See Below The 1983 World Piece Tour Event Riders Presented To The Hosting Venue By Iron Maiden & Opening Act, Saxon.
The Smoking Gun, a site that primarily deals in freedom of information reports, has amassed a sweet collection of band riders, including those from the ’83 Iron Maiden Tour…
So, if you ever want to lose about six days of your life, you can dive into and it’s full of incredibly minor, but compelling revelations. Like, for example, did you know that Zac de La Rocha eats Starburst after Rage Against The Machine shows? No? Well now you do!
Riders are a staple of Rockstar status. We mean, how can you say you’ve made it unless you’re rolling up to a dressing room laden with incredibly specific refreshments provided to your exact standards? Have they set you up with Coke Zero instead of the Diet Coke they asked for? Fire up the bus, the show’s cancelled!
Alternatively, here is a sample we found of one of Slayer’s insane rifer request, “the Grammy shoe boxes”…
During the 2011 Fun Fun Fest tour, Slayer went out of their way to be entertainingly brutal, something that’s kinda always been their thing anyway. Without batting a satanic eyelash, they requested a hundred “snow-white goats for slaughter”, a Halal butcher to do all the slaughtering and bags to store the flesh. They also insisted on blood-proof umbrellas, a pentagram made of sandwiches (LMAO),black yoga balls and a human skull full of sweets. Their requests weren’t without modesty though – the rider asks for “two shoe boxes to hide our Grammy Awards with special instructions: (do not write “Grammy’s” on the boxes.)”
The Seattle Collesium, (now Key Arena) was the stop June 28th of the Iron Maiden World Piece Tour, bringing truckloads of gear, including a giant version of Eddie. And, as bands do, Iron Maiden brought their rider along which was four pages long detailing all of the shit both groups required to survive their time in the Emerald City.
Iron Maiden / Saxon Event Hospitality Rider From 1983 World Piece Tour
Van Halen made riders a part of rock history when theirs so blatantly banned brown M&M’s. Once upon a time for Guns N’ Roses it was all about smokes and porno mags, and later in their career, Mötley Crüe required they be told where the location of the nearest AA meeting the night of their gig.
Iron Maiden / Saxon Event Hospitality Rider From 1983 World Piece Tour
You might think that a rider meant to address the needs of Iron Maiden and Saxon would be full of all kinds of debauchery, but the reality is the items they requested for their Seattle gig was pretty tame by most 80’s heavy metal standards.
Honestly, flavorful vegetarian dishes, the hot English tea and Perrier, this sounds like what my kid asks for when I tell him I’m going to the grocery store. Now, this is not to say that the ’83 versions of Iron Maiden and Saxon (and their dedicated road crews) didn’t like to party. In all–as you can see in the riders themselves, Maiden and Saxon also requested sixteen cases of beer (one case specifically for Saxon as well as a bottle of Remy Martin and Black Currant liqueur),and an assortment of vodka, gin, and cognac be on hand and chilled (if necessary) by 4:30 pm.
Iron Maiden / Saxon Event Hospitality Rider From 1983 World Piece Tour
Iron Maiden – Still Life – Maiden England
Many thanks to Derek Erdman for providing the riders to The Smoking Gun. According to Derek, they were found by a friend of his in an attic in Seattle and later published in The Stranger where Erdman was a contributor to the local newspaper in 2014.