Iron Maiden 31st July 2011

[Faron]

Bear in mind I`m a huge fan of Maiden and have been to see them live many times over the past 25 years, on sunday evening I saw them at the NIA in Birmingham and they are still absolutely red hot live, Bruce`s voice still sounded really good and the guitar playing was excellent as always but do they really need a 3rd guitarist who prances around and doesn`t always play his solo`s like the record.

 

As with all bands that we like to go and see, they never play everything we`d like to hear and this night was no different to normal. They opened with the way,way too long intro of Satellite 15 into the rather ordinary The Final Frontier followed by the slightly better El Dorado.

I was disappointed with the set list, nothing off the excellent A Matter Of Life And Death album, I was glad to see no Run To The Hills but adding Running Free was a major disappointment. Coming Home, The Talisman and When The Wild Wind Blows were top notch but too many of the same old same old for this persons personal taste.

 

To rub it all in, I was texting my wife during the wait, when someone threw their beer over their head and it landed on mine, dripping all down my face, gave everyone around a laugh

 

Setlist.....

 

Satellite 15... The Final Frontier

El Dorado

2 Minutes to Midnight

The Talisman

Coming Home

Dance of Death

The Trooper

The Wicker Man

Blood Brothers

When the Wild Wind Blows

The Evil That Men Do

Fear of the Dark

Iron Maiden

Encore:

The Number of the Beast

Hallowed Be Thy Name

Running Free

[heaven&hell]

"Blood Brothers" is such an amazing live song.

[Captain Howdy]

this is the kind of set list that really turns me off of ever seeing the band live again, just like the last time I saw them back in 2000 or so when they played nearly all of the Brave new world album.

It was the first time I'd seen the band live with Bruce on vox, and I have to say that I much preferred the previous time I saw them with Blaze on vocals purely cause the set list from the Blaze gig was much better.

 

I dont understand how most other bands who have a similar sized back catalogue can still play most of their bigger tunes, and still include recent material and covers etc, yet Maiden cant.

[Glen]

The best 'recent' set ive seen with Bruce singing was at Reading when they only played Piece Of Mind album and prior...........it twas AWESOME.