Photograph by Ian D. Hall

Originally published by L.S. Media. August 2nd 2011.

It’s been a long time coming, but Iron Maiden finally made it Great Britain at the end of the Final Frontier tour and leaving some people with mixed reactions to their gigs in cities such as Manchester and Newcastle. Some have loved that the Irons, the kings of British heavy Metal seem back on form, giving the type of show that was a pleasure to attend in the late 80’s and full of theatre and grit. Others have complained that there was an over reliance on worn out clichés, a glimpse back to a time that needs to be locked away in the dim and distant past.

Whatever your feelings on the whole of Heavy Metal, there are some bands that just stand out and Iron Maiden are one of those bands. When they play live and play live well there are so few bands that can touch them for pace or enjoying the moment with their dedicated fans.

The air was thick with anticipation, on the floor of the N.I.A, there was just enough room to admire the collection of varied Iron Maiden tees that dated back to the very early 80’s and as the lights went down, it appeared that every Maiden fan was willing to be at the gig of the year. For fans of the genre it was going to be darn close thing.

The band opened up the night with the lengthy Satellite 15/ The Final Frontier and El Dorado, the two openers on the last studio album The Final Frontier. Giving the new fans that have come along since the bands golden age of 1982-1990 the chance to expel energy first, Maiden then gave the older fans a thrill with the nuclear warning themed and storming 2 Minutes to Midnight.

With 15 studio albums to their name over a 32 year period, no-one was going to get their ultimate set list, as always these are to impossible to accommodate, all you can ask for as a fan is that you have a good night and the band give a performance of such authority it would encourage the Heavy Metal masters to make new records for their fans rather than rely on bringing out greatest hits and essential compilations.

Vocalist Bruce Dickinson gave one of the finest performances of his long and illustrious career and had the crowd joining in enthusiastically on tracks such as the Maiden classic The Trooper, the sublime Blood Brothers, The Evil That Men Do, and the incredible and almost near perfect Fear of the Dark.

The entire band should be congratulated for their professionalism during the encores as part of the sound dropped out on the guitars on the Maiden standard bearer The Number of the Beast. Rather than go off until it was fixed, Bruce Dickinson and drummer Nicko McBrain carried the remainder of the song with audiences help. Some bands, even some great bands couldn’t carry this off but it is testament to the band that instead of getting into a fight about it, Bruce shouted out to the crowd in a very decent attempt at a West Country accent “I don’t know what happened there, but I thought it was rather splendid”.

So did we Bruce, so did we.

5 stars

Ian D. Hall