The classic Number of the Beast era of Iron Maiden. Those were the days!
Iron Maiden will have a special edition of the CNN show ‘Revealed’ dedicated in their honour, the first time that any band has been featured on the show.
Following the band around South America, the show will trace the history of Maiden from the beginning, as well as catching up with Maiden on their ‘Somewhere Back In Time’ tour.
However, there’s no need to panic if you don’t receive CNN through your television set. The news broadcasters website will be showing the show in full via three episodes on their official website.
Visit the CNN website here for more details. Or click to watch each segment of the special below:
Iron Maiden Revealed Part 1
Iron Maiden Revealed Part 2
Iron Maiden Revealed Part 3
The last time I saw Iron Maiden was in 1985. The band were on their mammoth ‘Powerslave’ World Tour and had set themselves up as one of the biggest bands on the planet. They were at their zenith both musically and visually.
I was also fortunate enough to get to spend several hours with the band at the infamous Countdown studios in Melbourne. The band were filming a ‘live’ version of their song ‘Aces High’ and we got to witness them shooting it approximately 10 times over and then got to hang with them as they signed everything and anything that was presented to them. I was (very) fortunate to get my Powerslave album and a bootleg LP signed by the entire band and was personally given Nicko McBrain’s sweatbands and drumsticks! (I still have them to this day… Twenty-Three years later!)
Twenty-Three years later and age has certainly not wearied the Iron Maiden boys! The show last night was one of the most high energy performances I have seen from any band in my (many) years of gig going! They tore the stage apart and had the crowd in total rapture. Quite honestly, the roar that emanated from the crowd was on of the loudest I have ever heard. It was incredible and just added to the frenetic energy that was pouring off the stage.
The ‘Somewhere Back In Time’ tour features the band paying on a revamped and updated version of their ‘Powerslave’ stage-set. Decked out in Egyptian motif with intricate and detailed backdrops, the stage looked incredibly vast and impressive at the same time.
It truly was a special gig as only Iron Maiden can deliver and just reinforced the fact that even after 30 years together - they are easily the biggest Metal act on the planet. An amazing feat.
Up the Irons!
And for the obligatory cliched look at it all, here’s The Age’s review.
Continue reading ‘Iron Maiden - Melbourne, Australia: Rod Laver Arena’
…for the Devil sends the beast with wrath!
Iron Maiden touring Australia in 2008 folks! Announcing the band’s most ambitious and extraordinary touring plans ever — and are very pleased to announce that this will include Australia for the first time in 15 years!
The ‘SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME’ World Tour 2008 will be in three sections, starting in February and March 2008 with the first leg encompassing major concerts in 20 selected cities on five continents in seven weeks including India, Japan, North America, Central and South America, and, of course, Australia, opening in Perth on Feb 4 and continuing through Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane:
SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME, AUSTRALIA 2008
February 2008:
Monday 4th, Burswood Dome, Perth
Wednesday 6th, Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne
Saturday 9th, Acer Arena, Sydney
Tuesday 12th, Entertainment Centre, Brisbane
The tour then continues with more concerts in North America in late May and June before finishing with a third leg in July and August encompassing major stadiums and festivals all over Europe. During the tour the band is expected to play to well over one and a half million fans and travel close to 100,000 miles.
Continue reading ‘Woe To You Oh Earth And Sea…’
If someone ever told you that Iron Maiden would release a classic slab of music in the year 2006, you would probably laugh in their face. And yet, Maiden’s latest opus ‘A Matter of Life & Death’ is as close to being a masterpiece as is humanly possible. In fact, this album is probably the band’s best work since the glory days of the mid-eighties and the ‘Powerslave’ era. Speaking of which, I got to see the band on their second tour of Australia in 1985 on the aforementioned ‘Powerslave’ tour. That was truly a magic day for this young metalhead as I got to spend the day with the guys as they were shooting a promo for music show Countdown. (I still have Nicko McBrain’s sweat-band and drum-sticks from that day and a slab of signed goodies that I treasure to this day! But that’s another story and another era all-together!) When the band reformed with vocalist Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith back in 2000, they released the brilliant ‘Brave New World’ album. They followed this up with the disappointing ‘Dance of Death’ album so I didn’t have high hopes for this new CD. Boy, was I wrong! This is really an incredible return to form by Maiden - particularly the second half of this album which is as majestic as it is astounding. Dickinson’s vocals are as amazing as ever and the melodic overtones that these guys manage to inject into their music is second to none. The intro to ‘The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg’ is so brilliantly dark and sombre and has ‘vintage’ Maiden stamped all over it. Same goes for my fave track on the album ‘Lord of Light’ in which Dickinson just blitzes on. Classic stuff.
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