in these 352 pages.) Just make sure they wash their hands. This is Art.
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