That Time Iron Maiden Mimed Their Performance on the German TV Show P.I.T. – 1986 – Somewhere in Time – Wasted Years – VIDEO

Posted by On February 22, 2022 0 Comment

Metal Hammer: Iron Maiden’s aversion to miming on TV music shows was made clear early in their career. When the East London band were asked to perform – or rather lip-sync – their debut single Running Free on Top Of The Pops in February 1980 they refused to participate on the BBC’s flagship music program unless they were permitted to perform live: “Nobody since The Who in 1974 had done it live,” Maiden’s manager Rod Smallwood recalled, “but we stuck in and said, ‘No live, no Maiden.’”

Not everyone, however, got the memo. Take, for instance, the producers of German TV show P.I.T. who, in August 1986, extended an invite to the Londoners to perform Wasted Years, the lead-off single from the quintet’s sixth studio album, Somewhere In Time on their show. This time, Maiden agreed to the request to mime their performance: in retrospect, the show’s producers may have wished they’d been turned down.- READ MORE

Steve Harris:

I had a bit of an anti-Top Of The Pops thing. They never had anyone decent on, and I was really adamant that I wasn’t going to do it if they made us mime to a playback. I just thought ‘Bollocks to them. What have they ever done for me?’”