One of the greatest (and loudest) shows I ever attended was Iron Maiden, Dio, and Motörhead: the sixth date of the American leg of the "Give Me Ed… 'Til I'm Dead World Tour". LIVE at Merriweather Post Pavilion in scenic Columbia, Maryland. I was finishing up college, working at a bar and trying to figure out what I was going to do with the next year of my life, when it was decided that the bar's ownership would treat us to tickets to this show. Now, I never grew up a metalhead, but everyone loves (or should love) Lemmy, and Philthy Animal Taylor all but invented D-beat, so I rented a van for the lot of us, put the only straight edger in our crew in charge of driving, and off we went. Just about everyone had tied one on before the show started; we staggered in as a wobbly group of a dozen punks, skins, and metal heads. It was still daylight when Motörhead hit the stage and absolutely PUMMELED us while we stood in the eighth row. I've never seen a room fill up so quickly once they started playing. By the end of their set, we were all agape, whether it was the first time or 20th time we'd seen them. We were just brutalized, regardless of our individual level of experience with the band. It was as good as feeling as the highest high, a state of euphoria I've not often reached.
Everything after that was just gravy. Dio was amazing (totally changed my opinion on him) and Maiden...well, Maiden was MAIDEN. They were great. But it was Motörhead that left the lasting impression. I went from being familiar to being a true fan, the kind that waxed poetic as each member of the classic trio passed along over the past ten years.
I'm not even sure if "No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith" is a fair representation of what I saw. After all, it was recorded over five nights between the release of "Ace Of Spades" and "Iron Fist", in the midst of their truly heroic run of releases on Bronze. Over 20 years would pass until I'd see them in the summer of 2003. But I'll be damned if it didn't earn its #1 chart position, via one of the greatest live albums of all time. The copy shared here is the Roadracer 1991 US reissue. It includes five live tracks that didn't appear on the initial Bronze release, four of which were released on 1980's "The Golden Years" EP. Two of those would be omitted from future pressings, so it's a nice version to pick up.
If Lemmy is God, and I'm told Lemmy is dead, than the corollary should be that God is dead. I prefer to believe that Mssrs. Kilmister, Clarke, and Taylor have all ascended to a higher plane, where they are now laying waste and teaching the true meaning of white line fever.
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