Iron Maiden - Somewhere Back In Time
Mount Smart Stadium
I park in an auction house car park - there are already Iron Maiden fans clearing up a few beers and bourbons before heading up for the show. Most of the nearby businesses are charging punters for the use of their car parks. This carpark is free, the business two doors down is charging $15-!
Anyway, it's quick and easy to get into the grounds, I spend $50 on the requisite tour tee shirt, grab a beer and find my seat. I'm in the upper-right (eastern) stand. I have reasonable view of the stage and any antics.
The Clichés
I'm surrounded by what appears to be the casts of several cliché comedy concert movies:
- The group of guys chain smoking dak,
- The guy trying to line and (pole-less) pole dance to all music being played,
- The younger group gulping down beer upon beer - some of them eventually flake out before Iron Maiden hit the stage!
- Most of the punters seem to be about my age, plus or minus 5 years
- Metal chicks - yep, black, skin tight skirts or jeans, boots, tattoos, teased out hair and heavy metal band shirts. Awesome
- Black jeans, black metal tee shirts, tattoos in full force everywhere.
The cool thing is, we are all here for the same reason. Iron Maiden.
Lauren Harris
I miss the first opener, but catch Lauren Harris, Steve Harris of Iron Maiden's daughter. She has her own band, not as heavy as Iron Maiden, but still pretty cool. Lauren puts on a pretty good show. She does a good cover of "steal your fire"by Gun. Her banter with the crowd is pretty good too.
The Other Show
Coinciding with the start of Iron Maiden's set, two pretty young metal chicks in the seats directly in front of me start canoodling! Very distracting! The bloke sitting beside me repeatedly begs to swap seats with me, with tears in his eyes. in the end he resigns himself to staying put, but leans forward between the girls (if you could get between them), yelling "Yes! Yes! Get it on!"repeatedly. Ker-rikey!
Iron Maiden Hit The Stage
Iron Maiden open with Aces high and the requisite Churchill speech intro. It's awesome and the show just gets better and better! It's a Maiden spectacular, everything I'd ever seen of Iron Maiden on stage was there, 10ft tall Eddie striding the stage, pyro, sparks, awesome sounds (when it wasn't being blown away by the wind), spandex, the costume changes by Bruce Dickinson, the audience participation, awesome guitar solos and two big video screens (one one each side of the stage).
The show is absolutely spectacular, all the old favourites are the, the band run around the stage like mad things, Steve Harris machine guns the crowd with his bass guitar, Bruce Dickinson leaps around and has the odd chat with the audience, Dave Murray, Adrian Smith and Janick Gers trade their guitar solos like the good old days. A Stunning, magical show.
Bruce Dickinson announces that 18,000 punters have turned up for the show, apparently 4 times more than Iron Maiden played to in New Zealand, in total, last time they were here! Even more amazing is everyone in the audience sings every song, heads bobbing, watching the magic.
Conclusion: Iron Maiden Are Legendary
Iron Maiden play nearly every track I hoped they would, except Running Free, although I'm not disappointed, they played a blinder of a show, played a lot of songs, Aces High, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Wasted Years and Powerslave were the highlights for me.
It's a brilliant concept for a tour for Iron maiden: put together a show featuring all of the songs from their golden era, circa the Live After Death Tour and basically do it all again, 20 years later. The result was an absolutely stunning show that proved without any doubt why Iron maiden are still going strong and delivering the goods for their fans all these years later. Thanks guys, I will definitely be there next time!
NOTE:
The Somewhere Back in Time image is ©Iron Maiden and supplied, courtesy of HelloWendy.com
