Iron Maiden Manchester Arena Manchester 08/05/2017 Wherever you are, Iron Maiden’s gonna get you Set List:
If Eternity Should Fail Speed of Light Wrathchild Children of the Damned Death or Glory The Red and the Black The Trooper Powerslave The Great Unknown The Book of Souls Fear of the Dark Iron Maiden The Number of the Beast Blood Brothers Wasted Years After the mayhem of Heavy Metal March, a well-deserved month break from concerts was very much welcome, but now the second week of May sees a return to Manchester and the largest standard venue in Manchester, the Manchester Arena to catch the mighty Iron Maiden on their hugely expansive Book of Souls World Tour which has already encompassed more countries than you could possibly think of. Barring football and cricket stadiums, the Manchester Arena is the only place that could accommodate such a band as Iron Maiden, unfortunately, the venue is always cold and lifeless but that has never stopped Iron Maiden bringing the touch that only Maiden and Maiden fans can. For Iron Maiden’s UK tour, Maiden have brought with them American Hard Rockers/Post Grungers Shinedown and judging by the army of T-shirts knocking about, there seems to be significant portion of the audience here to see just them. Shinedown bounded onto the scene in 2003 climbing the US charts with their Leave a Whisper album and since then, Shinedown have pushed their way to the forefront of the Post Grunge/Pop/Rock, whatever the hell you want to call it scene by offering well-polished tracks that appeal to not only the younger generation, but also an older generation allowing you to listen to the latest Shinedown release with your parents. Opening with Adrenaline, the first track from their 2012 #1 album, Amaryllis, the sound for Shinedown isn’t great and for the first quarter of their set, Shinedown sound as if they are playing underwater. However, the sound is eventually amended with the band giving very good renditions of Sound of Madness, with the entire arena joining in with their multi-million selling single, Second Chance. The main irritancy tonight is with Shinedown vocalist, Brent Smith who during the extended intros and outros that are far too long, talks constantly over them giving his constant thanks, standard preaching, safeguarding and raising awareness over issues such as suicide that borders on a DJ at a wedding or kids party talking over the music in which you have to resist the urge to scream: “GET ON WITH IT!” in a Monty Python-esque style. As the huge black backdrop featuring the white letters SHINEDOWN emblazoned across it is lowered, you know the time is getting closer for Iron Maiden to take to the stage. This time ticks ever more as the familiar tones of Doctor, Doctor by UFO blares through PA system, to the trained Maiden fan, it is time, the house lights go down as the video screens kick into life featuring a video game type world similar to the Far Cry series as the protagonist chases a primal Eddie through the jungles. Whilst the audience is transfixed on this video, Iron Maiden’s Mayan style stage set is revealed as Bruce Dickinson appears to be conducting some sort of mad conjuring ritual with a font of dry ice whilst singing the introduction to If Eternity Should Fail before a crack of Nicko’s snare drum brings the rest of Maiden to stage. Iron Maiden appear to be on top form tonight, their new material from The Book of Souls sounds a hell of a lot better in the live environment as Maiden blast through the opening one-two from their latest album with If Eternity Should Fail and the albums lead-off single, Speed of Light before giving the audience something a little more worn in with Wrathchild and Children of the Damned. As serious as Iron Maiden are on record, live, Maiden are jovial and fun, Death or Glory features Bruce Dickinson dressed in a gorilla costume, beating his chest, pulling out bananas and generally annoying Dave Murray. Of course, there is always the majorly fun part when Eddie comes out to play, doing his best to get one over on Janick Gers, who is always more than happy to entertain Eddie. Gers is a true showman, able to swing his guitar around like a lunatic whilst never missing a note. This allows him to dive, duck and slide underneath Eddie before the monster gets bored and goes to attack Dickinson. There are is one low point tonight though, Dickinson literally limps through The Trooper, but this does not phase the crowd as they more than happily will sing the song for him and in a set which lacks old favourites such as Run to the Hills and Hallowed Be Thy Name, it makes you wonder whether Dickinson can still pull this off. However, straight after The Trooper, Dickinson nails Powerslave straight up and can still send a shiver down your spine with his voice during Fear of the Dark. Each one of Maiden has their own personality, Dickinson can still hold the entire arena in the palm of his hand whilst Adrian Smith and Mr. Iron Maiden himself, Steve Harris stalk to the stage and it just goes to show the amount of experience behind this band, especially with the adoration that is returned to them. To edit and quote Beavis and Butthead: “say what you want about Iron Maiden, but they know how to put on a show”. America may have Metallica and Germany may have Scorpions, but you can’t sum it up better than Tobias Sammet: “England’s got Steve Harris”. Adam McCann
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