Six degrees of Samson

Sundance channel has a new series called "Live from Abbey Road," where musicians play a song or two at the famous studio and viewers get to watch. Pretty straightforward concept, and the line-up over the past two episodes has been an interesting mix of new(er) bands, like the Zutons, some older acts, like Shawn Colvin, and some truly off-the-wall guests, like Iron Maiden.

Yep, Iron Maiden.

I imagine the mere presence of the band that brought you such classics as "Run to the Hills," "Aces High," and "Can I Play with Madness?" has left three out of four Beatles spinning in their graves. [OK, so Ringo's not technically dead, but still...]

Anyway, I thought Samson would greatly enjoy watching the Gipsy Kings do their "we have 87 people in our band each clapping and playing two guitars" thing.

And indeed, he did. The GKs were the segment immediately preceding Iron Maiden [to be referred to from here on out as "Maiden," in accordance with the rules set down by the guys in my high school who took auto shop, metal shop, wood shop, and (occassionally) my lunch money.]

So Maiden comes on to play their classic "Hallowed Be Thy Name," which starts out slow, and Samson turns to me and says: "Will they get loud?"

Ask and ye shall receive, young Samson. No sooner had the question been raised than the drums kicked in and the band, who all look old enough to remember the blitzkrieg in London, duly rocked out. Which scared Sam a little. Still, he was impressed by the number of drums and cymbals in the drummer's kit. He also noted that the singer "yelled loud."

I have "The Number of the Beast" on cassette, so when I checked out iTunes to see what Maiden had on offer digitally, you can imagine my surprise to see that Bruce Dickinson, legendary frontman for the band, was formerly the lead singer of a band called Samson. Go figure.