Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
Location: Piazza Unita d'Italia, Trieste, Italy
Concert date: 26.07.2016
Attendance: 14,000
It would have been a sin to miss Iron Maiden when they come this close to us, especially since they’ve been stubbornly dodging us ever since that not-so-great show at the Bežigrad stadium, which will be a good ten years ago next year. Even though The Book of Souls, the sixteenth studio release from the heavy metal giants, is no masterpiece, Iron Maiden live are far more than just a concert. They’re an experience that hardly anything comes close to. Iron Maiden went at promoting their new album with an even more massive and megalomaniacal tour than before. The Book of Souls World Tour will span 72 shows, taking Iron Maiden to China, El Salvador and Lithuania for the very first time, Ed Force One has grown from a Boeing 757 into a Boeing 747, and the box office has racked up almost 47 million dollars after 46 shows. That means Iron Maiden can afford shows in some more unusual locations too, like the one in Trieste on Piazza Unita d’Italia, right by the Adriatic Sea, surrounded by municipal buildings and luxury hotels for the filthy rich. And if I was a bit »grumpy« about going to this show because of a setlist that (for me personally) wasn’t exactly satisfying, the Slovenian whining vanished the moment I arrived, replaced by a fantastic vibe, great company from numerous Slovenian pilgrims, and thousands of like-minded fans strolling around Trieste in Iron Maiden shirts. The top-notch atmosphere even chased off the threatening black clouds, which, at the sight of Trieste wrapped in black, only dribbled a bit like an old man’s bladder.
Nepotism happens in heavy metal circles too, and it’s even more obvious with Iron Maiden, who for the last few tours have been joined by support acts made up of the daughters and sons of one member or another. After Lauren Harris (on the tour for A Matter of Life and Death) and Austin Dickinson (on the tour for The Final Frontier, with his now-defunct band Rise To Remain), dad Steve has now taken care of his son George and his band. The Raven Age took the stage a few minutes before eight and immediately showed that sometimes the apple falls very far from the tree. The boys are firmly cemented in modern metal, which is closer to today’s MTV generation than to fans of true heavy metal, the kind of crowd that nods along to nonsense like Chester Bennington’s recent claim that metal survived thanks to Linkin Park. A statement that deserves a treatment straight out of some Cannibal Corpse lyric, and a similar kind of torture was in fact dealt out to the Trieste main square during The Raven Age’s good forty-minute set. Harris Jr. did show a few slightly more thoughtful guitar moves, but the young band, only a few weeks old, is a sour mix of influences like later-era In Flames and the aforementioned Linkin Park. What stuck in my memory was nothing more than generic riffs, an overly self-confident frontman with an annoying voice, and emocore whining from a band that, with a single EP out, is already playing in front of thousands thanks to one member’s surname. Without that, they wouldn’t even make it out of their own rehearsal room. Let’s hope The Raven Age means the well of Iron Maiden offspring has run dry, and that next time the dads grant us something more pleasant to the ears and worthy of the high ticket prices.
At nine sharp, a crowd of fifteen thousand got what it came for: the recording of the UFO classic Doctor Doctor, which has been announcing the start of Maiden shows for years. The audience went wild, even more so when the animation roared into life, showing Ed Force One tangled in the lianas of the Amazon jungle, until Eddie’s hand frees it and launches it into the sky. During the ominous intro If Eternity Should Fail, the stage, dressed up as the ruins of a Mayan civilization, is lit up by flames, and Dickinson, hidden behind a smoking cauldron, leads the rest of the band into the opening verses while Trieste explodes. For all its length, If Eternity Should Fail, with its epic feel from Dickinson’s pen, proves an excellent »opener«, and it’s interesting that Speed of Light didn’t get that role, as was the habit with similar singles in the past. Still, Speed of Light, with its simplicity and a few energetic gear shifts, hits even harder right after. Dickinson’s voice serves him more than confidently. The wind did carry it off a bit throughout, probably so did almost seventy shows played, and even more so the cancer he beat, which, once it realized which vocal cord it had attacked, tucked its tail between its legs. It’s clear that every single member of the band is a master of their craft and nothing less than top-notch performances can be expected from them, but it’s Dickinson who, after beating the illness, steals all the attention with his agility, energy, charisma and a heaping spoonful of English humor. Trieste had by then sunk into darkness, and with the buildings lit up, the show got an even more wonderful backdrop that blended fantastically with the first classic of the night, the unforgettable creepy Children of the Damned about naughty kids with supernatural powers. The band keeps digging mercilessly on with the balladic Tears of a Clown, inspired by the sad fate of Robin Williams. Next, during The Red and the Black, the guitar trio of Smith/Murray/Gers and the brilliant Harris, who toss lines back and forth for fun during the extended instrumental bridge, really shine, though instead of a ten-minute epic that’s in places seriously weighed down by an overblown running time, they could have played one older song and one newer one. The impression is instantly fixed by the bombastic The Trooper, with the obligatory Dickinson waving of the Union Jack (and Janick’s waving of the Stratocaster), and even more so by the ironclad, magical anthem Powerslave that follows. I’m just not completely sure why Bruce sings it this time wearing the mask of a Mexican wrestler, hehe. The goofy Death or Glory, with its simple energy and silly lyrics (»Climb like a monkey«) and Bruce crowned with as many as three plush monkeys, wins you over in a heartbeat, and Dickinson in a heartbeat also shoves a banana onto the stage. Iron Maiden then line up three dark epics; the title track The Book of Souls cements the fact live that it’s one of the strongest songs on the new album, and the appearance of the new Eddie, one of the best in the mascot’s long history, impresses too. The Mayan Eddie has a good time messing with Janick this time, naughtily scratching his crotch and backside, for which Dickinson punishes him with a Marx Brothers-style finger in the eyes and a heart ripped out in the style of the cheesiest eighties horror flicks, complete with the obligatory spurting of blood from the torn-out organ. Unforgettable! The ultimate heavy metal epic Hallowed Be Thy Name shakes things up again (and the lightning-fast verses do seriously tire Bruce out, sadly), while a somewhat overchewed Fear of the Dark sends the Italian crowd into ecstasy. The main set ends as expected with the anthemic Iron Maiden and one more Eddie appearance, this time in the form of a gigantic head from the cover of The Book of Souls.
The boys return to the stage in devilish spirits with The Number of the Beast, accompanied by a giant figure of the Goat, and then, in a somewhat more serious tone, Dickinson, in light of the recent massacres in France and Germany, introduces the beautiful ballad Blood Brothers. Harris’s wonderful tribute to his late father works as a powerful symbolic message that the world could be a much nicer place if we all lived like the brotherhood gathered on the Trieste square two days ago. The legendary Iron Maidens say goodbye to the audience this time with the explosive Somewhere In Time anthem Wasted Years, and the great mood on stage is confirmed at the end by Dickinson, who (in)decently pulls down Nick’s pants, and the crowd of fifteen thousand gets a brief glimpse of two sixty-year-old buns. What to say in closing? Nobody tops an Iron Maiden heavy metal spectacle, and the band’s energy on stage remains unbeatable even after more than three decades. You could take issue with the song selection, which perhaps had one song too many (too long) from the new album, but Iron Maiden already took us through their golden era on the previous tour, and it’s only right that they properly present the new album live too. The Iron Maiden crew breathes with one enormous set of lungs, powered by the indestructible Harris, the infectiously smiling Murray, the masterfully solemn Smith, the badass Gers and McBrain, and the superb Dickinson, and so the fact remains. Iron Maiden are simply the biggest heavy metal band in the world!
Setlist
IRON MAIDEN:
1. If Eternity Should Fail
2. Speed of Light
3. Children of the Damned
4. Tears of a Clown
5. The Red and the Black
6. The Trooper
7. Powerslave
8. Death Or Glory
9. The Book of Souls
10. Hallowed Be Thy Name
11. Fear of the Dark
12. Iron Maiden
— encore —
13. The Number of the Beast
14. Blood Brothers
15. Wasted Years
Photo Gallery
