The Hungarian Iron Maiden Tribute Is by Far the Closest Thing to the Original Yet (2008)

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Venue: Dvorana Stereo / Rijeka / Croatia
Concert date: December 26, 2008
Attendance: 450
Ticket price: 40.00 HRK

I’d heard a lot about a killer band that devotes its entire live repertoire to the legendary blacksmiths of heavy iron, Iron Maiden, supposedly coming from Hungary. A few things piled up that day and pushed me to head south to our neighbor, down to the sea, where the bora was already hissing properly across the Kvarner Gulf. First, I’d been reading up on everything these young lads play live on stage. In 2005, for example, their set included, among other things, the whole Powerslave album, front to back. They also tackle songs like Alexander The Great or Only The Good Die Young, which the original authors and performers have never played live (and probably never will). On top of that, I’d heard glowing praise from people who had already seen them on stage. For their 10th anniversary they played a 5-hour show in Budapest, at the end of October 2006. Over 40 songs in total got hammered out at that gig, with material from no fewer than four Iron Maiden albums played in full: The Number Of The Beast, Piece Of Mind, Powerslave, Somewhere In Time and Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son. And why did they twist “maiden” into “maidnem”? In Hungarian the latter word means “almost,” which fits the band’s basic purpose, which (I’m repeating myself) is copying Iron Maiden.

The show at the Stereo hall in Rijeka was the band’s second there (they’ve played Croatia a few times now). The hall takes about 800, maybe 900 people, and somewhere between 400 and 500 showed up. Around 11:30 p.m. the guys hit the stage. They kicked off with a nice surprise, Be Quick Or Be Dead, to get the adrenaline pumping through the veins right away. The hall boiled over, though compared to the first visit, when the place was reportedly bursting at the seams, there wasn’t quite that euphoric fever this time. You could easily work your way from the back to the front rows. What’s interesting is that the guys put real epic marches in the set list, and that the first part, apart from the opener, was far from made up of razor-sharp riff choppers. After a great warm-up they moved on to Brave New World, where the audience swallowed up the chorus, and hair and stubble stood on end, especially in the follow-up with Wasted Years.

Singer Zoltan Kiss is unbelievable. Just glance at the set list and you’ll see that extremely tough songs to sing are lined up one after another (Infinite Dreams, then Sea Of Madness right behind it). And that’s just “among other things,” because over the two hours and ten minutes the show lasted, he didn’t strain even once in any register he went for. On top of that, he has the verses completely nailed and sings fluently, considering he’s not English! Dickinson’s technique has literally crawled under his skin, not to mention that his timbre and basic range are damn close to Dickinson’s too. And the man is only 12 years younger than the legendary singer, so the voice is that much stronger and better preserved. If you manage to carry the power of the lower registers through the middle all the way up to the highest ones, while keeping the melodic quality high and staying in command over the instruments, then you’ve won, provided you want to imitate Dickinson. The vocalist definitely didn’t forget the famous stage moves of his older role model, the waving of the Union Jack during The Trooper, the crowd-rousing with raised arms in the closing part of Hallowed Be Thy Name. In Rime Of The Ancient Mariner he even recited the verses by Samuel L. Coleridge himself. In short, agile and self-confident way beyond the fundamentals.

The instrumentalists can’t be praised enough either. In an instant they unleashed an incredibly dynamic sound, the guitars carried real grit, the harmonized interplay of the triple-guitar melodies was spot-on, “lifted” and played in extreme detail, and the two guitarists showed off with excellent renditions of the original studio solos. In copying Iron Maiden they went so far that at the end of Revelations (after the line “Oh-oh you…” and an A minor) one of the two guitarists yelled “Motherfucker!!!” into the mic. That shout from the crowd can only be heard on the live Iron Maiden record “Live After Death” (1985).

A gorgeous surprise awaited us with the song Childhood’s End. Iron Maiden have never played it live. A great, compact performance. Tight and sonically full. The band has been together for 12 years now, so no wonder they have Maiden in the little finger of their left hand. They cleverly shaped the set list so that they took care of their own enjoyment in the first phase. They stretched the set to 20 songs and only started stringing together the classics in the second part, when they had to keep the atmosphere and the high spirits up while keeping people on their feet. The guitarists didn’t split the solos strictly into left monitor – Murray, right monitor – Smith, but gave themselves more freedom in who plays which solo. In the end I heard (among other things) at least a roughly accurate copy of Murray’s solo inside Fear Of The Dark, and not just the proper takes of its ending and beginning, as done by many bands who play this Iron Maiden cover at their live gigs.

The guys didn’t stop surprising us afterward either, serving up gems like Wasting Love, No More Lies and Afraid To Shoot Strangers, where it happened that the intro melody on the right guitar was practically inaudible. That was also the only mistake that stood out and was plainly noticeable during the show. The singer didn’t let up in Hallowed Be Thy Name either. He sang the material with incredible ease. It’s obvious the quintet loves playing Iron Maiden. Judging by the remarks above, they clearly have the vast majority of the whole Iron Maiden catalog down, and rotating the set lists at their shows is something completely normal. A great remedy against boredom and the danger of getting sick of performing.

On the flip side, there were quite a few people there that night who wished to hear a few more classic Iron Maiden “tunes,” like The Evil That Man Do, Two Minutes To Midnight or Wrathchild, and because of the “drawn-out” epics couldn’t quite get into the show. It really was a set list for the connoisseurs. And a set list that, I’d bet on it any day, Iron Maiden have largely forgotten how to play today, and the kind of set list that would break Dickinson in his current form pretty quickly. The truth is the truth.

Truth be told, a true Iron Maiden fan had a hard time hiding the excitement that night, because Iron Maidnem “killed” with their perfection and professionalism, as well as with a sinfully delicious set list. The cherry on top was the two-and-a-half-meter figure of Eddie, in a Piece Of Mind uniform, with glowing little eyes, who came stomping onto the stage during the song Iron Madnem (Iron Maiden). The guys kept on thrilling us with Blood Brothers and the hard rocker Bring Your Daughter.

Just when it looked like it was all over, they came back for a second encore and chopped out two classics that don’t even need an introduction. At an outstanding level until the very last second. Both performance-wise and sound-wise! This was the third Iron Maiden tribute band my ears have heard live so far, and it swallows all the rest in one bite, including Slovenia’s Iron Median, who are pure kindergarten next to them. They played for the same ticket price as our Slovenian guys did three days earlier in Ljubljana. I warmly recommend catching Iron Maidnem if they turn up anywhere near you. I’m not a fan of tribute bands, let alone a supporter. They kill creativity, and in a very cheap way they eat away the much-needed living space of promising bands that cultivate original material. And yet I’m happy to close one eye and one ear when perfectionists like Iron Maidnem take the stage. Always!

photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Setlist

1. Be Quick Or Be Dead 2. Brave New World 3. Wasted Years 4. Deja-Vu 5. Revelations 6. Rime Of The Ancient Mariner 7. Infinite Dreams 8. Sea Of Mandess 9. Childhood’s End 10. The Trooper 11. Afraid To Shoot Strangers 12. No More Lies 13. Wasting Love 14. Hallowed Be Thy Name 15. Iron Maidnem —encore I.— 16. The Number Of The Beast 17. Blood Brothers 18. Bring Your Daughter… to the Slaughter —encore II.— 19. Fear Of The Dark 20. Run To The Hills

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