Iron Maiden (support act: Halestorm)
Prague / Letiště Praha Letňany / Czech Republic
Saturday, 31 May 2025, from 18:40 to 22:00
Years come. Well, and they go. It happens quietly — this thing we call aging. And pretty fast, too. The years have caught up with many influential bands that started out in the seventies, and Iron Maiden are no exception — they can’t escape this phenomenon either. On the tour celebrating their first 50 years, Maiden have hit the European stages again for the first time in two years. The “Run For Your Lives” tour (a line from Run To the Hills, which was of course not missing from the setlist) promised a truly old-school set list, drawing strictly from the first eight albums — everything they recorded and released between 1980 and 1992.
The Prague show was the third date on the new tour. Two years ago they played two consecutive nights in Prague, selling 45,000 tickets in total; this time the organizers opted for an open-air venue — and sold that out too. A whopping 60,000 people crammed in! And you know how it is. That’s a special kind of occasion. Rivers of people surge and froth in from every direction. Metro, buses, trams… madness. I counted at least six official merch stands, with people queuing for shirts in lines several hundred metres long. And they didn’t run out of stock. Not even after the show. At that point, the two of us actually joined one of those snaking queues ourselves. Telling yourself: “Maybe this is my last Maiden show — might as well grab one last shirt. With an old-school Maiden design.” Directly across from us, about half a kilometre away, stood the stage, and exactly twenty minutes before seven, American rockers Halestorm kicked things off with the incredible Lzzy Hale out front. Halestorm are a force in their own right. They have no trouble filling venues with several thousand people on their own headline tours. The November dates are already out. The band are right on the verge of releasing a new album, and in their 45-minute slot, Halestorm played more than half a set devoted to the upcoming “Everest”, out in August. A bold move, because this is a somewhat different record from what they’ve done before. Very personal. Introspective. So the guys and gals gave themselves more room to experiment — to try things in the songwriting they hadn’t attempted before. The crowd was hearing quite a bit of this music for the very first time, and I’ll admit I was more than a little surprised by what I heard. The standout moment was Rain Your Blood On Me, where the stage belonged entirely to Lzzy Hale. She broke free of the chains again and delivered an incredible vocal performance that absolutely flays you alive. The rest of the setlist was peppered with hits from their most successful album “The Strange Case Of…” (Freak Like Me, I Miss the Misery, and Love Bites (So Do I)). Halestorm remain phenomenal. They’re in the form of their lives. At the absolute peak of their live game. And yet — every minute of their set felt, to most of the crowd that evening, like time to kill. Everyone was waiting for one thing and one thing only. For Iron Maiden to take the stage.
This tour is special. It’s an anniversary run, and it’s special for another reason too. The band introduced their new drummer, Simon Dawson — Steve Harris’s British Lion bandmate. He was, in a way, the big question mark going into this show. With McBrain’s departure, Iron Maiden have lost a piece of their elemental DNA forever, and things will never be quite what they once were. You just have to make your peace with that. We’ll come back to Dawson.
The opening was a genuine tribute to the very beginning of the band’s story — the “Killers” album, with the self-titled debut right on its heels. The giant projection screens have come on leaps and bounds in terms of technology. The resolution is extraordinary. The 3D effects are becoming incredible. Even for the notoriously conservative types that Maiden definitely are. In visual terms, the latest Iron Maiden spectacle hits a new high-water mark. This tour delivers noticeably better on that front than the previous one — and only two years separate them.
The pre-recorded intro of The Ides Of March morphs into the opening of the Killers classic Murders In The Rue Morgue, but the band only truly explodes onto the stage with the first word of the first verse. The expected Wrathchild follows, and after it, the ferocious Killers. There were no slip-ups early on; only in Killers did one of the guitarists try to sneak in one more repetition of the main riff at the outro, but he quickly choked off the stray note and it barely registered. What stands out about this Maiden tour is a noticeably higher level of cohesion. Tightness. In that regard, the band would genuinely do well to think about putting out a new live document. The tipping factor might just be Dawson’s integration into the lineup. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The other thing is the excellent sound. At Maiden shows you’d normally wait until the fifth or sixth song for the engineers to dial things in properly. This time? Excellent from the very first second to the last.
And then there’s Dawson. Harris didn’t want a Nicko clone, and Dawson is a different kind of drummer. He plays differently. Not drastically — it can’t be too different. But you can hear it. Different energy, different DNA. Especially in the transitions within the early-era classics — including the fantastic Phantom Of The Opera, all the Killers tracks, and The Number of the Beast material. He has exactly as many drums as he needs. That was true of McBrain too. But Dawson is always visible during the show. Every time your eyes drift to the Iron Maiden drum kit. Nicko was completely hidden behind his. Not even an official photo pass helped. When it comes to kit size, though, compared to his legendary predecessor, Dawson is a genuine Tom Thumb. His kit is more than half the size of McBrain’s old fortress. On the other hand, what really matters is that Simon plays exactly the way the rest of the sextet needs. So? Excellent. As a result, there are very few or zero slip-ups, and the explosive energy and drive he brings is more than noticeable — it works brilliantly. It’s also why the band found it easier, when putting together the new tour’s repertoire, to bring back some of the genuinely greatest songs of their career — songs the fans hold especially dear — including Powerslave, Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, and of course the crown jewel of all epics, Seventh Son of A Seventh Son. Hearing Rime and 7th Son on the same night? Unthinkable. And yet that’s exactly what we got! Dawson fully justified his role. But fair warning: he’s not a Nicko clone, and for purists, some of Simon’s transitions — which he does play slightly his own way compared to the Nicko style that’s been lodged in our ears for years — will grate.
Dickinson sang brilliantly. His stage theatrics are even more polished than before. The staging itself has been completely refreshed — all-new set pieces. And this is Bruce’s playground. A figure whose charisma is truly essential and one of a kind. He’s at home here. Alongside an outstanding performance, he once again stunned with a display of charge and energy that filled the hearts of the 60,000-strong crowd. The incredible energy the band unleashed on that mass of people automatically gave you goosebumps! And yes — that went for us too, standing some 400 metres from the stage. Loving every second of it. Everyone was singing along. In front, behind, left and right. Hands in the air. I’ll admit it — even more than on the last tour. The solos were spot-on. All three guitarists. And Bruce remains the lovable rascal in his role as resident motormouth. On the first crowd “Oh” during The Trooper, he laid into the masses: “Ahhh, you are useless!” Classic Bruce. That’s how it should be, and long may it stay that way.
The show flew by at a frightening pace. The band brought out two Eddies. The first stormed the stage during Killers, the second during The Trooper — where Dickinson didn’t forget to wave the Czech flag at the crowd. The third is usually the one during the closing Iron Maiden, but on this tour it was replaced by a bust-length Eddie with an extraordinary 3D effect on the giant screen behind, which at moments genuinely looked like a massive structure crafted in the golden analogue era. During Iron Maiden, though, the band did stumble — the one real slip of the whole evening, and it did throw things slightly. When Bruce launched into the first verse, Maiden briefly fell apart (a gap opened between the phrasing and the rhythm), but Dawson quickly corrected on the transition into the chorus and pulled everyone back on track.
The encore brought Aces High — and with it, half of the entire Powerslave album that Maiden played that evening. The one track that gave Dickinson a bit of a struggle. The long-missed, obligatory Fear of The Dark also delivered one of the expected highlights, and to close out the finale? Finally, the first and only Somewhere In Time classic — Wasted Years! No Prayer For The Dying was completely ignored, but nobody was losing any sleep over that. At least the Eddie on the official tour posters looks like he could be from the era of that very album.
Bottom line. Maiden live in 2025? I didn’t think I’d still be writing the same conclusion 30 years after seeing this band live for the first time (that was December 1995 in Vienna — with Blaze in the lineup). Seeing them live remains mandatory. Especially for anyone who hasn’t yet experienced them in person. Absolutely mandatory. Especially with the current setlist. Even if it’s your first Maiden show and it turns out to be your last, you’ll be telling your grandkids about the Iron Maiden concert you caught at exactly the right moment. The band is still in excellent live form. Sound on point. The staging, with all its props and effects, is exceptional! This may well be the last Maiden tour — even though Bruce said at the end: “Thank you Prague, see you soon!” Hmmm… the guys will be hitting their seventies in two or three years. That’s something to keep in mind. And the years fly by fast.
Words: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Edita Klemen
Halestorm – setlist:
1. Fallen Star
2. I Miss the Misery
3. Love Bites (So Do I)
4. WATCH OUT!
5. Darkness Always Wins
6. Familiar Taste of Poison (first verse and chorus only)
7. Rain Your Blood on Me
8. Drum Solo
9. Freak Like Me
10. I Get Off
11. Everest
Iron Maiden – setlist:
1. The Ides of March (pre-recorded intro)
2. Murders in the Rue Morgue
3. Wrathchild
4. Killers
5. Phantom of the Opera
6. The Number of the Beast
7. The Clairvoyant
8. Powerslave
9. 2 Minutes to Midnight
10. Rime of the Ancient Mariner
11. Run to the Hills
12. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
13. The Trooper
14. Hallowed Be Thy Name
15. Iron Maiden
—encore—
16. Churchill’s Speech (pre-recorded intro)
17. Aces High
18. Fear of the Dark
19. Wasted Years
