Locations: Split / Spaladium Arena / Croatia
Date: Wednesday, 07/27/2016
What could be better? Dalmatia, summer, the sea, ice cream and, of course, a Iron Maiden show to cap off the day. It reads like a fairy tale, but luckily some fairy tales do come true.
Counting down the months and days to every tour they announce is tough, at least today we can rightfully say this about the biggest heavy metal band on the planet that’s still active. Iron Maiden, of course. A band that would have toured the world with “The Book of Souls World Tour” earlier, if illness hadn’t thrown a wrench in the plans of singer Bruce Dickinson and, with him, the whole band. Bruce pulled through happily, and so did Iron Maiden, who finally managed to release their (long-promised) new studio album, “The Book of Souls”, last September. The new megalomaniac tour, on which Iron Maiden sail around the world in their specially refitted Boeing 747-400, brought the band to the Balkan end of Europe only at the very tail end of it. So Iron Maiden played Split on their sixty-ninth show, out of seventy-two in total on this current tour. Just a day earlier the band stopped in Trieste, close to Slovenia, where the RockLine crew caught them too and documented it in the concert report that follows.
Even though the sixteenth studio album doesn’t add anything special to the band’s discography in terms of artistic expression, that doesn’t stop the band’s horde of fans from storming the Iron Maiden shows. The golden eighties cemented the band’s name forever among a handful of the greatest acts in the galaxy. The Split arena got an exceptional turnout too. The parking lots were completely full by five in the afternoon. Hordes of visitors streamed in from everywhere and poured from all directions toward the Spaladium Arena. Fans came from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, probably not a few from Montenegro either, and from Serbia too, though the latter most likely took advantage of the band’s show announced three days later in Bucharest, Romania, to see Iron Maiden. A whole bunch of visitors with Slovenian plates also made the trip to Split, especially those who, for one reason or another, skipped the Trieste show (myself included). An exceptional adventure was in the cards. The crackle of sparks of bubbling energy in the glow of concert anticipation just wouldn’t let up. Good vibes and great spirits at every step, then.
At half past seven in the evening The Raven Age took the stage. A band whose guitarist is the son of Steve Harris (Iron Maiden). George Harris, that is. The Raven Age are a five-piece and, expressively speaking, an insignificant band. Globally speaking. That is, judged against all the musical inventions metal has served up and offered to this day. They play modern metal, very melodic, working on the “groove” kinetics. They’re predictable. The vocals are melodic, of course, but they can’t manage more than whimpering and emo whining. Still, it was a well-rehearsed, polished performance. The guys practiced a lot for this tour and used the stage skillfully. As a result, they shook out over the Spaladium Arena a lot more confidence and self-assurance than could be justified, or than the audience would even demand from a band that has just a single EP in its pocket and has only announced its debut studio album, “Darkness Will Rise”, for this fall. So? After Lauren Harris (Steve Harris’s daughter), who opened Iron Maiden shows between 2006 and 2009, and after the (now split-up) Rise To Remain, with Austin Dickinson (Bruce Dickinson’s son) on vocals, who opened for Iron Maiden in 2011, here’s the third clear proof of the unconcealed nepotism Iron Maiden indulge in. You’d turn a blind eye if these were interesting bands. But nothing of the sort. With The Raven Age too, the takeaway stays the same. A forgettable set, like last year’s snow, with no charisma and no artistic edge. Given the ticket prices, the audience deserved more. Especially those who shelled out almost a round 100€ for the fan pit in Trieste.
Before nine in the evening, things got going for real. First the famous Doctor Doctor, a song by the legendary UFO and at the same time a “template” (the “original mold”) for many songs of Iron Maiden’s early career, on which the band built its reputation in the music world. This song is played regularly before Iron Maiden come on stage. People in the Arena go nuts. The boiling point is slowly being reached. And exceeded. The hall goes dark, and people are made to watch an amusing animated film about Iron Maiden’s “Ed Force One” Boeing stranded in the middle of the jungle, from which they are finally rescued by none other than their indispensable ally, Eddie, of course.
Iron Maiden put the setlist together in a very predictable way. It was weighed down with as many as six tracks from the new Iron Maiden record. They shot off two in a row at the start, two more at the end of the first third of the show and the last two at the beginning of the final third. The luxury of runtime that the new songs offer meant the show strung together just fifteen numbers in a little under two hours, instead of the usual seventeen you get at Iron Maiden shows. The opening “The Book of Souls” duo, If Eternity Should Fail and Speed Of Light, got the crowd on its feet instantly, and the delirium that engulfed the entire Arena, never let up again. Bruce, the exceptional concert commander, “calmed” the opening fever down a bit just before the classic Children of the Damned, where he got chatty and, in passing, praised the Croatian national football team, which was of course enough to make the crowd his alone for two hours. That break, like the song itself, gave the vocalist his first chance to save some energy, since it’s composed in a range that doesn’t demand too much vocal strain from Bruce. Dickinson sang a good part of the show at an outstanding level. Especially for his age and considering that he’s left cancer behind him. He nailed the job. A few times he did gasp for air, especially during The Trooper and in the second verse of Hallowed Be Thy Name and, say, in the first two thirds of the closing Wasted Years, where he dashed backstage during the “mid eight” passage for some “oxygen.” When Bruce came back on stage, he finished the last chorus and verse of Wasted Years at a decidedly higher energy level and with noticeably more vocal power on display. There were a few more such moments at the show. Still, Dickinson (and Iron Maiden along with him) brought a lot more of a “cheeky” character to the stage on this tour compared to past Iron Maiden concert experiences. Not only did he put on a few funny masks and hats during the show, he kept the mood on stage extremely good throughout: for instance, during the intro of the classic Hallowed Be Thy Name, standing on the riser by Nicko McBrain’s drums, he whacked a “crash” cymbal with a noose hanging around his neck; then during The Number of the Beast he came flying onto the stage with a fire extinguisher and walked up to every single member and “sprayed” them, and at the end of the song he didn’t forget the crowd either. Then it happened that at the start of Blood Brothers a push-up bra flew onto the stage, which Bruce picked up and tied over Janick Gers’s eyes. As is well known, the band’s chief clown is Janick Gers, who, especially in the band’s most recent era, has been its driving, creative engine, and he was playing the lead guitar line in the intro of this song. Because Dickinson’s move threw him off a bit, his guitar went silent for a moment. The other two guitarists (Smith or Murray), waiting for their buddy’s cue, lost their bearings and consequently treated us to a cute half-step slip-up.
Even though Dickinson soaks up most of the attention, the other three guitarists and the tireless football-shorts-wearing, immortal chieftain of the band, Steve Harris, came across as unusually driven and hungry. From the first second to the last. As if they wanted to keep up with Dickinson at all costs. Then again, the jam-packed hall did its part, fanatically joining in with the band from the first second of the show to the last. Even when the show wrapped up with Wasted Years, the crowd’s jumping across the entire floor kicked up a racket demanding one more obligatory encore, which of course never came.
As the band promised before the tour started, they brought a top-notch spectacle to Split too. On top of everything already written, the hall had excellent sound, where you could very clearly follow even the triple-harmony terces in The Trooper. The band brought a heaping dose of pyrotechnics to the stage, which spiced up the opening (If Eternity Should Fail) and, among others, also the performance of the title track and the obligatory encore The Number of the Beast. Eddie’s look turned out especially nifty. He came stomping onto the stage during the title track. With legs so long that Janick Gers could practice sprinting short distances between Eddie’s legs the whole time. During Iron Maiden, a giant Eddie head, built after the cover of the new album, “peeked out” from behind McBrain’s risers. The pyro effects during The Number of the Beast were upgraded by two devil constructions set up on the left and right sides of the stage. In short. A spectacle worth every cent. No matter that ticket prices climb higher and higher year after year.
What’s left to say in closing? A show that ended before it began. Two hours that felt like they never happened. Two hours of splendid hanging out with the unforgettable smiths of the metal bible, the one and only Iron Maiden, one of the most influential bands of all time. Regardless of maturity, Iron Maiden remain potent and wild on stage, radiating youthful exuberance with not a trace of wear or fatigue. An unforgettable concert spectacle with Iron Maiden in Split, then. And the impatient wait for the band’s next tour began right away.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist:
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
