Iron Maiden.
These British veterans of heavy metal and rock touched down in Sydney before the festival Soundwave, for a Side wave at the Entertainment Centre.
After purchasing the tickets in August last year, I had to say it would be difficult to make the excitement last until February the next year. But the day finally came and it was crazy. Crazy in a sense that I would never think I would see a band of such widespread talent spanning so many decades. (Yes what I meant to say was I never thought I would see a bunch of 50 / 60 year olds jump around on stage and perform for about 2 hours).
I decided to take this approach of reviewing the Live Show differently this year, in order to make things a bit more concise and easy to read.
The Venue
The Entertainment Centre was rather quiet when we arrived at about 7:30 when the show officially starts. There was a sea of black along with denim and long hair that surrounded the entrance of the Ent Cent. The inside was a lot smaller than I remembered, probably because Acer Arena is absolutely massive. (Acer being their previous venue- correct if wrong).
When the gig was in full swing, the seats were all filled (some were closed off) so it was a pretty full house, but the venue itself wasn’t as large, which I find to be a lot more favourable.
The Support Band – Rise to Remain
The support band was British Rise to Remain, and they were quite good in terms of support bands (ie they didnt drag the set list and brought a fierce energy out of the crowd). They play for approximately half an hour and were loud. They weren’t Dream Theatre, unfortunately, who supported Maiden on their US tour but they were good enough and also here for Sound Wave.
They helped warm the crowd up and mixed their excessive screaming for softer and melodic guitar tones. But boy could the lead singer scream.
The Maiden Song Set List
As usual my brain sort of turns off when it comes to remembering the order/ all the songs played. I do know they opened with Satellite 15 from their Final Frontier album, which set quite a futuristic and tense/excited mood among the crowd. As anyone who has heard the song knows its quite long and repeats the same rhythm instilling a sense of longing and waiting. Eventually the song exploded into El Dorado.
Iron Maiden perform
They went into 2 Minutes to Midnight which is a great classic to play! The songs were quite good, they dedicated “Blood Brothers” to Christchurch earthquake victims, which I found to be quite nice and then went on to play “When the Wild Wind Blows” at this time I thought it was a rather depressing segue into the set list. Played beautifully don’t get me wrong, just so sad more than anything.
They had a few classics thrown in for good measure, I was happy with Iron Maiden – when giant Eddie came on stage, and also their closer Running Free.
They showed off their guitar skills with Dance of Death and Fear of the Dark, they were constantly displaying their fine skills, fingers danced magically over the fretboards of guitars and Bruce brought about a manic energy by running around on stage- set up like a space ship, waving the British flag in The Trooper, and screaming and carrying his lovely voice through the venue.
The song selection was good, all performed well, but I would have liked a surprise “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” even though I knew it was near impossible. Or even Powerslave. But they played their classics, Number of the Beast and also The Evil that Men Do, which I quite enjoyed 
The Set
It is really no surprise that they need their own aeroplane to carry the amount of equipment they need. The sets were wonderful, it was all keeping with the theme, which I find really important in any sort of creativity (nerd!).
But they had wonderful back drops which changed to keep up with the song they were singing. The artwork was really great.
The concert was a great experience and it was a unforgettable performance, hopefully when I am their age I will have the endurance and energy they do!
go ahead to : http://www.youtube.com/user/cm6gal for videos!!
See you later !
