After watching that gig mentioned in the previous post, I decided to do some more researching (a good excuse for looking at hundreds of pics of Jan, eh ;)), this time about his stage clothes. It doesn't seem to change much over the years since the beginning of 90s, aside from a different tour shirt, but what shirt exactly? Well, turned out that only on the last 4 tours Janick has been wearing just one tour shirt per year, while before there were more variants of his stage attire. But overall Jan looked the same on stage for the past 20 years. I love that! Lemmy is the same, so's Slash. And that's awesome!
Anyway, lets start with time before Maiden!
His first band was White Spirit, and Janick could be seen on stage wearing not so skinny trousers and what seemed like a black silk shirt with really wide sleeves. If not for his flamboyant style of playing, it would've been impossible to recognise him!
During his Gillan days Jan wore white/red shirts, jackets and jeans and still those white high-heeled boots (like Lemmy and a lot of other metalheads at that time), and a bullet belt. And occasionally
one leg warmer! Not sure what he was thinking at that time, 'coz honestly, it looked quite ridiculous :D
Then came a call from Bruce to record an album and go on a small tour to support it. And that's when the unmistakable Jan's stage style was first seen, and hasn't changed much since. Tight jeans (either black or light blue), with a hole on one knee, tour shirt with cut off sleeves and leather or denim jacket in the beginning of the gig. And at first he had converse shoes, which he switched to his usual reeboks a couple of years later.
When he joined Maiden, it stayed exactly the same. Though during the first few warm up gigs it was a yellow singlet instead of a tour shirt :) And the denim jacket appeared a few times as well. Light coloured tight jeans also gave way to black ones quite soon.
During his first tour with Maiden he wore 2 shirts, as far as I can tell:
- No prayer for the dying artwork
- Tailgunner shirt, with a really cool looking back :D
- He also got those High top Reeboks, which he first wore with straps below the tongue.
Back - really cool stuff :D
Fear of the Dark tour and the later tours with Bruce saw 3 more shirts:
During the Blaze era, he wore 2 tour shirts for each of the albums as well as a simple black sleeveless top. Also his usual white runners were sometimes replaced by similar black ones, though there's not much documented evidence of that.
During Ed Hunter tour Jan wore.... an Ed Hunter tour shirt :)
Now, Brave New World tour saw the most awesome trousers imaginable - black and white spots, a hole on one knee and torn at the bottom of the /legs/. Dunno where Jan came by those (probably home made stuff?) and what made him decide to wear those, but it looked fantastic! Besides there were 4 different shirts that year, all black and white ones to go with the jeans, though the one he wore on Rock In Rio DVD is certainly the most common one. But there was also one with just horizontal white stripes, one with an Iron Maiden logo and one with some splashes of white and laces on the sides! Now, that's sexy :D
During 2003 tour Jan wore the same stuff he already had during previous tours. Sometimes same B&W shirt and even trousers that he had for the most of BNW tour, but more often greyish jeans with another hole on the knee and studs on the seams and the same t-shirt he had for Real Live Tour 10 years ago :) And for North America dates he had a special shirt promoting another Best Of album.
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For Dance of Death tour Janick naturally had Dance of Death tour shirt, but not only :) There was also another shirt with random splashes of colour (he really seems to like those!), which at first even had sleeves on, though later in the tour they got cut off as usual. He also set his choice on black tight jeans torn at the bottom with hole on one knee and studs running down the seams, which stayed his main trousers for years to come.
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2005 tour was a classic albums tour, and so Jan wore 2 classic t-shirts, Killers and Piece of mind, one of which didn't even have a print on the back. Though there was another shirt with sleeves still on, with random pattern on it and without a Maiden logo, which, judging by number of pics, was worn to just a few gigs.
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During AMOLAD tour Jan had an unusually large number of shirts - 4, and even different jeans, which he switched if he had 2 gigs in the row, as can be seen on 2 bootlegs from Milan shot on 2 consecutive nights. While the first gig features Jan in the usual AMOLAD shirt and his fave jeans, during the second gig he wore another shirt with some splashes of colour (I think it may be the same one he wore during DoD tour, just faded) and jeans which looked like they were bleached a bit and like they had a camouflage pattern. But still torn at the bottom and with a usual hole on right knee. And what's even more incredible, is that for the encore of that second night in Milan he changed his shirt for a camo one with Eddie with crossed guns in the front! Never saw him doing that anywhere :) And now he doesn't seem to bother with changing his shirt from gig to gig, even on consecutive nights :) And judging by the pics there was even one more shirt, with Crossed guns Eddie on the back.
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For 2007 tour it was a new shirt with the same AMOLAD artwork on the front, but different tour dates on the back. Also for a few gigs poor Jan had to wear a brace on one leg, after some bastard damaged his knee and after which he never sits on it anymore. And hence during latter tours his jeans never have a hole on the knee I guess :)
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The latter tours Janick was wearing just one shirt per year... or maybe just several identical ones, though I doubt it for some reason, especially during the last tour - you just have to look at the state of that shirt by the end of the tour as compared with what it looked like during the first gig :D
For 2008 it was an Aces High shirt all the way, though there still were some changed in his attire - for the first few dates of that tour he had his jeans torn at the bottom, as it was usual for the past decade, but then, sometime during or after the Australian dates, the jeans weren't torn anymore for some reason. Why? No idea :D
New jeans. Same yet new.
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2009 - The Trooper shirt.
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2010 - The Final Frontier Big Teeth shirt (which my mum insist looks as if he's wearing a bra.... Well, there is something to that, I must admit :D). And his jeans instead of being on top of the shoes became tucked inside the hi-tops :) Why? Who knows :D
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Attention to the shoes :)
2011 - The Final Frontier album artwork shirt.
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And the way it was during the last gig of the tour :D
And just random fact: that bit of black cloth that could be seen in the hole in his jeans is just a knee pad. I even think he still wears on the right knee.
