Iron Maiden

I was pleasantly surprised when I heard that Swedish TV were going to show Iron Maiden live from Ullevi, Gothenburg. Not that I am a big Maiden fan, I really am not. Way back in 1981, I was thinking about seeing them in Gothenburg, but in the end, I didn't. Since I was a very young man, I probably didn't have the means to go.

The reason I think it's great that Swedish TV transmitted a live concert with Iron Maiden (and a taped performance of AC/DC yesterday) is that this is a sign of democracy. For years, hard rock and heavy metal has had a very large fan base, even during the punk and new wave years when, according to some journalists, the music scene was supposed to be dominated by youngsters with safety pins stuck through various body parts. The truth is that there were many types of music that outsold punk, but punk just happened to be fashionable at the time (and disco even more so). Anyway, during the second half of the 70's, many great hard rock bands made fantastic albums. Thin Lizzy, UFO, Rainbow, Whitesnake, Gillan and The Scorpions made lots of fans and sold many records during these years. During the 80's hard rock and heavy metal made it really big, but you saw very little of it on TV. There were radio shows and a couple of shows that dealt with metal, but not in proportion to the enormous popularity of the bands.

During the 90's and the 00's, hard and heavy rock music has developed and kept a big audience at the same time. A quick look at the Swedish charts tells us that bands such as Audioslave, Candlemass and Iron Maiden are top-10 chart material. Just like in the 80's. Another thing that has changed - to the worse - is the exposure of metal on Swedish radio and TV. Why is it that you can hear metal being used in commercials, but not being played regularly on daytime radio, nevermind TV? It's not like this music is percieved as rebellious anymore now is it?

So, that is why I applaud the decision to show AC/DC yesterday and - even better since it was a show going out live - Iron Maiden today. I hope this is just the beginning.