A personal message from Captain Bruce Dickinson

Dear 666 passenger,

I am gutted to have to tell you that Astraeus Airlines have been forced to remove the Iron Maiden decals (artwork transfers) from the Boeing 757 and that its now highly unlikely that operational proceedures will allow enough time to have the Ed Force One livery reinstated for my Bruce Air trips.

ROD'S DIARY - MAR 6-7 BUENOS AIRES

I was greatly looking forward to a couple of days in Buenos Aires. In jan 2001 we had a few days here and I went cycling 40 miles a day round a bird sanctuary near the city centre in training for my first charity ride in Kenya the following month. We also had a fantastic night out eating tons of magnificent Argentinian beef courtesy of EMI. For some reason Jimmy Page was with us and everyone got smashed and started the Mr Gumby Monty Python knotted-hankerchief-on-the head routine. I think this is where it started and (embarrassingly) it comes out to this day (see day 1 chile). It was on our way to Rock in Rio 2001, the one we filmed. So good memories.

"IRON MAIDEN ARE 10% COOLER THAN EVERY OTHER BAND!" - LARS ULRICH, METALLICA.

KERRANG! TEAM UP WITH METALLICA, MACHINE HEAD, TRIVIUM, AVENGED SEVENFOLD AND MORE FOR AN A WORLD EXCLUSIVE, ALL STAR IRON MAIDEN TRIBUTE ALBUM!

ROD'S DIARY - MAR 5 PORTO ALLEGRE

As this was the day after Curitiba, which is only 400 miles or so away, the equipment was all trucked there overnight. However we needed a crew there by noon as by then the staging, PA, lights, platforms would be ready for us to set up production, backline, monitors etc. So it was an earlier start for the band and departure about 10am for the short flight. Vans, fans, escort as usual to hotel.

Artwork by Felipe Franco of Bogota, Colombia

Madison Square Garden occupies two city blocks in lower-Midtown Manhattan between 7th & 8th Avenues and West 31st and West 33rd Streets, basking in the notoriety of its epic history. Howard Cosell called countless fights here; thousands of bands have played MSG and a scant few seven years ago, the Concert for 9/11was held here. The New York Knickerbockers play here (lately not so gallantly) and the New York Rangers hockey team calls Madison Square Garden home.

Being on tour in Canada, Maiden weren't able to appear at the Metal Hammer awards in person, so we thought you'd like to check out the acceptance videos...

By Ben Wener
Singer Bruce Dickinson explains how the British metal gods still attract teenage metalheads by the tens of thousands.

By MIKE ROSS
Imagine: A middle-aged man sits in front of 14,000 devoted heavy metal fans, talks about Samuel Taylor Coleridge and is hailed as the greatest hero the world has ever known.

By ACE BURPEE

They have the greatest mascot ever.
They've sold more than 100 million records and have never appeared on their own album covers.
With all due respect to The Beatles, The Police, Radiohead, The Doors, Coldplay, or any other band from any other era or genre, Iron Maiden is the greatest band of all time.
Period.

I've thought about it, and I've never been so sure of anything in my life.