Quality note: This isn't any superduper crisp video like from digital video cameras today. This is
the kind of picture you get from cameras 15 years ago. Still it is very clear, and this is a standalone
DVD transfer off either the master tape or 1st gen. Also note that most of this is shot inside a limousine
and it is a bright sunny day outside, and unfortunately that means that the camera picks up all that glare
from the front window behind Bruce, and his face is quite often in the shadows.


This is a short but sweet video given to me by a friend, Freddie G., who had the amazing honor and
privilege of meeting Bruce Dickinson (and his guitarist Alex Dickson) at a live acoustic promotional
event and getting a brief personal acoustic show from the guys in the back of their limo!! Plus Bruce
was OK with him taping it for posterior, er posterity! Now you can watch it too.

I love Iron Maiden and Bruce's solo stuff and always thought he deserved the air raid siren nickname
for his incredibly powerful voice, but you ain't heard nothing until you've heard Bruce belting out
a song like HELL NO with his head thrown back, giving his all, while you're sitting 2 feet away from
him in the back of a broken down sweltering hot limousine!!!!! I've seen Maiden live a couple times but
after seeing this I wonder if Bruce even needs his microphone; he could probably drown out Steve Harris
and Company just with his own lung power.

The story behind this is that Freddie knew someone at Bruce's record label at the time. The label had
setup an acoustic performance/in-store session for Bruce at a couple Tower record stores in the area
including the one in downtown Philadelphia on South Street.

Unfortunately there was little or no advertising about these events - at least not the one in Philly -
and no one actually KNEW about this! I didn't or I would have gone. Back in 1994 the internet hadn't
exploded like it has today and for people to hear about this stuff it had to be advertised somewhere, and
I guess it wasn't (??).

Fred only found out about it because the guy he knew at the label happened to mention it to him in
passing ON THE VERY DAY of the session! Bad luck for me that I didn't become acquainted with Fred until
a year later so he didn't know me to pass the word along to and I had no idea Bruce was in town. Dammit!

Fred went down to Tower Records with another friend of his who brought his video camera. They met Bruce
and Alex in the near empty record store in what Fred describes as similar to the scene out of Spinal Tap
where the band go to record store to sign copies of their new album but nobody shows up!

To add insult to injury the in-store sound system was blasting out very un-Bruce-like music like rap or
techno at ear splitting volume. There were no fans lined up to meet one of the greatest singers in rock
history - just a couple people there shopping who didn't even know who he was and who couldn't care less.
All the while Bruce and Co. were getting naseuous from the garbage music being forcefed over the store's
loudspeakers. Doctor Doctor it wasn't :-(

Freddie and his buddie talked for a bit with Bruce and Alex in the store, had a great time just chatting,
but the way things were going with no fans showing up and a pretty bad vibe in the store (blasting rap when
you've got BRUCE DICKINSON available to sing? wtf??) Bruce suggested they go outside and that he and Alex
would play a couple songs for them in the comfort of his limo that was waiting parked on the street.

What Bruce didn't know though was that the limo had broken down and wasn't running, so there was no air
conditioning inside and it was sweltering in there! But the guys headed to the car and while they were
about to get in two guys were walking by who recognized Bruce, and they then got invited to join in on
the limo show too. Telling me the story today Freddie is quick to point out that these guys kind of
ruined some of the good will that he had builtup with Bruce, in that it was one of the new guys that asked
Bruce to play RUN TO THE HILLS - instead of steering clear of what was then his PAST in Maiden and that it
wasn't cool to dwell on that at the time. You can hear some of that on the video.

So they all crammed into the limo and got a quick run through of some Bruce songs, but the hot weather
put a big damper on that and cut things short. At one point in the video you can see one of the record
label guys get into the front of the limo behind Bruce and Bruce thinking he was the driver starts to
ask him about the airconditioning!

To put an even crazier ending on the day's events, another limo was dispatched to pickup Bruce and Alex
to take them to the Tower Records store in Cherry Hill, NJ but that limo broke down too, right when it
got to them on South Street - and Bruce cracks up about at that at the end of this video. I just
hope that if they did make it to the Cherry Hill Tower Records, that that one at least had managed to
get the word out and that some fans showed up, so that Bruce and Alex didn't have a completely wasted day.

THANKS to Freddie G. for sharing this video with me and for giving me his OK to share it you. And thanks
of course to Bruce and Alex. Bruce is not only an amazing singer and jet airline pilot, but obviously a
hell of a nice guy. He even joked to Fred and his buddy about filming this that he'd be looking for it out
in the bootleg shops in Camden Town when he got back to London. Instead of selling it as a bootleg let's just
share it here on Dime, and anywhere else that fans want to freely share great music.

P.S. If anyone has similar stuff from this time period of Bruce with Alex Dickson (SKUNKWORKS stuff) please
share it up here. Also anything by GUN, the band that Alex was briefly in before hooking up with Bruce would
be very cool! I saw GUN at the EMPIRE ROCK CLUB in Philly in 1990 but I've never seen anything from that gig
around (anyone have it)? I don't think ALex was in GUN yet but I was a GUN fan before being an Alex fan, and
would love to see some GUN up here too.

Enjoy!