Iron Maiden in UK
Maiden toured the world in support of their 15th album: The Final Frontier (TFF). I saw them on this tour in Manchester, Birmingham and London. Maiden was doing 11 arena shows in UK in this tour, which is the biggest UK tour in the last years.
The setlist:
As usual Maiden has a static setlist during the whole tour:
1.Satellite 15... The Final Frontier
2.El Dorado
3.2 Minutes to Midnight
4.The Talisman
5.Coming Home
6.Dance of Death
7.The Trooper
8.The Wicker Man
9.Blood Brothers
10.When the Wild Wind Blows
11.The Evil That Men Do
12.Fear of the Dark
13.Iron Maiden
Encore:
14.The Number of the Beast
15.Hallowed Be Thy Name
16.Running Free
The setlist includes 5 songs of TFF, and 11 older songs including 3 from after the reunion with Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith. It is a solid setlist, a good balance between classics and new songs and in particular I think that the choice of the 5 songs of the latest album is very adequate.
Performance:
I saw three shows, 2 standing and 1 seating with some friends. The band is sounding great, I have to say that the Manchester show was the best of the ones I saw. The tour has been very hard on Bruce’s voice. This is the last part of a very long tour and of course it was notable that songs that include very high notes, in particular The Talisman is a very difficult track for Bruce. I have seen better performances from the beginning of the tour. Still, he is an awesome performer and has learnt to start the chorus slightly later than the studio version so he can perform better the last part of it.
The band is on fire with as usual Janick Gers jumping and dancing, Steve Harris aiming with his bass at the crowd as he only knows how to. And Bruce running and jumping the stage. I have to say I would love to have that energy when in my 50’s. Bruce was turning 53 the day after the London show (last night of the tour) and I am sure any frontman half his age would feel embarrassed when seeing his on-stage energy.
Production:
Production on this tour is amazing. According to me this is the greatest effort regarding Big Eddie (the Eddie that rises behind Nicko right after the solo in the song Iron Maiden) since the Seventh tour (19988-89), not that I saw it, but I have seen videos. In particular the detail of the head is amazing, and it is so cool that the hands come first and the fingers move. The turning of the head and jaws opening is perfect. State of the art production!
The Walking Eddie is the same from last year tour when I saw them in Sonisphere UK. Very cool Eddie, now is coming out during The Evil that men do. The Devil during The Number of the Beast is a very nice detail. Now is when I have to say something... The Number of the Beast without fire during the chorus is a bit not so cool. It is so awesome seeing fire everytime Bruce sings 6, and that is not happening on this tour. On the other hand in the 80’s and in some previous tours, Maiden was using a lot of fire, maybe they decided to have a change for this tour so not to become predictable. Actually nowadays bands are abusing of fire, it seems that is very easy to have fire on-stage now. Anyway I would expect pyro for the next tour, which is likely to be a classics tour!
Final Comments:
These were my 5th, 6th and 7th Maiden shows. I have to say that spite the distance the one I was able to enjoy the music the most was when I was sitting (Birmingham), but the adrenaline of being close to the stage doesn’t have a price. I am so looking forward to see the DVD from this tour!
By the way the O2 in London is amazing, the complex includes an awesome British music museum, which has the Walking Eddie from the Somewhere Back in Time tour (2008-9), and in these days has a photos from the last 2 Maiden tours exhibition. The photos will be available in a photo book soon, there is a picture of Nicko McBrain playing in Ecuador!
The gig in London on 6th August 2011 may have been my last Maiden show... but who knows... As usual Iron Maiden live is so exciting for me, I still remember before going to Sweden I thought I would never see them live and I just did my 7th gig, not bad at all for somebody from Ecuador.
Pictures - Click the following links for picture galleries from each show:
Iron Maiden featuring Big Eddie rising, good quality footage
