Maiden France

St John
Par Johnny B, publié le 16 septembre 1999 sur le site officiel d’Iron Maiden

Hiya Ironheads …….. I’m Johnny B and I have been travelling with the band since Paris to provide all you webheads with footage from the gigs and the bands antics on days off. Firstly, thanks to all the BB ‘irregulars’; the band and Rod noted all your comments and certain criticisms in early August and acted upon them. Which is why the band hired me to work exclusively on www.ironmaiden.com.

What a lot of the fans don’t realise is that Maiden and Rod oversee EVERYTHING that goes on on the web and genuinely want the site to be the BEST metal site ……. EVER……..for their fans ! The web crew discuss ALL the issues raised by fans with Rod and he actions a remedy immediately where possible… hence I got this job. I am not advocating that all your suggestions will get a response but the management and band are ADAMANT that they want the very best for the fans and if that means bringing in more hands to crash out the stuff ….. they will. Maiden have so much planned for the site and new ideas and schemes are being implemented all the time so please be patient ….. we are getting there. Everything that is being implemented at the moment will benefit you directly …… more info , pictures even more video available on the site. There are VERY few bands in the world who would allow such extensive resources to be made available for a service that is geared purely for the fans. That is why Maiden are the band you love because they want to things big and then ……. even bigger!

Time is a factor in all this. Addie gets emails requesting videos within hours of the gigs finishing. However it is impossible to travel, film, edit, render, compress, flatten, upload , eat, sleep all at the same time. Obviously if we are filming at the gig then that footage cannot be even worked on until we get back to the hotel. Rod has asked me to give you a brief insight into how our days go:

After we have shot the first days footage of the band on and off stage then the target is obviously to get it back to Addie for checking. She takes the finished edited footage and uploads it so that you can watch the footage with the least amount of hassle. Firstly, I use the new Apple G3 400 laptop. It Rocks! It has had all (well nearly all ….. you never have enough ram) the ram, cards and gizmos attached so that I can get the footage straight into the computer to edit and render. Rod said a lot of you would love to know some of the techie bits that slow the process so ….. let’s go to Boresville. The new apple G3 400 has NO firewire port …….. thank a fricking bunch Apple. All their new G3 desktops have but the laptops don¹t. This meant we had to get the newer Firewire2go card. Getting hold of this baby was harder than finding a West Ham (yes I do ……. is there ANY other team ) supporter in Sheffield. It actually arrived 2.5 hours before I had to fly out and if wasn¹t for super Gurus Charlie & Simon at Square in London, we may never have got this thing up and running before the tour started next day. The card is great and if any of you tech-heads out there are on the fence as to whether to get it ….. go for it .It is really stunning. I am still getting used to it as it glitches at times that slows the thinking process down so you have to check and recheck stuff. Still if you use cutting edge stuff you’ve gotta expect glitches.

Power supplies are a nightmare. Some hotels are equipped for the business traveller and some just plain suck. Same with the venues ……… some of the venues run you cables and swear on their long lost mothers lives that the power is good and the phone lines ARE direct. I need at least two sockets and two phone lines every day. If we are uploading to the site and need to talk to Addie, band or whoever you obviously need two phone lines. Some venues give you just the one and you have to keep swopping from phone to internet ….. pain in the arse ! In Hamburg myself and tour manager Steve Cox spent nearly 2 hours bludgeoning staff into getting me a line so I could send out internet goodies.