Iron Maiden: Live Review

Having seen the famous British heavy metal band at Sonisphere 2010, where they headlined the Sunday and brought the festival to a close, I was expecting great things from Iron Maiden this year, and I wasn't disappointed. Their Final Frontier World Tour finally reached the UK where they played an extensive stadium tour ending in two dates at the London o2 arena. I saw them at Cardiff International Arena when they played on 1st August.

Opening with Satellite 15... The Final Frontier (after UFO's Doctor Doctor was played on the PA system) their set began, with the low key first half of the song teasing at the crowd as they waited for the curtain to drop when the second half began. Before the gig I had my problems with that song, I felt that the first half was too long and was something you had to sit through in order to hear the better second part. I still feel that way but I really enjoyed the song live, but my view is that it only works as an opener, if they were to play it in the middle of a set a lot of the crowd's energy would be lost.

Afterwards they moved onto El Dorado, a track from their newest album (The Final Frontier), which I include as one of their classics. Next up was my highlight of the gig: 2 Minutes to Midnight. This song was like a shot of adrenaline for the already pumped crowd. I remember being very close to the front (which I was for the entire gig) and leaping as high as I possibly could into the air. I enjoy the studio version of the song, but I feel that it works much better as a live track.


Later on the crowd was graced with the beautiful, flowing, chorus of Coming Home; one of the songs that, I'll be honest, makes The Final Frontier, worth listening to. Not that it's terrible, it's no The X Factor, but many of the songs, while entertaining, are in the dangerous category of "filler". Coming Home, however, is a masterpiece, both on CD and in concert.

The opening notes to the next song, Dance of Death, put a massive smile on my face that lingered for a long time. Possibly the best ballad Maiden have ever written, it's subtle acoustic parts are directly contrasted with heavier riffs, and the lyrical content gives the song a darker edge with it's talk of the devil and things rising from hell. This is one of the songs that I've now seen live twice, as the played it at Sonisphere 2010, and I loved it both times.

By Scott Penner [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31648498@N00/4771190892



A couple of tracks later they played The Wicker Man. Personally I thought this was the weakest song of the whole set. I never thought it was that good a song; I feel that the chorus is boring and repetitive and that the overall song is just uninteresting. However the crowd loved it, so I suppose this may be one of the opinions that few people share. For the record I have similar feelings about Run to the Hills, although not to the same extent.

The 10th track they played was the epic ballad from their 2010 album. When the Wild Wind Blows was a change from the heavier songs that had gone before it but the crowd loved it just the same; and so did I. The soft vocals talk of the end of the world with such grace that the song seems to rise and fall with ease to the delight of the audience. A great song.

Next up was The Evil That Men Do, a classic from the album: Seventh Son of a Seventh Song, which I loved. There's a small part of the song which I like even more than the rest; when the lyrics go:

"And I will pray for her,

I will call her name out loud.

I would bleed for her,

if I could only see her now"

Something about those lines always gets me and it really defines the song for me; speaking about the nature of humanity.

Finally the band ended the gig the way they usually do; by embarking upon a storm of classics. Fear of the Dark had it's guaranteed effect of making the crowd sing out louder than ever before. Their self titled track featured a giant Eddie (their mascot) head which appeared behind the stage and glared around at the audience. They returned for their encore which began with The Number of the Beast. Hallowed Be Thy Name showed Bruce Dickinson's vocal talent once more as he soared through the extended notes and really brought across the plight of the song's narrator; a prisoner waiting for the gallows. The studio version, on the album The Number of the Beast, is in my opinion Dickinson's finest performance of his career with Maiden. Finally the band left the stage after playing through the ever-popular Running Free.

By Mike Lawrence (Flickr: Iron Maiden) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
http://www.flickr.com/photos/98945462@N00/5970616949


Overall it was a fantastic gig, in fact it's the best I've ever been to I think, with Mastodon at the o2 Academy in Bristol last February in second place. I enjoyed every song and I felt that the setlist for this gig was better than the one they played at Sonisphere 2010 which had too many rarities and not enough classics. This time they added 2 Minutes to Midnight, The Trooper, and The Evil That Men Do which improved the ratio of rarities to classics (6:10). The band have already hinted at a new album, which I'm guessing will be released in around September of 2012 since they seem to average an album every 2 years. Roll on the next tour!