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For my friend, Maria – it was her first & as she is a fanatical Bruce Springsteen fan and treated me to seeing the Boss in action in May at the RDS – review here – I wanted to show her that there is more than 1 Bruce who can rock her socks off!! We met up at Richmond and after a meal to sustain us through the long night, we got on the shuttle bus to Twickenham Stadium – checked out the merchandise stall & I eventually purchased a suitable event/venue themed T for £20 featuring Eddie & a rugby ball – ‘nuff said!!
I keep saying it, but the age range of fans has always amazed me – from 10 year old kids to guys in their 50’s – all sporting Maiden Ts of various ages and states of dis-repair!… Large amounts if beer was being consumed – mostly in bottles (a point I will come back to later) - as expected. But I don’t see the point of being so ‘tanked up’ that you don’t enjoy the gig…..one of the great mysteries of metal fans I guess – baffles me totally!
Anyway, I digress – onto the show! We didn’t get in to see either Lauren Harris or Within Temptation, but we did get to see the main support band – Avenged 7Fold & I have to say that once they had sorted out the sound mix (the guitars were overpowering the vocals), they were pretty impressive – plenty of energy & power in a agro-metal style that grew on me as they went on, their singer had very good stage presence & clearly modeled his style on Bruce Dickinson in the way he dashed about the stage. And another plus in my book is that they cut short their final song when he spotted that some fan in the front row had passed out .Props to them for that even though it ended their – very good – set prematurely.
Right, on to the masters…after a 25 minute wait & with my watch showing 20:15, the familiar strains of Doctor, Doctor from UFO appeared and the 50000 fans went noisily berserk! Then the vid screens kicked into life showing the guys & the Boeing 757 Ed Force one flying into London – with Transylvania being played as background…cool! Then, the moment we had all been waiting for…..Winston Churchill!! “We shall fight them on the beaches….”etc….. then Bang!! Straight into Aces High, the best lead off song for a Maiden gig in my opinion as it really gets the crowd going big-style…. Now, before I continue, I come back to those beer bottles – for some reason, a small minority of tossers (in both senses of the word!) thought it was great fun to hurl half-full plastic bottles of beer at people trying to enjoy the gig – Maria & I had to dodge several bottles coming in our direction, but could not avoid getting soaked in beer. Some peeps – including very young kids - were less fortunate and got caught on the head!! I think they should ban bottles inside open-air arenas because of these morons!
Right, back to the music, and what can you say about this band that hasn’t been said already a thousand times before, but I will try! The 3 Amigos were in stunning form, and it was clear to see from the near permanent smiles on their faces that they were enjoying every minute! Bruce seemed a little tired at the start – probably due to jet lag – but he was soon covering every inch of the stage in fine style & was in stunning form vocally & with his little chats to the crowd….my fave being his Longbeach Quote “What not to do when a bird shits on you….” when introducing the mighty Rime Of The Ancient Mariner! which totally blew me away. I have been waiting so very long to hear this song live & it didn’t disappoint, it was massive & incredibly powerful – the boys really nailed it big time…the 13 minutes flashed by so quickly – I sincerely hope they put this show out on DVD because of that. Nicko was immense on the drums – his intro to the second part of Rime (after the slow section) made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. This guy is a god on drums…..Steve was rock solid as ever – the best bass player in metal no doubt.
Other highlights…..so many to chose from!
Heaven can Wait with a load of lucky, lucky fans on stage! (first time live for me)
Revelations – sheer perfection
Wasted Years…..magical
Moonchild – wonderful choice of song for the encore & great to hear the Seventh Son spoken intro done by Bruce (first time live for me!)
Adrian’s solo on Number Of The Beast
All the solo’s!
Big “Mummy” Eddie & the walk on “Terminator” Eddie !
Powerslave – complete with a masked Bruce!
Bruce announcing a new album to be started after the tour
The Clairvoyant – wonderful intro & very powerful (first time live for me).hell, the WHOLE gig was a highlight – very slightly disappointed that Maria’s fave song The Evil That Men Do wasn’t played, but I guess they can’t play everything – a little variation wouldn’t have hurt though. Surprised Fear of the Dark was still there, as being from 1992, it doesn’t play a part in this - 1980's - section of Maiden’s history…….Maria’s song should have been played instead I reckon!
Summary: The Best Metal band in history produce the goods yet again…. No more needs to be said! Shame about those bottle tossers though….
Set list
Winston Churchill – Aces High
2 Minutes to Midnight
Revelations
The Trooper
Wasted Years
The Number Of The Beast
Run To The Hills
Rime Of The Ancient Mariner
Powerslave
Heaven Can Wait
Can I Play With Madness
Fear Of The Dark
Iron Maiden
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Moonchild
The Clairvoyant
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Prodigals Star rating………well,after due consideration…..10!
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