Sadly this new magazine has sourced the picture from archive file, and in the passing of 40 years, the magazine feature writer Phil Wilding has mixed up its origin. The caption in the new magazine documents the wrong venue, the incorrect date and a different guy who was also on the scene at the time. He famously used to take a Plywood cut-out Flying V to Neil Kay’s Bandwagon Heavy Metal Soundhouse in Kingsbury Circus North London – this was shown on a BBC Documentary on the NWOBHM. At the time, it was upping the ante of Air Guitar playing, and it inspired me to take things a little further.
I took my real Flying V guitar to a gig, and I was photographed in the crowd. It was Sunday 10th Feb 1980 at the Lyceum in London. There were regular gigs at the Lyceum on a Sunday, and a promoter would put on a concert of 3-5 bands on the scene at the time to make a viable booking. Angel Witch, Tiger of Pang Tang, Samson, Girlschool, Saxon, Raven….. etc.
This particular gig was Iron Maiden, Praying Mantis and Diamond Head, and was the largest venue that Maiden had headlined at the time. They were really stoked at the gig, as they had just been signed by EMI. Anyway, one of the pictures that was taken of me on the night ended up in Sounds broadsheet paper the following week with an interview feature on Maiden. It was Iron Maiden’s first ever cover shot in Sounds.
Pip Lyceum Flying V ticket by
Philip Mock, on Flickr
The picture is on Getty Images, where at least they have documented the correct gig.
Getty
It did pop up in Q magazine in about 2001, and Q asked if anyone knew the whereabouts of the guy (me) in the picture. I wrote to Q at the time with snail mail, but it would appear that the correct subject of the picture was never correctly identified. I assume that Sounds may have the paper in their archives. The text under the picture in Sounds read;
“Imaginary guitar posing goes one stop beyond; note Maiden fan with real guitar”
Out of all the pictures taken during that period of bands and stuff, I’m staggered that 40 years later Classic Rock / Phil Wilding chose this one of me for the feature to help represent the movement ….. It also seems odd that I wasn’t wearing Dunlop green flash, but check out that waistcoat and those flares!
Pip Lyceum Flying V mag_1 by
Philip Mock, on Flickr
Pip