Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
One man, one band, 365 t-shirts – the ultimate Iron Maiden tribute
During the years of which I’ve been a music enthusiast, I’ve seen and met several people that are big fans of bands. I am probably one myself, when it comes to certain artists. But frankly, I’ve yet to encounter someone as dedicated as Martin Jackson from Macclesfield, England, that is now making waves into the heavy metal community for an incredible reason. We chatted with Martin and discovered quite a lot about him. He’s a builder and self-employed. He’s got a daughter, Lauren, and they’re both big Iron Maiden fans, as you will notice. Martin shared with us how he became a fan of the group.
It was back in the early 80s when the “Peace of Mind” album came out, and we were listening to it. Me and my friend, we were always into punk rock, and he got that album, listened to it, and thought that was amazing. And since then, I’ve just been a big fan, seeing them all over. I saw them at their show in Manchester. My daughter came, she saw it. It was her 51st Iron Maiden show. And she brought her friend along. It was her friend’s first show, so it was a really good night.
He himself has attended 100 shows of the band! His favorite track is “Hallowed Be Thy Name“, and his favorite album is…
“Brave New World”, the album when Bruce and Adrian came back to the band. Prior to that, it was probably “Peace of Mind” and “Seventh Son”, about equal. But then, I think if you smash them two albums together, it’d sound a bit like “Brave New World”. And it’s just a great album.
So you will not be shocked about his favorite era of the band.
Definitely Bruce. His first era from “Number of the Beast” to “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” is classic. Since he came back to the band, I don’t think he’s done anything wrong. I think this new era now is just really good. It’s my favourite because every album they’ve done with this lineup has all been consistently good.
But coming back to the reason of our chat, he has started an instagram account, posting himself wearing a different t-shirt for each day of the year. That’s a lot of t-shirts! How many does he actually have?
I actually don’t know. But probably, I estimated that there’s over 400. And a lot of my friends would say, “Oh, I bet you could wear a different one every day.” I’m like, “Yeah, probably“. Then another friend, Claire, she suggested that I should post a different picture of myself on Instagram every day in a different t-shirt. So I’ve been doing that since the 1st of January. And it’s the 50th anniversary of Iron Maiden. So it kind of ties in with that.
And almost all of them are official items of merchandise that the band has sold.
All the ones I’ve posted have been official. But I think one might be a bootleg, which I bought from Eastern Europe. So if anyone sees this, see if they can spot which one it is.
His favorite one is peculiar.
There’s a “Somewhere in Time” tie-dye shirt, which they released at the time in 1986. That’s pretty cool. There’s a matching one with “Live After Death”, a blue one. It came as a pair. I really like them. But most of the t-shirts are consistently good. So I just tend to buy everything they have on store, which is quite expensive.
He’s bought already all the t-shirts from the current tour.
One thing they do on occasion is certain cities and certain places, they’ll have just a special t-shirt for that event. So I saw them in Prague and they had one just for Prague. I met the manager in Prague at the merch table as well and they have the dive bar, Eddie’s dive bar.I got a photo of them and told him what I was doing. He thought it was pretty funny.
Will he see them again this year?
Yeah, I’m going to see Deftones. And then Stephen Wilson on Thursday. Then on Saturday, I’m going to see Iron Maiden again in London. And I’ve got tickets to see them in Vienna as well, in Austria. And then Berlin at the end of July. Two shows in Berlin.
His family supports his hobby!
My daughter first came to see them when she was four years old. And she’s 33 this year, so she’s seen them quite a lot of times. She loves them. My dad’s been to see them with me, two of my brothers. So they’re all used to it now.
And if you’re wondering how much he spent on those 400 t-shirts…
Some of the early ones were quite cheap, you could buy them for like £10. Now they’re like £45 at the gigs. So, average it out at £20: that’s about £8,000.
Dedication at its finest! He also met the band a few times and had autographs.
We met them a few times at the fan club conventions and they send out signed autographs and signed things when you join the fan club. We met in 2000 when my daughter was nine. We met them in London when they were playing Earl’s Court. They had a fan club convention and they signed quite a few things there. My daughter got a load of photos with them and they were just really cool to them, really nice. Just last year, Bruce Dickison did stores in England, so you could just go out to meet him really easily.
So if you want to follow Martin and check out more about his journey (or perhaps spot the bootleg t-shirt?), here’s his social media: