A man walks into a gig with a headache. Sounds like there’s a punchline coming, but honestly I’m just feeling rough. Can Iron Maiden cure me? Well they do sound bloody good, despite the arenas less than optimal acoustics. They look in decent nick too. Particularly Dickinson in a long trench coat teasing the front row with his mic stand. They’re rock personified. Kicking amps, running around like excited kids and swinging guitars around shoulders. Perhaps the 80s brand of rawk, but with decades of arena experience they know how to put on a show with plenty of theatrics, like a 10ft stilt walking cowboy for ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ that stalks the stage for a brief moment before Dickinson chases him off. “What are you lot doing here?” he jokes, introducing ‘The Writing on the Wall’. Dickinson is the hype man “Manchester start your engines” he instructs and Manchester sings. Not quite as good as Bruce though, he really does still sound great. The extended stage is boxed off, keeping back stage back stage, but from my elevated view we can see Dickinson take a breather as the guitars shred through extended solos and he chats to the crew. It’s here that I’ll admit I’m not the average Maiden fan. I don’t have a tshirt and I’ve not known any of the songs half an hour in. Maybe the arena isn’t the best way to hear some of this for the first time and although they’re great live, I’m not really connecting. ‘The Time Machine’ seems to lose a few others as well as bodies surge to the bars. ‘The Prisoner’ changes that thought. With an intro from the 60s TV show and the sort of drumming you’d expect from a band like this, they suddenly wake up. Dickinson sheds his coat and the lads in front of me bizarrely start taking selfies. I’d move but I’m not a free man, I’m a prisoner in this seat and vow to stick to standing in here in future. The sound is better down there too. ‘Death of the Celts’ leaves me a bit cold again until Dickinson takes another breather and the guitars are let loose. With the bass there’s 4 of them and they they all sound awesome when let off the leash. As we mark the hour we hit the high point for me as ‘Can I Play With Madness’ takes me back. It was my gateway to Maiden as a teen and in the banger stakes it’s way ahead in the set to anything so far. ‘Heaven Can Wait’ does its best to keep up though as Dickinson takes to the runway that wraps around the stage. Orchestrating the crowd and shooting pyro from a gatling gun at the stilt walker that’s returned as an alien. Bonkers. The dry ice floods the stage and cheers erupt for the intro of ‘Fear of the Dark’. It’s utterly brilliant but the set could use more of this honestly. The phone lights are out and as that riff kicks in, even up in the second tier seats people are losing their minds. This is what a Maiden gig should be surely. I can’t fault the shift they put in. After 90 mins they’re back for the encore, which after another newer one from the last album, goes ballistic with a double header of ‘The Trooper’ and ‘Wasted Years’, showing exactly why they’re so revered as a live band after all this time. Am I now a massive Maiden fan? Well no, but I enjoyed my first gig with them and they have oddly cured my headache.
