Jan's tour shirts.

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.

Bootleg Review: Milan 2006, second night.

A very good bootleg, with a nice quality and decent skills of the operator, of that great AMOLAD tour. Shot from the left stand, there is a great view of all of the stage. And what a view it is! Ya know, I love watching Janick from such an angle, his walk is so unbelievably cat-like, so gracious, so smooth....so sexy :) And all his dance moves are absolutely incredible as well! Really, I could watch that all day long!

Highlights

•  Jan's clothes :p I watched a bootleg from the previous night in Milan a while ago, and there he has his usual jeans and AMOLAD t-shirt on. And turned out that for the second night in a row, he changed that for a bit bleached looking jeans (making them look a bit like camo pants) and a black sleeveless shirt with some spots of bright colour on it. You know, during this tour I was always wondering, do they have a change of clothes and how often do they wash their stage attire, if there are 2 gigs very close. I didn't see any evidence that Janick or Steve had 2 sets of identical clothes, but back then they seem to have changed it :) What's even cooler, that before the encore Jan changed his shirt to something I haven't seen him wearing on any photo - camo sleeveless shirt with the Eddie head with crossed guns :) That's something unusual!
• Bruce's microphone stopped working during The Pilgrim. The camera was on Jan and Steve at that time, so not sure what happened, but seems like someone threw a bottle with water at Bruce and the mike (and Bruce) got wet. Now, why would anyone do that?! Bruce was furious, understandably, and showed someone in the front row what he'd do to him.
• Fear of the Dark. Bruce let the audience sing the whole first verse without interfering himself. Sounded fantastic! The public even sang Bruce's customary 'you' and 'ha-ha-ha', which made him (and me) laugh :lol:
•  Jan's running back and forth in the middle of Hallowed Be Thy Name. How much energy he has left by the end of the gig, that's incredible! He nearly bumped into Adrian, who wasn't fast enough to get out of the way :) well, he ran back, then back again at Davey where he did that awesome scissor jump :D, then back onto his side of the stage to play his solo... which he absolutely messed up :D Well, happens :)
•  Jan playing his guitar with Eddie's gun :D

Definitely worth a watch, though I think that the first night in Milan was a better gig... at least there weren't any problems with Bruce's microphone :)

And some screencaps....

Guitars 2011

Today’s topic is Jan’s guitars. How many of them did Janick use during the last tour? I reckon 6 (even though I've seen just 5 of them live), and 2 acoustics.

1. His main Black Strat. Everyone knows (and loves :D) this one!



2. His main White Strat. With a very sexy bit of missing paint. Used for El Dorado and a couple more songs...



3. The second white Strat, used for Iron Maiden. Looks very old and battered :D And no surprise!




4. Brown/sunburst/whatever-this-colour-is-called Strat. Perhaps his less known guitar, 'coz I remember surprised comments on the IMOC back in summer, that perhaps Jan has a new guitar which is not black/white. It was used for The Trooper and The Wicker Man.



5. Another white/a bit yellowish Strat, looks brand new, and used without a cord for Running Free, when Jan finally goes to the other side of the stage and for fighting with Eddie :)



6. And yet another Strat, this time yellow and with dark red mother-of-pearl pick guard. I haven't seen it live, so I guess it's the alternative for the previous one.
Edit. After studying more pics, it turned out that this guitar was used instead of no.4 in Trooper, not no.5 :) Oh well, can't be always right :)




7. Are there any more Fenders? Don’t think I’ve seen any. So, onto acoustics. First one is black Gibson, which he used during The Talisman and Dance of Death.



8. What? This should cover everything, no? Nope! Another acoustic, used instead of that one ^^^ during The Talisman just on a couple of shows in the beginning of the tour for some reason. And it's a real acoustic unlike the semi-acoustic Gibson, so maybe that was the reason - for a more natural sound? But as we can see, it even required another stand, so it was scratched quite soon :)




...and funny how all of his guitars seem to have a tremolo bar, which he hardly ever uses nowadays :)


Ok, that was fun! More research to come, no doubt!

New Intro

Hello and welcome.... to the Janick Gers Appreciation Blog!

Yep, it's the man's birthday today (hope you have a nice one Jan!) and I decided to re-dedicate this blog I had for a while completely to him.

Why? Because this man deserves to be appreciated :)

My unconditional admiration for him comes from a simple fact that he always makes me smile. No matter how down I am, I need to watch a Maiden video, listen a song which he plays, look at a couple of photos or even talk about him for a while - and it always does the trick, my mood is great again.

I first saw him a bit less than a year ago, during the first gig of TFF 2011 tour, which I watched from the seats quite far away, because I have never been an Iron Maiden fan before, so I chose the cheapest tickets and went to the gig just 'coz I was bored. And that changed everything! The moment I saw Janick, I was completely hooked both to him personally and to the whole band. An instant convert :) Well, as a matter of fact, my first impression was "What the hell is he doing? Is this guy for real or what?" :D But when I saw that he was indeed for real, I was hooked!

The first thing that attracted me to Mr.Gers was his passion for playing. You can clearly see it on stage, that all his stage antics come from the heart, 'coz he just can't do it differently. And it is a very enviable thing :D And really great to watch!

Then I started to pay attention to the music Janick plays - as I never paid to anyone else's style of playing. The first thing that I found just breathtakingly beautiful were 4 notes that he plays in the beginning of Clansman over and over again. So simple and yet it touches something deep within my soul. And that harmony on the 5th fret he plays in the live version of FotD - what a beautiful thing and how incomplete the album version sounds without it.And I still remember the first solo which I realised was certainly his without looking it up or seeing the song live - No More Lies. Still one of my top favourites! And all these melody he plays that follow the vocal line - just love those! But more about the music will be written later at some point, this is just an intro :)

And besides, he just ticks most of the boxes in my idea about what a good looking man should look like :) And sound like - what an absolutely lovely voice, accent and the way of phrasing!

And we have the same taste in clothes (which doesn't say highly about mine, does it? ;)) And the same love for walking around towns snapping pics.

So, this is the place where I can share my views about this awesome man and the band he plays in :) Let the appreciation begin! :D

Always a dreamer :D

Saw a few Janick-Maiden related dreams over the last month... after a long break of not seeing anything :)

The first one was the weirdest by far :) Janick moved to Moscow, and lived just a couple of kilometers away from me. And he phoned me and ask to go and ride bikes with his kid, because he can't do it himself after his knee was damaged a few years ago. So, the most part of the dream I was looking after Dylan, his son, while riding my Mtb in the forest and saw Jan himself only when I went to pick up Dylan :) now, where did that come from, I wonder? :D and everything was so lifelike and perfectly natural. But why would Jan move to Msk ad ask me, of all people, to go ride bike with his son - was the first thing in my head once I woke up and recalled the dream :)

The second dream also featured an offspring of a Maiden member, this time it was Steve Harris's daughter :) And she was going to perform live in a small club, with Adrian and Janick on guitars. Naturally, I couldn't miss such an event :) the thing is though, that it wasn't Lauren, who has her band, but another daughter of Steve, that looked like an absolute copy of her father, down to wearing the baggy shorts on stage :) well, ok, doesn't matter, I was there to see Jan :) in the beginning of the gig though only Adrian came out and played some solo, then went backstage, leaving Steve's daughter on her own. And the public wasn't impressed by her solo performance, and it got her so disappointed that she decided to scratch the rest of the gig and went almost crying to her dad who watched everything from the side of the stage, standing in the door leading backstage. Most of the public already left, but I stayed, and caught a glimpse of almost every Maiden member behind Steve :) Saw Jan only from the back, and he looked as if he didn't dye his hair for a few weeks :D But I was really disappointed that the gig was cancelled, 'coz I quite like 'Arry's daughter performance and was so looking forward to Jan finally coming on stage :)

The third dream was the shortest. I was hanging out with some people near a bank on my street, obviously waiting for something, playing footy with a stone or a chunk of ice with one of them. I missed it when it was passed to me, and when I went to get it, I looked across the road and there, on the bus stop, was Jan, making a disappointing gesture about my football abilities :) I shrugged and showed him the tongue :) After some more gesticulation he crossed the street and asked, if there was a cafe nearby, 'coz it was damn cold and he wanted a cup of hot coffee. Nope, there wasn't any close enough to walk to it, but my home was just 3 minutes away :) Or my car is at his service, I can take him anywhere he liked 'coz waiting for a bus may take looooong here :) Dunno which option he chose - I woke up :sniff:

6|666

Today is exactly half a year of my Iron Maiden mania! Which now isn't a mania anymore I guess, it's a way of life! And it all started at the Moscow concert when I saw Janick on stage.

Thank you, Jan, for changing my life!

A quick collage of my pics for celebrating, didn't have time for anything better :)




And who was the first and only one to congratulate me without being told about this date? My car! This morning, while waiting at traffic lights, I looked at the odometer and saw this:



What a coincidence!
6|666 is for 6 (months of listening to) 666 (the number of the beast) :D
Yeah, my car knows how to make me happy :)

Another dream with Jan, my 3rd one :D

I've an amazing dream last night, with Iron Maiden and Janick in it :)

It was an IM gig (how original:)) but in a very strange venue. A really small one, with a waist high stage, seats starting just a few meters away from it and a really small standing section if front of the stage, where most people were sitting down on the floor. But it was still an IM gig, and I was watching it from the best place imaginable - in front of Jan and just a meter away from him :) He caught my eye all the time and smiled a lot :) And so did the rest of the band, since I was one of the very few people who didn't just sit and watch, but sang along, headbanged and generally looked like they were really into music. But the really fun part started next :D

In the little intermission that comes before the last three songs all the guys changed their clothes into something with American Indian motive in it :lol: Jan was wearing a fringed (i guess it's called that, though I'm not sure) blue shirt with triangle pattern, and a headband with some feathers in it :D Looked fantastic! And damn funny, 'coz with those long blonde hair he doesn't look anything like an Indian :D But anyway, after coming out again dressed like that, he pointed at me and made a gesture to come closer. I did so, and he put a feather in my hair and then a headband just like his. Hell, I felt weak kneed even in my dream :lol: After that the band naturally started playing Run To The Hills, which is the first Maiden song I heard and therefore one of my all time faves. Amazing!

But that's not all! During the song, when the lyrics changed to the point of view of the soldiers, the Crew came out dressed as soldiers and began a funny fight with the band. And with me, since I was also 'an Indian' :D They left the band alone pretty soon though - they still had a song to finish, but big Ash grabbed me and dragged backstage :lol: There he said that I can join the band at the afterparty. Niiiiice!

Pity, that's where my dream ended, 'coz my hell-cat woke me up again, for about the 20th time that night, but even so it was a really great one! The part with Janick putting the feather in my hair - awwwww! It's a really rare thing that I see him in my dreams (3rd one afair), so it's a real treat when something like that happens :)