Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Frankfurt Am Main / Festhalle / Germany
Concert date: May 27, 2011
Attendance: 12,000
Iron Maiden, new album, new tour! Seven shows indoors. All seven in Germany. A mini German “in-door” tour, then! The first of them in Frankfurt. And that’s where our crew is headed. The Festhalle in Frankfurt had been sold out for months.
The band’s new studio album, “The Final Frontier”, came out last August. Iron Maiden were already showcasing it last summer at a few shows around Europe. Anyone who caught them on August 17, 2010, in Codroipo (near Palmanova), Italy, got an hour and three quarters of adventure through a repertoire that mostly focused on Iron Maiden material from 2000 onward. So the set list once again had room for some excellent tracks like Ghost Of The Navigator, Brave New World, No More Lies and Dance Of Death.
This year Iron Maiden return with exactly the same stage set as last year: a space base station, which fits right in with the new album’s cover. The difference is that this time the promotion of the new album is even heavier, which shows in a somewhat reshuffled set list with more songs from the new album, while the old iron-clad classics The Trooper, Two Minutes To Midnight and The Evil That Man Do have also made it back into the set.
Ten minutes to eight in the evening, support act Rise To Remain took the stage in a Festhalle merrily chirping and jingling. Bands like this are a dime a dozen on the scene today, like leaves and grass. Calling them metalcore is too narrow, crossover too loose. There are chopping riffs, pauses with breakdowns, and at the same time a dash of old-school shredding with twin harmony lines on the guitars. The vocals are of course either screechingly guttural or whiny clean, basically “emo”. The band is a five-piece, and on vocals stands Bruce Dickinson junior, or more precisely Austin Dickinson. Of course Austin is his father carved out. In looks, mind you, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that in the early eighties his dad didn’t wear the “emo” haircut his son wears today. Vocally light-years away from his father, Austin probably isn’t even supposed to be as talented as his old man. Rise to Remain are too weak for anything like that. The songs The Serpent, Purify, Illusive Existence, Salvation, Power Through Fear, Nothing Left, Bridges Will Burn left nothing tangible behind, except the fact that yet another metalcore clone from Great Britain is roaring in front of us. The band ground through its set in line with the terms of the tour and the rules of playing the Iron Maiden support slot, and that’s all. Austin showed that he can deftly work his tongue between songs, which he undoubtedly inherited from his far more famous father.. If you’re into bands like Bullet For My Vaentine and Funeral For A Friend, then definitely check out Rise To Remain too. Sadly, the band left nothing more than a bitter feeling that it’s in this slot thanks to good connections and acquaintances. And we’ll probably be watching them for some three years running in this role before every Iron Maiden concert, just like with the band of Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris’s daughter, Lauren Harris. Sadly, the fact is that Iron Maiden support acts are, more often than not, just time-wasters.
Finally! It’s nine o’clock! The hall is packed. There’s some room left on the farthest seats in the stands way at the back and on the floor, but again only way at the back. A familiar melody rings out. The intro to the U.F.O. song Doctor Doctor, and the hall literally ignites from the feverish wave set off by the multi-thousand-headed crowd on the floor. Banners and flags decorated with slogans flutter. The hall goes dark. Next comes the taped intro to the opener Satellite 15… The Final Frontier. Up to the halfway point. At the far edges of the stage, a lamp lights up on each side, showing the band members the way onto the stage. Half the song is gone! Iron Maiden’s silhouettes are on stage, a short drum passage follows, and then the real Maiden kick in.
The apocalyptic song suits Iron Maiden down to the ground. It has a relaxing effect on the band, with Dickinson gradually warming up his vocal cords in it. Iron Maiden are exceptionally seasoned. On stage they contort themselves into every possible position, especially Janick Gers, about whom it’s sometimes not entirely clear whether he can even play the exact guitar parts while doing that kind of gymnastics. It’s precisely this effortless running around, quick moving and posing on stage that gives you the feeling Iron Maiden are an eternally young band that the tooth of time simply can’t gnaw at. If Dave Murray has put on a kilo or so, which his ever-taut, flushed red cheeks don’t hide, then Steve Harris, with his bushy mane, is still in exceptionally good shape. He comes across like a real teenager.
Iron Maiden are a band that melds with the audience! Instantly. What helps most is the intense interplay between Dickinson and Harris. Dickinson is a born commander anyway, hypnotizing you with his wild performance. Yes. Even after thirty years. And Harris is the factor who controls things from the background the whole time. His trademark is constant eye contact with the crowd and following the verses, which he actually sings along with the audience. Of course we got that legendary Harris pose too, foot on the monitor, shooting at the crowd with his bass. That very element is excellent fuel for hype, so it’s only logical that the audience literally goes wild below the stage. So wild that people are doing downright silly things down there. But the crowd is so into it that they sing absolutely every song with the band, setting off thunderous ovations even when the newest songs are announced
As always, the band had some trouble calibrating the sound in the hall this time too. During Coming Home they put on the look as is fitting. Over the course of the show, only the solos and individual guitar harmonies sounded a bit worse at times. Bruce Dickinson sang great. Full and clear. You could feel the vocalist was totally fresh, that this was the first show, so the musician had a charge of euphoria and impatient anticipation smoldering in his blood to hit the stage again. The guitars were set a bit too quiet in the mix during the show.
The lineup didn’t change its stage gear. Dickinson looks the same on stage as last year. Psycho Ward shirt, chimney sweep’s cap and army trousers. Bruce is a bouncy little fellow. Breakneck run-up jumps weren’t missing, and of course Bruce made ample use of the extra stage behind McBrain’s drums, which leads to the farthest edges of the right and left sides of the main stage, as his running track. In The Trooper Dickinson of course donned the red British army coat and whipped up storms with the Union Jack. In his banter, the man remains extremely resourceful. He nicely and tastefully combines his arrogance with humor, so the whole thing comes off as a thoroughly colorful welcome and a necessary fanning of the concert fun of Iron Maiden’s pedigree. Before Blood Brothers Bruce allowed himself a special, longer speech, revealing that the band is hugely enthusiastic about being able to play an indoor tour of Germany again after a long time, which they hadn’t done in years. At the same time he described every possible planetary being the band had performed in front of over all the years of defiance. Even cannibals. On that occasion he checked his own crotch and wittily concluded, “Aha, it’s still here!”, then wrapped up the tale by dedicating Blood Brothers to the audience. On last year’s tour Iron Maiden dedicated this song at their concerts to the late rock icon Ronnie James Diu. Near the end Dickinson, a big football fan, informed the people in the hall that Barcelona had beaten Manchester 3:1. The result meant nothing to the Germans, and nothing to Bruce either, as a Liverpool supporter.
Iron Maiden don’t play the way they did in the eighties anymore. Mainly, of course, because of the integration of a third guitarist. Janick took over some solos once played by Adrian Smith, which will never quite sit well with the old-school Iron Maiden purists. It happens that the contrast between Murray and Gers is especially exposed at certain points. For example in solos like the one in Fear Of The Dark. When Gers fights his way through his part, he’s instantly overshadowed by Murray’s far more precise and controlled sound. What’s more, the very first “pull off”, aimed right under the tip of your nose, sounds brilliantly full and clear, and when Dave starts picking lightning-fast “trills”, it’s immediately obvious that the building blocks of the Iron Maiden lineup today are, sadly, not equal. Interestingly, Adrian Smith doesn’t want to take back the work on some solos of the eighties songs. A similar fate later befell the classic Hallowed Be Thy Name, and The Trooper didn’t escape it either..
A concert an hour and fifty minutes long, at the end of which the heavily boozed German crowd also seemed thoroughly wrung out and drained, showed Iron Maiden in an exceptionally fresh light, as bouncy lads behind whom hides the routine of a rich stable of miles covered in a career. As a band, in other words, that handles everything with ease. In self-confidence they’ve almost no equal. The lineup delivered a standard Iron Maiden party, with the obligatory Eddie, who appeared on stage for a few moments in The Evil That Man Do and played a few riffs during Iron Maiden, and then the audience was also joined by a giant Eddie head that grew up behind Nick’s drums.
Apart from the not-quite-best sound, this was another unique get-together with the pioneers of heavy metal, who, after such a display of top daily form, need not fear running out of breath anytime soon. The only question remaining is what follows this tour. A break and a new one, where they might perhaps play material from the album “No Prayer For The Dying” to the album “Brave New World”? Probably not, but still. Never say never..
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
This report was produced in collaboration between RockLine and Rock Hard Slovenija.
Setlist
1.Satellite 15… The Final Frontier
2.El Dorado
3.2 Minutes to Midnight
4.The Talisman
5.Coming Home
6.Dance of Death
7.The Trooper
8.The Wicker Man
9.Blood Brothers
10.When the Wild Wind Blows
11.The Evil That Men Do
12.Fear of the Dark
13.Iron Maiden
—encore—
14.The Number of the Beast
15.Hallowed Be Thy Name
16.Running Free
Photo Gallery
