During a recent Talk Louder podcast episode, Accept frontman Mark Tornillo shared his thoughts on the time he fronted Iron Maiden in a New York club forty years ago. Tornillo had played with the band as their frontman since Bruce Dickinson was absent at the time. Recalling his earlier band before Accept, he said:
“[My pre-Accept band] T.T. Quick, we had a steady Thursday night at L’Amour. We played every Thursday night. We were the headliner — doing six, seven hundred people on a Thursday night. Not too shabby; it was respectable. [Drummer] Glenn Evans was in the band at that point. The EP hadn’t come out yet. It had to be ’83, I’m gonna say.”
The frontman remembered the time Iron Maiden wanted to hang out with his band and told:
“And one of the [L’Amour] owners, Mike, comes into the back, into the dressing room, and he goes, ‘Hey, the guys from Iron Maiden are here. They wanna know if it’s okay if they hang out in the dressing room.’ And we were, like, ‘What?’ Like we were gonna say ‘no.’ I was, like, ‘Yeah, of course. Tell ’em to come on back.’ And, of course, we had a party going on back there. It was 1983. What do you expect?”
He added:
“So they all come back, hung out. And we asked them, ‘Do you guys wanna play?’ [And they said], ‘Nah, we don’t wanna play.’ The opening act was on; I don’t remember who it was. So, changeover, they’re still hanging in the dressing room. We’re getting ready to go. And we go on.”
The frontman went on to tell what happened during their set and how the crowd reacted:
“And we must have played about five or six songs, and my guitar tech goes, ‘Hey, come here. Come here.’ I’m, like, ‘What?’ ‘They wanna come up and play.’ ‘Tell ’em to come on and have a play. I’m fine with that. Great. Tell ’em after the next song.’ ‘Okay.’ We did the next song. And they’re starting to walk up. We’re starting to walk off. I’m gonna introduce the band. And the crowd knew they were there. And the swell in the crowd just went from ‘Aaahhh’ to ‘Ooooaaahhh.’ You couldn’t miss [Maiden guitarist] Dave Murray walking out on stage and [Maiden bassist] Steve Harris.”
Tornillo then tried to recall what happened when Iron Maiden took the stage. He said:
“So I’m getting ready to introduce the band… Actually, I’m trying to remember how it went. And I have a cassette recording of this; my soundman, brilliant that he was, had the foresight to push the ‘record’ button on a cassette. I think I walked off before I introduced them ’cause I figured they didn’t need any introduction.”
He added:
“And as I’m walking off, Steve Harris just grabbed me by the shoulder, and he goes, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m gonna [get off and watch you play].’ And he goes, ‘Bruce [Dickinson] isn’t here, mate. You’re singing.’ I’m, like, ‘Okay.’ He goes, ‘What are we doing?’ I go, ‘How about ‘Wrathchild’?'”
The rocker then topped it off with his comment on the mentioned day:
“I lost my shit, man. I didn’t sleep for three days. The adrenaline flow was just [off the chart]. The crowd just lost their frickin’ minds. And then we [T.T. Quick] had to finish the show. It was, like, ‘Oh my God. How do we top that now?'”
Just like they performed Wrathchild back then, Tornillo recently joined the first all-women Iron Maiden tribute, Iron Maidens, to play the same song for their final show with Accept.
See the full interview below.
