The Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Iron Maiden

[AFK]

I'd like to see an Iron Maiden show just for the experience.  I'm not even all that big a fan, but I've heard their sets are killer.  My sister and brother-in-law are going there tonight.  Enjoy, dude.

They are.  I don't own a single Iron Maiden album.  I went because they were playing in Portland (Maine), and metal bands, never, play in Portland, certainly not bands like Maiden, Queensryche, and Halford.


Killer show.  They rocked full out from the first chord to the last cymbal crash.  They haven't lost a step and put most new metal bands to,shame.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

The reverend speaks the truth.

Approximately ten minutes to maiden. Eventually it will be two minutes to midnight.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I am going to hurt tomorrow.

[Bu🤠ns]

HELL FUCKING YES!

DUDE! I'M GOING TO SEE THEM IN CHICAGO ON THE 5TH AND I CAN'T WAIT.  THIS WILL BE MY SECOND SHOW AND I'M SOOOO FUCKING STOKED! I'M TAKING MY WIFE (WHO HAS SEEN THEM LIKE COUNTLESS TIMES) AND MY SON.

THIS 8 YEAR OLD HASN'T BEEN TO A CONCERT BEFORE IN HIS LIFE.  FIRST CONCERT. IRON MAIDEN.

YES.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

HELL FUCKING YES!

DUDE! I'M GOING TO SEE THEM IN CHICAGO ON THE 5TH AND I CAN'T WAIT.  THIS WILL BE MY SECOND SHOW AND I'M SOOOO FUCKING STOKED! I'M TAKING MY WIFE (WHO HAS SEEN THEM LIKE COUNTLESS TIMES) AND MY SON.

THIS 8 YEAR OLD HASN'T BEEN TO A CONCERT BEFORE IN HIS LIFE.  FIRST CONCERT. IRON MAIDEN.

YES.

Your son's on the right track!

It was one hell of a show.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Oh also:

SET LIST SPOILER, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

Main Performance:
Phantom of the Opera (this did me in)
Iron Maiden (which always precedes the encore)
Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Prisoner (Based on the television series. Listen up BBC dorks, if you don't like Maiden yet....)
Number of the Beast
Run to the Hills
The Trooper
2 Minutes to Midnight
Wasted Years
Moonchild (Opening song)
Can I Play With Madness
The Evil That Men Do
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (FUCK. YEAH.)
The Clairvoyant
Afraid to Shoot Strangers (I was particularly pleased by this, and my ability to sing along)
Fear of the Dark


Encore:
Running Free
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Winston Churchill's Speech/Aces High

Aside from the two songs from Fear of the Dark, one of which they always do regardless in bold (Fear of the Dark and Afraid to Shoot Strangers, which admittedly is a lame title but really really excellent song about the Gulf War), this was essentially a repeat of the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son tour. Indeed, it is being called "Maiden England (Seventh Son tour), North American Tour 2012." I have a VHS of Maiden England in Nottingham dated November 27 & 28 1988. Songs on that VHS that were not played tonight:

Still Life
Die With Your Boots On
Infinite Dreams
Killers
Heaven Can Wait

Which I would have been chuffed to hear, but I am fine with what they did tonight.

Oh, and Alice Cooper was cool too.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Also, I need to get my VCR working....

And shirt that was consecrated tonight:



I had a couple of options. I was torn between this, and the one that displayed the Union Jack on the front, a la The Trooper (which I already have), but the US and Canadian flags on the back

OR

The shirt that took The Trooper design and made Eddie an American Cavalry Officer rather than a member of that retarded light brigade (that got wiped out against the Russians for following really really bad and vague orders that were interpreted totally incorrectly. Which made them UK heroes) carrying the current American Flag on the front and on the back US Flag as of admission of Colorado (1877-1890).

Nuck the Cafucks. I'll take US History for 1890, Alex.

Seriously, redoing Crimean Eddie for local history, pretty damn awesome.

Comparison with the original Trooper shirt:

[AFK]

Glad it was a good show.  Wish I could've been there.  My wife is going to see Cinderella later this week at Hampton Beach, NH.  Unfortunately we have no one to watch the kids overnight so I'm not able to go.   

[Bu🤠ns]

Amazing show!!!

Best first show ever for the boy. He had the best time. The old rockers sitting in front and behind us really made him feel at home.

Also thanks for the playlist...it was nice to be able to get my boy prepared.

I was wondering what they were going to do with those two amazing solos in Afraid to Shoot Strangers. Needless to say I was very happy to find that they extended the first solo and nixed the second...made SO much more sense for live performance with three friggin guitarists.

Also, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son was so solid that if that's the only song they played, I'd have gone home happy.

Bonus: The many different Eddies were the ACING on the cake.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Amazing show!!!

Best first show ever for the boy. He had the best time. The old rockers sitting in front and behind us really made him feel at home.

Also thanks for the playlist...it was nice to be able to get my boy prepared.

I was wondering what they were going to do with those two amazing solos in Afraid to Shoot Strangers. Needless to say I was very happy to find that they extended the first solo and nixed the second...made SO much more sense for live performance with three friggin guitarists.

Also, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son was so solid that if that's the only song they played, I'd have gone home happy.

Bonus: The many different Eddies were the ACING on the cake.

Maiden is always solid. They don't fuck up. Ever.

One of the things that I've always loved about Maiden: there's one kind of Maiden fan, and that fan is a person between the ages of 10 and 60. It's one of the biggest trips, just the generation spanning camaraderie.

Hell, even today, I was wearing a Number of the Beast shirt (truth be told, my whole load of laundry was Maiden shirts, which, I obviously have very many of, due to the concerts and general fandom), and someone passed me on the street TODAY saying, "It was a great concert!"

Fuck man. Maiden is better than the Red Sox winning the World Series.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Also, I was pleased that they played Afraid to Shoot Strangers at all. Say what you will about Fear of the Dark as an album, that song is the tits.

And anytime that Seventh Son of A Seventh Son is played, God himself descends from the heavens and kicks back and listens to the glory. I felt very proud to nudge my keyboardist during that and go "hey, look over there. This is not a recording."

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I'm also glad that Maiden went back to their original logo. It's a very minor thing but:

The original logo up until and including X-Factor:


From Virtual XI onward:


The bottom bits are cut off.

Funny note:

Seventh Son of a Seventh Son was their 7th studio album.
X Factor was their 10th
Virtual XI was their 11th.

That is the extent of Maiden numerology, other than, of course, SIX! SIX SIX! THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST! HELL! AND FIRE! WAS SPAWNED TO BE RELEASED!

[Nephew Twiddleton]

And you know, Burns, it was kinda funny. I forgot, consciously that you were going too.

All day today I had the song Iron Maiden stuck in my head, nad just how fucking awesome it is live. The studio recording doesn't do it justice. Hell, I was playing the opening riff as a warm up at band practice tonight.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Afraid to Shoot Strangers, live at Bruce Dickinson's "final" concert in 1993:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTJlLG9u4pE

The song Iron Maiden (I put the new shirt on around 3:00) live in Brazil on the Brave New World Tour. While Bruce and Adrian had come back at this point this was the first footage of them all reunited. At the end, where they start chanting, it is reminiscent of Bruce's solo project, also with Adrian "Ole Ole Ole, Brusay Brusay!" (note also the animitronic Eddie as a Wicker Man. The single off of this tour was The Wicker Man. This was the tour that I had my 19th birthday spent.

And by comparison, Bruce's solo project live in the same country:

Dammit. Waffles help me out with the Ole Ole Oleeeee Bruceeee Bruceeee.

But a song from that tour:

(this song is awesome btw)

Darkside of Aquarius live in Sao Paolo, and a song that makes Bruce definitely heavier than Maiden:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya1TUJgiLsQ

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Also, even though Bruce is my god, he has awful fashion sense...