The Metal Files

Haven’t posted in a while but this one was important enough to share here…

Let’s flashback to about 1983. I wasn’t playing drums yet but I wanted to learn and a big reason for that was hearing Piece Of Mind and Nicko McBrain. They were becoming and still are my favorite band of all time, not matter that I generally haven’t cared about anything they’ve put out since No Prayer.

Flash forward to early 1988. I’m 17, a senior with terribly poofy hair and acne and local music store Abbey Music announces that Nicko, my favorite drummer ever, was doing a drum clinic and of course I had to go.

There were only about 30 people there as Whitesnake was in town touring for the ’87 LP. I was one of 2 people who actually got to get up on stage and play his drums with him standing right there. It was awesome. I still have the pair of his signature sticks! During one of his rambles, he mentioned the size of the crowd being small due to Whitesnake being in town. Under my breath from the front row I said “Fuck Tommy Aldridge.” Nicko stopped his speech and said, “Steve, give that man a beer!” So his tech handed me an ice cold Heineken which I had Nicko autograph after the show as we were getting a photo taken. I still have that bottle, unopened and it’s all chunky inside. I didn’t drink at the time so there was no reason to open it. It was an incredible night.

Flash forward to just a few weeks ago and I see a post online about Nicko’s Titanium Tart playing 4 Florida shows and offering a meet and greet. I had to do it. I sent the info to Kelz and we got on a long phone call to discuss logistics. Just based on price point, I decided to fly into Raleigh where he is and we’d drive down to Sanford, FL. BUT…we wanted to make sure we were able to purchase the meet and greet which was to go on sale a couple of days later. We got the tix dnd I booked my trip and that was that.

Thursday July 24

Kelz picks me up mid afternoon at the airport, we chill at his place a bit then run out for dinner at a coney dog place called Cloos’. It was excellent. Back to his place to chill for a bit and watch a movie. We planned to leave at 7AM on Friday.

Friday July 25

We did leave at 7AM and because of some traffic issues along that way, we got to our crash pad right at 5PM. Luckily we were just a couple of blocks away. We dropped our stuff, freshened up and walked over to The Barn. That humidity was no joke. Once there we checked in and got our meet and greet swag and do our obligatory pre-show shot. Mine was just Coke.

First band, Maximum Friction, opened up the evening. They’re all young high school kids and play as a 3pc with the bassist handling vocal duties. They played all classic metal covers by Ozzy, Megadeth, Sabbath, Pantera etc and one original. They were pretty solid and reminded me of School of Rock type kids. Good on em.

Another 3pc called Velvet Sky played next. Both bands played a side room and I didn’t watch any of Velvet Sky.

Nicko’s band started just before 8PM on the main stage and we grabbed a spot near the front stage right in the VIP section. You couldn’t really see Nicko because of his kit size but we could hear him fine. In general I’d call the song selection meh but I’m sure they’re doing the songs that best fit his physical condition. He did as well as I’d expected, especially after seeing three shows from that last tour. I was stoked to hear Infinite Dreams. Partially disabled by his stroke or not, the man’s right foot is still devastating as he proved throughout the night.

He’d come out from behind the kit every few songs and talk, tell jokes, introduced the band etc. I stayed up in that area for about the first third of the show and moved to the back of the room. Knees were stiffening up and I needed to loosen em up and walk around a bit. Kelz left the VIP shortly after and we watched the remainder of the show back by the soundboard. Looked like about 200-250 folks.

Immediately after their set, the meet and greet folks were told to wait by the stairs to the upper level. They sold 50 of those packages at $75 a pop. We were in the last 10 or so to cycle thru.

It was billed as getting “one on one time with Nicko” and only one item to get signed. Uh yeah. I was gonna try and work some mojo and get two items signed: The Book and the photo of us from 1988 for framing purposes. Nicko would engage with the folks almost as much as anyone wished to. Some folks opted for a quick sig and a photo and some engaged with him more. It was nice to see altho it slowed things down a bit. We had nowhere to be, right?

Kelz is up first and I filmed their interaction. He got his main two things signed: a cool old Sonor ad from Modern Drummer and his Powerslave cd which already had sigs by Bruce, Adrian and Steve. Pretty sweet.

I’m up next and lay The Book out in front of him and he signed it. He was pretty indifferent about it but was digging our photo. I started recounting the events of that night and mentioned his former drum tech (RIP) and the Heineken. That affected him a little and he said he missed that guy. He said, “this must’ve been from 89” and I showed him the announcement flyer and explained it was Feb 1, 1988 pre-Seventh Son and that night was the first time I’d heard the title of the upcoming album. I asked if he’d sign the photo and he obliged. They had someone taking pics using our cameras and Kelz filmed most of my interaction with the man. We did the one main photo and he shook my hand and I asked him for a hug. He obliged and I told him in his ear how much I loved him and thanked him for a lifetime of music. He thanked me back and that was that. I was hoping to recreate our original photo as much as we could’ve but it just didn’t play out that way and I’m good with that.

My San Antonio buddy Ruben and his lovely wife Jasmin were right behind us and get their stuff signed. He also had Nicko sign his leg which hopefully got tattooed in today.

We collected ourselves after the surreal moments with Nicko and Ruben gave us a ride back. Our adrenaline was still up and we ordered in a couple of sammiches, talked about the evening a bit more and crashed out. It was a perfect night.

We drove back Saturday the 26th, it was a little over 9 hours coming back and traffic was light for the most part. We got back here at 6PMish and just chilled out for the evening with a couple of movies.

The expense and time of this trip was worth every minute and dollar spent. Getting Nicko in The Book was a pinnacle moment and I’m considering retiring it. As I’m writing this eating breakfast tacos Sunday morning here in Raleigh with Kelz, we’re still quite a bit in awe of meeting Nicko. Glad we got to share the experience together as Iron Maiden has been a major part of our friendship for over 40 years.

All hail Nicko and always Up The Irons! Forever.

Video of Nicko and me:

Setlist: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/titanium-tart/2025/the-barn-in-sanford-sanford-fl-4b4283ae.html