It was the night before Halloween, and all through the arena, creatures of every kind were headbanging—even the mice? Why were they headbanging? Well, Iron Maiden was in town for spooky season! How cool is that?
Before England’s emissaries to the metal gods took the stage, we were treated to a set by Mongolia’s mightiest metal warriors, The Hu. It’s hard to open for a giant like Maiden, especially when the crowd doesn’t speak your language, but from the opening notes of “The Gereg,” it was clear they were up to the task.
The Hu deliver a unique wall of sensory bombardment, both sonically and visually. It looks like Khan’s army traded traditional weapons for musical ones—an axe for an axe, if you will. But they pull out incredible traditional instruments and blend them with the tastiest of modern metal riffs. The marriage of traditional throat singing with modern rock vocals is seamless. I was a fan of their music before but was skeptical it would translate live. I was wrong. Their performance was extremely tight, and the crowd loved every second.
Safe to say, the crowd was pumped up for the main act. Iron Maiden hit the stage like a metal freight train, showing no signs of age. During the opener, “Caught Somewhere in Time,” Bruce Dickinson ran around the stage like he was still a young man. Janick Gers kicked his leg up on a five-foot-tall speaker and did a modified split while shredding—he’s 67, folks. It’s like they made a pact with some entity to keep them young. I wonder who?
While most bands at this stage have become legacy acts, touring on their old material, this isn’t the case for Maiden. Their new material is strong, and they pulled out a few tracks from their latest, Senjutsu, early on. The diehards still knew every word.
Dickinson spoke to the crowd in French, which got many cheers. He’s actually pretty good at it, but it was difficult to understand over the cheering most of the time. One of the biggest pops from the crowd came with the appearance of the band’s mascot, Eddie, standing 15 feet tall in some sort of cyborg gunslinger outfit. He came in, leaned on the side of the stage for about a minute, and left. He returned near the end of the set, having a shootout with Dickinson, who was armed with a cannon. I don’t know if Eddie isn’t included in the band’s fountain of youth visits, but he must be getting old. We only saw him twice and for just a few minutes—a stark contrast to older tours.
While it’s great that the new material holds up, there was a noticeable lack of the classics. A third of the set was taken inexplicably from 1986’s Somewhere in Time. If you were a casual fan, it took until the penultimate song of the main set before we got to a song from their Spotify Top 10 with “Fear of the Dark.” The crowd absolutely erupted in the encore for “The Trooper” as everyone sang along. After the show, walking in the halls, there was a lot of, “tab*rn#ac, y’ont pas joué (they didn’t play) ‘Run to the Hills,’ ‘Number of the Beast,’ ‘Hallowed Be Thy Name,’ ‘2 Minutes to Midnight,’ or ‘Aces High.’”
No doubt, the show was excellent, but your level of enjoyment really depended on how well you knew the new material and a fairly random album from 38 years ago, which wasn’t particularly popular. I get that a lot of bands are tired of playing “the hits,” but this was a little extreme, especially for younger fans who might only have this one opportunity to see them. Here’s hoping we get a farewell tour before they retire, where they reanimate all the classics. They’ve still got the chops to pull it off.
One last note—it was a bit strange that there wasn’t even a mention of the passing of former vocalist Paul Di’Anno the prior week, other than a few signs in the crowd. RIP, Paul.
Review – Richard Brunette
Photos – Eric Brisson
