Your Top 3 most seen live acts

[Trufflehound]

There is no doubt that the contrast between Dianno and typical metal vocalists helped them initially. However, he blew his voice by too much drink and drugs and they started to cancel gigs. Dickinson may have been old school imagewise but his vocal range, onstage presence and songwriting took Maiden to the next level. What has been a tragedy is Dianno spending the last 30 years trying to live off the memory. Had Maiden not been ruthless their career could have stalled. Look what happened to Saxon who because of record company wrangles and band disputes didn't push on to further sucess like Maiden and Leppard.

It was largely the image that put me off to be honest. I appreciate it was good for their careers, I just didn't like it, or the music they've made since. Plus I always thought Samson were crap, so I wasn't impressed by the announcement when they brought Dickinson in.

Incidentally, I went to one of the IM cancelled gigs. Was supposed to have seen them at Sheffield University but it was pulled at the last minute due to a Di'anno "sore throat". Steve Harris - presumably embarrassed by the fact they couldn't get Di'anno up off the dressing room floor - came down to the bar to apologise in person to the few of us that had stuck around. So we got to have a few pints with him and a game of pool at least...

I saw Saxon (supporting Motorhead) and Def Leppard (supporting AC/DC) in the same week in 1979. They were both utter turd then, and both went downhill after that (though obviously not commercially in DL's case).

Edit: Oh, and for the record I have never seen Di'anno in his post-IM "embarrassing drunken has-been" phase... Did watch a clip on YouTube once. He looks and sounds truly awful.

 

[SouthCoastOwl]

Levellers

Dropkick murphys

Flogging molly

Fine choices sir, in the same vein give Leatherat and The Tansads a go.