Orshoski shows why he is one of the best rock-dokkers alive in the brilliant opening to Di’Anno: Iron Maiden’s Lost Singer. There is already a huge uphill battle faced before the movie begins: getting a general audience familiar with an obscure figure known only by serious headbangers. I myself was unaware of Di’Anno’s existence, as I never listened to Iron Maiden’s 1980 debut album or the 1981 follow-up, Killers. It was Laurence Kessler, my former bandmate from Lisa and the Devil and Hippie Crippler USA, who tuned me in. Turned out Kessler was the original bass player in the first line-up of Paul Di’Anno’s Battlezone, one of his post-Maiden 80s bands. Even with that glimmer of insight, I knew nothing about Di’Anno, and didn’t really want to know much more. That is what Orshoski has to overcome yesterday in order to win your attention.
“Orshoski shows why he is one of the best rock-dokkers alive in the brilliant opening to Di’Anno: Iron Maiden’s Lost Singer.”
Luckily enough, Orshoski brought an express rocket to take me and the audience straight uphill. He rotates between three podcast shows, with all the listeners doing live reactions to an early Iron Maiden tune, The Phantom of the Opera. Then Orshoski slices in footage of Di’Anno back in the day, roaring in with a totally punk look with short hair, tattoos, and black leather. It is absolutely f*****g magnificent. Other than the oversized studded leather gauntlets, which Di’Anno referred to as his “c**t kit”, there is nothing metal about the singer’s look at all. Which is completely f*****g marvelous. Iron Maiden looked sooooo bad-a*s with a punk frontman, with the viewer becoming an instant Di’Anno fan. This also emotionally bonds the viewer to a musician they didn’t know existed. All this is Oshoski pulls off in about three minutes, which is faster than even D.R.I. could thrash.
Much of Di’Anno: Iron Maiden’s Lost Singer plays like a dark bible version of the Book of Job, with Di’Anno going through tortures of the damned. As monstrous as his legs look, the singer suffers even harsher from deep depression and high anxiety. As he suffers, he constantly wonders how much more pain he can take before he shuts off his own lights, as does the viewer. The wondrous thing is that no matter how awful his life becomes, he keeps running into people all over the world who hold him in the highest regard. Despite a genuinely nihilistic punk worldview, Di’Anno treasures the respect he commands as having been part of a legendary rock band. He burnt hundreds of candles from both ends, and burnt as a result, but you still come away with the impression that Di’Anno still understood how lucky he was to have such a rare life. Di’Anno: Iron Maiden’s Lost Singer is an unconventional music documentary that blazes its own path in the forest of equilibrium we call metal.
"…emotionally bonds the viewer to a musician they didn't know existed."
