When Iron Maiden toured Japan for the first time in the early 1980s, it took them the best part of 36 hours – a day and a half – to get to their destination. And what a long, strange trip it was.
“It was unbelievable,” recalls bass player Steve Harris. “We flew to Frankfurt, then Abu Dhabi, then Karachi, then Bangkok and finally Tokyo. It was pretty horrendous but it was the cheapest way to get there. We’d only had a couple of records out. It was all we could afford.”
