Feb 9, 2008 (17 years ago) Acer Arena Homebush, New South Wales, Australia
Alternative Metal, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Metal, Rock, British, NWOBHM, and New Wave Of British Heavy Metal.
Uploaded by Andy J Ryan
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Iron Maiden - Acer Arena, 9 February 2008
Metal masters Iron Maiden land in Australia - in their own customised Boeing 747 no less - on their Somewhere Back in Time world tour.†
Australia has endured a wait of 15 years to see Iron Maiden. The palpable tension and overflowing anticipation was broken with black-and-white war footage accompanied by Winston Churchill's famous "we will fight them on the beaches" call to arms sounding out across the Acer Arena.
The curtain lifted and all hell broke loose. Almost taking Winnie's words literally, a four-strong battalion toting guitars stormed the stage in a wave of tight black pants, flailing follicles and scorchingly strummed strings backed by an incessant thudding of gun-shot strength drums.
Bruce Dickinson then bounded forth and leapt to the front looking like a wharfie in a fishing vest, black rubber pants and beanie. Aces and devil-fisted arms were high. It was his first of many guises for the night, as he would re-emerge later personifying 'The Trooper' and the 'Ancient Mariner'.
The stage and the set was based mostly around the Powerstage album, with a hieroglyph-covered antechamber complete with changeable backdrops, a maze of ramps and walkways and three personal stages up front, filled with what must be the most heavily foot-printed foldback wedges in music.
A Vincent Price voice-over and a blistering barrage of fireballs forewarned the demon-summoning power of 'The Number of the Beast'.
The show-stopping highpoint of the set came with the quinella of 'Run to the Hills' and 'Fear of the Dark'. The two songs were seemingly bigger than the band themselves, touching every last person in the vast arena and ensuring a booming word-for-word sing-along from the delirious crowd. This could easily have been enough, with the crowd worked up to the point of satiated climax, but the pummelling continued with 'Iron Maiden' featuring a brief cartoonishly-menacing appearance by their mascot Eddie.
The band left the stage after a few more obligatory 'scream for me Sydney!'s, though the restless, frenzied and impassioned chanting and stomping meant you didn't have to be 'The Clairvoyant' to sense they would soon return.
Heaven can wait but the crowd couldn't, and we were treated to another dose before the band pulled up a pew and graced us with some heartfelt pleasantries and platitudes and promised to return soon before leaving off with a rattling 'Hallowed Be Thy Name'. Kick-arse
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