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Iron Maiden Concert Review
Many fans were quite disappointed when Iron Maiden announced that they would be playing their new album, “A Matter of Life and Death,” all the way through on their current North American tour. Although it’s a very good album, the ten tracks would replace classics such as “Sanctuary” and “Number of the Beast” from Maiden’s set list. Fortunately for all those who attended the October 13th show at Continental Airlines Arena in New Jersey, Maiden put on such a great show that the absence of certain classics really didn’t matter.
Getting to the arena, there was an obscene amount of traffic, as there always is on Friday nights in the New York/New Jersey area. As a result, not a lot of fans were in the building by 8, when Bullet for My Valentine went on. This turned out to be a good thing, as the British metalcore quartet did nothing to impress. Their main vocalist’s voice is too whiny to be considered anything other than extremely annoying. The bassist, who did a majority of the screaming, wasn’t terrible, but the harmonized patterns between him and the singer didn’t sound quite right. Instrumentally they weren’t terrible, as both guitarists pulled off a few decent solos, but they really weren’t the right band to open up for the likes of Maiden. Word has it that 3 Inches of Blood are opening up a few of the west coast dates – that would have been more like it!
After about a half hour wait, Iron Maiden entered the stage. From the moment they played the first note of “Different World” to the last of “The Legacy,” they were nothing short of spectacular. The new album does sound pretty good on CD, but it sounded phenomenal when played live. The energy that each of the band members bring to the stage, especially Bruce Dickinson, is really something special. These guys aren’t young, yet they’re not afraid to jump and move around the set, which was fashioned like a battleground, complete with bunkers and other structures to climb on. Highlights of this segment of the show included “Brighter Than a Thousand Suns” and “The Pilgrim,” two of the album’s strongest tracks which sounded even better live. During “The Legacy,” acoustic guitars were brought out that Dave, Adrian, and Janick all played at different points during the song for an added authentic touch.
After finishing up “A Matter of Life and Death,” Maiden launched right into “Fear of the Dark.” While it’s not one of their 80’s classics, it is probably their best and most popular song to have come out after 1990, and the crowd really loved it. Everyone was really into it before, during the new album, but the crowd truly came alive during “Fear of the Dark.” They followed that up with “Iron Maiden,” which included a giant tank-like structure coming to life in the back of the stage, complete with an Eddie puppet sticking his head out and scanning the crowd with binoculars in hand. After this, the band left the stage, but of course they were not finished.
After about five minutes, to ceaseless chants of "MAIDEN, MAIDEN" from the crowd, the band re-emerged and went right into "2 Minutes to Midnight," which was received almost as enthusiastically as “Fear of the Dark.” They followed this with “The Evil that Men Do,” which proved to be the coolest moment of the concert, although not for the song. A gigantic Eddie puppet dressed in battle uniform came out onto the stage during this one, and walked around for a while, “shooting” his rifle at the crowd. He started over on one side next to Janick, and eventually migrated to the other side of the stage next to Dave. As he exited, "Evil" ended and the crowd’s favorite song of the night, "Hallowed Be Thy Name" began. Maiden performed exceptionally well on this song off of “Number of the Beast,” with Bruce hitting all the high notes like it was the early 80’s again. It was an amazing closer to an amazing show. Iron Maiden have still got it, and even their new material sounds truly fantastic when played live.
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