So last night I got to photograph Iron Maiden’s The Final Frontier tour date at Madison Square Garden for the Village Voice. In the late 80’s when my friends were listening to Maiden I was mostly listening to Run DMC and Young MC. Then by like 1991 I was mostly listening to goofier metal bands like Warrant and Poison and of course Motely Crue.  I never got around to listening to Maiden.  Still, I was pretty excited to shoot it because I knew the shots would be cool, I would get to use my telephoto lens that I almost never use and most importantly I would get to be on the floor at Madison Square Garden.

I have never actually seen a concert there, but I have been to two or three Caps vs. Rangers games and it’s obviously a legendary place.  Once I was down there infront of the stage with these crazy metal heads behind me and this legendary metal band running around in front of me it was a pretty cool experience.  I have shot thousands of bands on some big stages but this was the first time shooting an arena rock show.

Oh yeah, and Iron Maiden fucking ruled. Seriously they were amazing. Their lead singer Bruce Dickinson ran around stage like a maniac and he kept just leaping off of things. My editor at the Voice Camille Dodero talked a lot about it in her article. You should read it. He did this jump about four or five times in the three songs I was allowed to shoot. I kept missing it so I spent almost the entire last song following him and finally at the very last second of the third song I caught him mid air. It was an amazing shot and an amazing show.

After the three songs were over I was escorted to a great seat but I hadn’t slept in 3 days so I only watched another thirty minutes before taking off. I went home and took a handfull of sleeping pills and passed out for 12 hours.

Oh, and one other thing. Before the show I was photographing the Iron Maiden fans coming into MSG and Terry Richardson was out front doing the same thing. I don’t admit it often, but Richardson really is one of my favorite photographers and clearly an influence in my 35mm work.  I bought my first Yashica T4 many years ago after seeing it in one of his photos. I have seen him around a bunch I talked to him for the first time and he seemed extremely nice and much less villainous that he is made out to be. We took photos of each other and then I went around to the other side of MSG so I could let him do his thing.

Anyway, you should click here to see all the pictures of Iron Maiden and their fans at Madison Square Garden.

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