A
Anonymous
Guest
Hi guys,
Cross-posted from the extensive review I just placed on my [a href=\'http://www.ironmaidenheaven.com\' target=\'_blank\']Iron Maiden Heaven[/a] site, is the following extensive review. Note, at [a href=\'http://www.ironmaidenheaven.com\' target=\'_blank\']Iron Maiden Heaven[/a] I have added concert pictures as well! Check out the "Tours" menu.
July 3rd 2005, Bospop festival, Weert, The Netherlands
July 3rd 2005 happened to be a glorious day, for not only was the weather most excellent, but also it was the first time since the June 3rd 2000 Dynamo Open Air concert that I went to see Maiden again!
As can be gathered from the title, Maiden performed at a festival, which featured 15 bands, amongst which Dragon Force, Overkill, My Dying Bride, Y&T, Within Temptation and Iron Maiden. Maiden were the headliners, and when the tickets went on sale back in December 18th 2004, Maiden was the only known band: reason enough to buy a ticket already that very day. [!--emo&
--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--]. For a more complete overview of the bands, and the festival in general, check out the [a href=\'http://www.bospop.nl\' target=\'_blank\']official Bospop site[/a]. Also, my own page (i.e. [a href=\'http://www.ironmaidenheaven.com\' target=\'_blank\']Iron Maiden Heaven[/a]) features some of the pictures I took during the concert. They are by no means good quality pictures, but at least they are MY pictures, so I preferred to use those in stead of using someone else's more professional shots. [!--emo&--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--] Nonetheless, I did request pictures from someone who had a professional camera with him (as opposed to my simple camera), so perhaps I'll add some of his pictures if he really sends them to me. Also, note that some excellent professional pictures can be found on the following page of the organisers: [a href=\'http://www.bospop.nl/media/zondag3/index.htm\' target=\'_blank\']pictures: Porcupine Tree, My Dying Bride, Y&T, Within Temptation & Iron Maiden[/a] .
A little bit about the other bands
My wife (Gioconda) and stepdaughter (Karol) wanted to come along, and as they are normally not much into metal, we decided to not go too early (in order to prevent them from being worn down and/or fed up around the time Maiden would appear), so we left our home around 15:00. The concert took place in a rather remote part of the country, so we had to drive some 2.5 hours by car in order to get to the concert location. All fair enough, however, unfortunately Dragon Force already had their show at 13:30, and it only lasted 1 hour, hence, with some pain in my heart I decided to miss out on that one.
When we arrived and entered the festival terrain, we could hear Overkill playing the last songs of their show in the tent. This was soon after followed by Within Temptation on the main stage. Funnily enough I had thought especially Gioconda and Karol would enjoy that particular show, as this (Dutch) band at times has some songs which are shown on the Dutch TV station TMF. They kind of enjoyed it, but not overly so, so during the second half of their show, we headed down to the food stands to fill up our stomachs with some chawarma.
After this show, we took a moment of R&R at the festival grounds, and I decided not to bring them to the tent to watch My Dying Bride (which I figure wouldn't be much to their likings). This way, we manage to linger around the front of the main stage, towards the right of it (from the audience's point of view). Naturally, this was the moment that I was already planning a strategy in my head for getting good places during the Maiden show, without getting Gioconda and Karol crushed in the process (mind you: they are much smaller than I am). Much to my surprise, people largely seemed to line up in a directly line to the stage, totally oblovious of the sides from where one had an excellent view.
After a while, I figured these places would be as good as they would get without having to get them into the turmoil of the pit, which I know from experience is a guarantee for a much rougher ride. [!--emo&
--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/wink.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'wink.gif\' /][!--endemo--] During the Y&T show that followed, I corroborated this theory, and noticed that indeed these were excellent places, whereas the majority of the audience didn't particularly seem to discover/notice them. The Y&T show was pretty good, and both Gioconda and I enjoyed that a lot (Karol a bit less so). When Y&T where finished, it was time for the final preparations for the Maiden show. We made sure to pin down our spots, and made use of the 1 hour break for going to the bathroom etc. During this time, in the tent a group called Porcupine Tree had their show. I caught a brief glimpse of it, and then quickly headed back to our spots to guard them.
The Maiden show
With the Maiden show only moments away now, the audience started to get heavily psyched up, which was further fueled by Nicko McBrain who briefly walked around on stage and greeted the audience. Needless to say, this was when the "Maiden!, Maiden!, Maiden!" chanting began to take off really well.
Some 10 minutes later, without announcement from the festival organisation, The Ides Of March boomed through the speakers, followed by pyrotechnics and an energetic entry of the Irons hitting off the concert with Murders In The Rue Morgue.
After this song, Bruce quickly welcomed the people with a "How the f**k are you, Bospop?", and then Maiden continued with Another Life, followed by Prowler. It has been mentioned somewhere in the Maidenfans.com discussion forum that Janick got little playtime, but it certainly didn't show during those songs. Janick was the one who during the concert most of the time was closest to us, and he's a tremendous guitar player. From where I was standing he certainly did seem to get his share of guitar work (though he got somewhat less during some of the later songs).
After hammering the audience with this quick onslaught of fast direct metal from the first two albums, there was a second or two of calm before The Trooper kicked in. Bruce had put on a British Trooper (I suppose) jacket, and waved a gigantic Union Jack during the song. The Trooper is of course one of the songs they always play, yet the crowd went electric, and really got into the concert very well.
Finally Maiden put the brakes for a moment on their steam roller crushing metal attack they bestowed upon us during the first few songs, and they set in Remember Tomorrow, after Bruce announcing it as being one of the songs that formed part of his audition (gee, where was that question asked again, only a little while ago? [!--emo&--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/wink.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'wink.gif\' /][!--endemo--] ). It was so good to hear that song as this has been a long time favourite of mine, and I had always wanted to see this song played live once. Very enjoyable!
Now, at this time, a most unfortunate phenomenon started to pop up again (yes, "again", because it had also occured earlier during some of the songs); a bloke who was perhaps stoned or simply outright obnoxious had been lingering around Gioconda and particularly Karol several times already. From now on I shall refer to the guy as "Tao", which stands for The Annoying One. [!--emo&--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/sad.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'sad.gif\' /][!--endemo--] I don't know what this guy was on to, but apparently he must have been a comedian in his own mind, and he made sure to try to convince everyone else, but in particular teenage girls, of this as well. Karol had brought a small Venezuelan flag for waving around during the concert, and Tao started singling her out. He kept coming back, asking stupid questions, taking away the flag, not wanting to give it back. So it took some intervening during Remember Tomorrow. Now, I'm a pacific guy, but the guy got on my nerves so I made clear to him (or that is: I THOUGHT I made it clear) that his "funny actions" were duely noted, and that we'd rather pay attention to Maiden than to his stupid pranks. To no avail.
Maiden started off with the drums of Run To The Hills, and again the crowd went crazy. Excellent fun. Yet, Mr. Tao just had to be a pain again by again taking away the flag, and this time trying to walk off with it. I stopped him in his tracks, took the flag away, returned it to Karol, and moments later he was back again. Once more I made it clear that we didn't like that and that we were there to watch Maiden, and not him. This was around the time where the song went into the sing-along part of "aaaayeeeheeehheeeeheee, oohhoohhooohOOOOWWWW", and at the beginning of that part Tao extended his hand to me, I took it as a "token of peace" and we sung this along, after which I hoped he got the message "until here, and no further, now back to the concert". He went away... ...for the time being.
After this most annoying intervenence during two songs, Maiden played Wrathchild, which was a little bit of a surprise, as I didn't remember seeing that on the previously posted setlists. Later I found out that this song now seems to be played in stead of Charlotte The Harlot. This is slightly a pity, as I've never personally seen the latter played live, but it's no biggie either.
Now the concert started to get really cool, as all of a sudden an intro tape with war sounds was played. To me, this could only mean that Where Eagles Dare was upon us, and so it was! This, of course, is an E X C E L L E N T song, and it's yet another of my long time favourites, which I tremendously enjoyed seeing live. Maiden had a lovely energetic performance, and this song was just great.
Then... there it was! One of my top 3 of most favourite Maiden songs ever; ranking at position nr. 3: Revelations! Little more has to be said, and this was the moment where the concert started to peak (i.e. the 5 or 6 songs around this time). Great. Tremendous. Excellent. Phenomenal. Superlatives lack to describe the emotion of hearing this song live. But... what ho? With Tao out of the picture (as he surely was harassing other girls somewhere else), now another drunk bloke started to try to get grasp of the flag. This guy was well deferred by Gioconda though, and he seemed to get the message quicker. It only took some two songs (and actually putting my arm around Gioconda in order to show that indeed she was already taken) until he gave up.
Next up was Die With Your Boots On, a song which IMO is often underrated. It's hard to put my finger on it in order to explain just why, but for some reason I've always liked this song a lot, so that was yet another great one to hear live. Good fun to sing along with as well, of course, but then, that goes for all Maiden songs. [!--emo&
--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/biggrin.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'biggrin.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
Bruce wasn't overly talkative (no rants), but he asked for and got great audience reaction. At this point in time he showed that often not many words are needed in order to get the message across, as he spoke (more or less) the following words: "The next songs basically sums up what Iron Maiden is all about". Really, I couldn't agree more, for I agree 100% with him... ...indeed it was Phantom Of The Opera!!! Now, this is a song which I have been wanting to see live for a LONG time, as it's my Nr. 1 most favourite Iron Maiden song ever!!! Truly, this for me was the high of the whole concert, until... ...you guessed it: like a thrown away bumerang, back was Tao, and needlessly to say, he starting being a f**king pest again exactly during my very favourite part of Phantom. This was just ***SO*** annoying, as we were all just nicely into the song when he came around with his idiotic behaviour again. The guy managed to antagonise some more people, amongst whom a photographer who was standing in front of us. The way he achieved this was by once again seizing Karol's flag, and helding it in front of the lens of the photographer all the time. I think the photographer was about to globber him one, but left it at pushing him away.
With another fine song gone, a very familiar intro tape started to play... You guessed it: "Woe to you, oh earth and sea...", the beast was there! Always a great song to see live of course. Alas, with all of this being too good to be true, just like hemroids flaring up at the most inopportune times, back was Tao. By now, many people were giving him the dirty looks, and we just tried to ignore him as much as possible (i.e. when he wasn't right in our faces), so he started to "entertain" some other teenage girls, who also quickly grew tired of his presence. Still, again he required some of my attention which I had really much rather wanted to give to the concert. During the Bospop show there were no girls dressed up like devils chasing the Maidens, as opposed to some of the earlier concerts.
Next up was Hallowed Be Thy Name, and this too was played to perfection by Maiden. With Tao once more right in our faces, we simply did our very best to look at the stage and totally ignore the idiot. The song was great of course, and it shows why this song is played during virtually all Maiden concerts. The photographer grew tired of Tao, and gave up his prime position to not have to endure the guy's presence any longer. A pity, as he now probably missed out on some great pictures during the later songs...
Now, it was time for the one and only song that can of course never fail from any Maiden concert, the infamous Iron Maiden. While by no means their best song, this one is of course a classic. During the song, an Ed Hunter like Eddie in Piece Of Mind style, complete with ragged straight jacket, came out and Janick started battling him. Always funny to see. [!--emo&--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
Oh dear... the last song already? And really some people actually already left. Hehehe, obviously it must have been their first Maiden show, as of course Maiden gave an encore.
First up was Running Free. Very cool, and Bruce even started out on a "left hand side","right hand side" audience screaming battle, just like on Live After Death, however, it didn't last as long and it wasn't followed through as extensively. Still good fun, and nice to see the song live.
The second song of the encore was Drifter. As opposed to what they really did in the old days, there was no drum solo, nor a "Yo, yo, yo, yooo" part. I wondered briefly if they would do so or not, but I see they decided not to do this. [!--emo&--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--] A good classic Maiden song, nonetheless, and not one we'll be very likely to hear being played often again during future concerts.
Somewhere around this time Bruce announced that a new studio album is due next year, followed by a tour, as already mentioned on the Maidenfans.com site.
Sanctuary was the "gate-closer", and this is one of those songs which I love to hear live, especially as they play the nice charging part of which I have never found a studio version (i.e. all studio versions I have, including some 2 or 3 very old and raw versions have the wailing sirens, but I like the live version better), and would you believe it? Right around that part with an immense shove all of a sudden we were pushed forward, and literally in came crashing right behind us Tao who fell hard on top of a girl (nearly crushing her) right behind us. So, Tao struck again, and even during the very last song he was still making an effort to f**k matters up for others; poor girl who happened to be his victim this time!
With the show really over now, Tao had the bloody nerve to again try to strike up a conversation with Karol, but she was so fed up with him that she simply quickly pushed him out of the way, and with that, we left and didn't see the bloke anymore.
On the way out I bought a nice tour shirt for only 10 Euros. Having seen the real thing going for the outrageous price of 35 or 40 Euros (depending on the type), I decided to get one of those 10 Euro shirts. The legitimacy of the shirt is of course questionable, and probably it's a bootlegged shirt, but the print seems to be of good quality, and really I couldn't (and wouldn't) afford the much more expensive ones they were selling on the terrain...
All in all an excellent show. Bruce didn't speak a whole lot, but he was well into the concert and participating heavily with the audience during the songs. Concert wise spoken I had two minor grievances, being (1) I had loved to see The Prisoner being played as well, and that didn't happen, and (2), just like the Dynamo concert (that time because I was right in the very front row, hence right below the stage) I didn't get to see Nicko during the show! This was a pity, as Nicko is always having his funny little pranks. But alas, just like the Dynamo show, I didn't really see him well until the end of the show (and briefly before the show, as mentioned above).
Great stuff all along, and I certainly hope to see them live again next year!
Mystery Madman
Cross-posted from the extensive review I just placed on my [a href=\'http://www.ironmaidenheaven.com\' target=\'_blank\']Iron Maiden Heaven[/a] site, is the following extensive review. Note, at [a href=\'http://www.ironmaidenheaven.com\' target=\'_blank\']Iron Maiden Heaven[/a] I have added concert pictures as well! Check out the "Tours" menu.
July 3rd 2005, Bospop festival, Weert, The Netherlands
July 3rd 2005 happened to be a glorious day, for not only was the weather most excellent, but also it was the first time since the June 3rd 2000 Dynamo Open Air concert that I went to see Maiden again!
As can be gathered from the title, Maiden performed at a festival, which featured 15 bands, amongst which Dragon Force, Overkill, My Dying Bride, Y&T, Within Temptation and Iron Maiden. Maiden were the headliners, and when the tickets went on sale back in December 18th 2004, Maiden was the only known band: reason enough to buy a ticket already that very day. [!--emo&
--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--]. For a more complete overview of the bands, and the festival in general, check out the [a href=\'http://www.bospop.nl\' target=\'_blank\']official Bospop site[/a]. Also, my own page (i.e. [a href=\'http://www.ironmaidenheaven.com\' target=\'_blank\']Iron Maiden Heaven[/a]) features some of the pictures I took during the concert. They are by no means good quality pictures, but at least they are MY pictures, so I preferred to use those in stead of using someone else's more professional shots. [!--emo&--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--] Nonetheless, I did request pictures from someone who had a professional camera with him (as opposed to my simple camera), so perhaps I'll add some of his pictures if he really sends them to me. Also, note that some excellent professional pictures can be found on the following page of the organisers: [a href=\'http://www.bospop.nl/media/zondag3/index.htm\' target=\'_blank\']pictures: Porcupine Tree, My Dying Bride, Y&T, Within Temptation & Iron Maiden[/a] .A little bit about the other bands
My wife (Gioconda) and stepdaughter (Karol) wanted to come along, and as they are normally not much into metal, we decided to not go too early (in order to prevent them from being worn down and/or fed up around the time Maiden would appear), so we left our home around 15:00. The concert took place in a rather remote part of the country, so we had to drive some 2.5 hours by car in order to get to the concert location. All fair enough, however, unfortunately Dragon Force already had their show at 13:30, and it only lasted 1 hour, hence, with some pain in my heart I decided to miss out on that one.
When we arrived and entered the festival terrain, we could hear Overkill playing the last songs of their show in the tent. This was soon after followed by Within Temptation on the main stage. Funnily enough I had thought especially Gioconda and Karol would enjoy that particular show, as this (Dutch) band at times has some songs which are shown on the Dutch TV station TMF. They kind of enjoyed it, but not overly so, so during the second half of their show, we headed down to the food stands to fill up our stomachs with some chawarma.
After this show, we took a moment of R&R at the festival grounds, and I decided not to bring them to the tent to watch My Dying Bride (which I figure wouldn't be much to their likings). This way, we manage to linger around the front of the main stage, towards the right of it (from the audience's point of view). Naturally, this was the moment that I was already planning a strategy in my head for getting good places during the Maiden show, without getting Gioconda and Karol crushed in the process (mind you: they are much smaller than I am). Much to my surprise, people largely seemed to line up in a directly line to the stage, totally oblovious of the sides from where one had an excellent view.
After a while, I figured these places would be as good as they would get without having to get them into the turmoil of the pit, which I know from experience is a guarantee for a much rougher ride. [!--emo&
--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/wink.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'wink.gif\' /][!--endemo--] During the Y&T show that followed, I corroborated this theory, and noticed that indeed these were excellent places, whereas the majority of the audience didn't particularly seem to discover/notice them. The Y&T show was pretty good, and both Gioconda and I enjoyed that a lot (Karol a bit less so). When Y&T where finished, it was time for the final preparations for the Maiden show. We made sure to pin down our spots, and made use of the 1 hour break for going to the bathroom etc. During this time, in the tent a group called Porcupine Tree had their show. I caught a brief glimpse of it, and then quickly headed back to our spots to guard them.The Maiden show
With the Maiden show only moments away now, the audience started to get heavily psyched up, which was further fueled by Nicko McBrain who briefly walked around on stage and greeted the audience. Needless to say, this was when the "Maiden!, Maiden!, Maiden!" chanting began to take off really well.
Some 10 minutes later, without announcement from the festival organisation, The Ides Of March boomed through the speakers, followed by pyrotechnics and an energetic entry of the Irons hitting off the concert with Murders In The Rue Morgue.
After this song, Bruce quickly welcomed the people with a "How the f**k are you, Bospop?", and then Maiden continued with Another Life, followed by Prowler. It has been mentioned somewhere in the Maidenfans.com discussion forum that Janick got little playtime, but it certainly didn't show during those songs. Janick was the one who during the concert most of the time was closest to us, and he's a tremendous guitar player. From where I was standing he certainly did seem to get his share of guitar work (though he got somewhat less during some of the later songs).
After hammering the audience with this quick onslaught of fast direct metal from the first two albums, there was a second or two of calm before The Trooper kicked in. Bruce had put on a British Trooper (I suppose) jacket, and waved a gigantic Union Jack during the song. The Trooper is of course one of the songs they always play, yet the crowd went electric, and really got into the concert very well.
Finally Maiden put the brakes for a moment on their steam roller crushing metal attack they bestowed upon us during the first few songs, and they set in Remember Tomorrow, after Bruce announcing it as being one of the songs that formed part of his audition (gee, where was that question asked again, only a little while ago? [!--emo&
--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/wink.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'wink.gif\' /][!--endemo--] ). It was so good to hear that song as this has been a long time favourite of mine, and I had always wanted to see this song played live once. Very enjoyable!Now, at this time, a most unfortunate phenomenon started to pop up again (yes, "again", because it had also occured earlier during some of the songs); a bloke who was perhaps stoned or simply outright obnoxious had been lingering around Gioconda and particularly Karol several times already. From now on I shall refer to the guy as "Tao", which stands for The Annoying One. [!--emo&
--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/sad.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'sad.gif\' /][!--endemo--] I don't know what this guy was on to, but apparently he must have been a comedian in his own mind, and he made sure to try to convince everyone else, but in particular teenage girls, of this as well. Karol had brought a small Venezuelan flag for waving around during the concert, and Tao started singling her out. He kept coming back, asking stupid questions, taking away the flag, not wanting to give it back. So it took some intervening during Remember Tomorrow. Now, I'm a pacific guy, but the guy got on my nerves so I made clear to him (or that is: I THOUGHT I made it clear) that his "funny actions" were duely noted, and that we'd rather pay attention to Maiden than to his stupid pranks. To no avail.Maiden started off with the drums of Run To The Hills, and again the crowd went crazy. Excellent fun. Yet, Mr. Tao just had to be a pain again by again taking away the flag, and this time trying to walk off with it. I stopped him in his tracks, took the flag away, returned it to Karol, and moments later he was back again. Once more I made it clear that we didn't like that and that we were there to watch Maiden, and not him. This was around the time where the song went into the sing-along part of "aaaayeeeheeehheeeeheee, oohhoohhooohOOOOWWWW", and at the beginning of that part Tao extended his hand to me, I took it as a "token of peace" and we sung this along, after which I hoped he got the message "until here, and no further, now back to the concert". He went away... ...for the time being.
After this most annoying intervenence during two songs, Maiden played Wrathchild, which was a little bit of a surprise, as I didn't remember seeing that on the previously posted setlists. Later I found out that this song now seems to be played in stead of Charlotte The Harlot. This is slightly a pity, as I've never personally seen the latter played live, but it's no biggie either.
Now the concert started to get really cool, as all of a sudden an intro tape with war sounds was played. To me, this could only mean that Where Eagles Dare was upon us, and so it was! This, of course, is an E X C E L L E N T song, and it's yet another of my long time favourites, which I tremendously enjoyed seeing live. Maiden had a lovely energetic performance, and this song was just great.
Then... there it was! One of my top 3 of most favourite Maiden songs ever; ranking at position nr. 3: Revelations! Little more has to be said, and this was the moment where the concert started to peak (i.e. the 5 or 6 songs around this time). Great. Tremendous. Excellent. Phenomenal. Superlatives lack to describe the emotion of hearing this song live. But... what ho? With Tao out of the picture (as he surely was harassing other girls somewhere else), now another drunk bloke started to try to get grasp of the flag. This guy was well deferred by Gioconda though, and he seemed to get the message quicker. It only took some two songs (and actually putting my arm around Gioconda in order to show that indeed she was already taken) until he gave up.
Next up was Die With Your Boots On, a song which IMO is often underrated. It's hard to put my finger on it in order to explain just why, but for some reason I've always liked this song a lot, so that was yet another great one to hear live. Good fun to sing along with as well, of course, but then, that goes for all Maiden songs. [!--emo&
--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/biggrin.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'biggrin.gif\' /][!--endemo--]Bruce wasn't overly talkative (no rants), but he asked for and got great audience reaction. At this point in time he showed that often not many words are needed in order to get the message across, as he spoke (more or less) the following words: "The next songs basically sums up what Iron Maiden is all about". Really, I couldn't agree more, for I agree 100% with him... ...indeed it was Phantom Of The Opera!!! Now, this is a song which I have been wanting to see live for a LONG time, as it's my Nr. 1 most favourite Iron Maiden song ever!!! Truly, this for me was the high of the whole concert, until... ...you guessed it: like a thrown away bumerang, back was Tao, and needlessly to say, he starting being a f**king pest again exactly during my very favourite part of Phantom. This was just ***SO*** annoying, as we were all just nicely into the song when he came around with his idiotic behaviour again. The guy managed to antagonise some more people, amongst whom a photographer who was standing in front of us. The way he achieved this was by once again seizing Karol's flag, and helding it in front of the lens of the photographer all the time. I think the photographer was about to globber him one, but left it at pushing him away.
With another fine song gone, a very familiar intro tape started to play... You guessed it: "Woe to you, oh earth and sea...", the beast was there! Always a great song to see live of course. Alas, with all of this being too good to be true, just like hemroids flaring up at the most inopportune times, back was Tao. By now, many people were giving him the dirty looks, and we just tried to ignore him as much as possible (i.e. when he wasn't right in our faces), so he started to "entertain" some other teenage girls, who also quickly grew tired of his presence. Still, again he required some of my attention which I had really much rather wanted to give to the concert. During the Bospop show there were no girls dressed up like devils chasing the Maidens, as opposed to some of the earlier concerts.
Next up was Hallowed Be Thy Name, and this too was played to perfection by Maiden. With Tao once more right in our faces, we simply did our very best to look at the stage and totally ignore the idiot. The song was great of course, and it shows why this song is played during virtually all Maiden concerts. The photographer grew tired of Tao, and gave up his prime position to not have to endure the guy's presence any longer. A pity, as he now probably missed out on some great pictures during the later songs...
Now, it was time for the one and only song that can of course never fail from any Maiden concert, the infamous Iron Maiden. While by no means their best song, this one is of course a classic. During the song, an Ed Hunter like Eddie in Piece Of Mind style, complete with ragged straight jacket, came out and Janick started battling him. Always funny to see. [!--emo&
--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--]Oh dear... the last song already? And really some people actually already left. Hehehe, obviously it must have been their first Maiden show, as of course Maiden gave an encore.
First up was Running Free. Very cool, and Bruce even started out on a "left hand side","right hand side" audience screaming battle, just like on Live After Death, however, it didn't last as long and it wasn't followed through as extensively. Still good fun, and nice to see the song live.
The second song of the encore was Drifter. As opposed to what they really did in the old days, there was no drum solo, nor a "Yo, yo, yo, yooo" part. I wondered briefly if they would do so or not, but I see they decided not to do this. [!--emo&
--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--] A good classic Maiden song, nonetheless, and not one we'll be very likely to hear being played often again during future concerts.Somewhere around this time Bruce announced that a new studio album is due next year, followed by a tour, as already mentioned on the Maidenfans.com site.
Sanctuary was the "gate-closer", and this is one of those songs which I love to hear live, especially as they play the nice charging part of which I have never found a studio version (i.e. all studio versions I have, including some 2 or 3 very old and raw versions have the wailing sirens, but I like the live version better), and would you believe it? Right around that part with an immense shove all of a sudden we were pushed forward, and literally in came crashing right behind us Tao who fell hard on top of a girl (nearly crushing her) right behind us. So, Tao struck again, and even during the very last song he was still making an effort to f**k matters up for others; poor girl who happened to be his victim this time!
With the show really over now, Tao had the bloody nerve to again try to strike up a conversation with Karol, but she was so fed up with him that she simply quickly pushed him out of the way, and with that, we left and didn't see the bloke anymore.
On the way out I bought a nice tour shirt for only 10 Euros. Having seen the real thing going for the outrageous price of 35 or 40 Euros (depending on the type), I decided to get one of those 10 Euro shirts. The legitimacy of the shirt is of course questionable, and probably it's a bootlegged shirt, but the print seems to be of good quality, and really I couldn't (and wouldn't) afford the much more expensive ones they were selling on the terrain...
All in all an excellent show. Bruce didn't speak a whole lot, but he was well into the concert and participating heavily with the audience during the songs. Concert wise spoken I had two minor grievances, being (1) I had loved to see The Prisoner being played as well, and that didn't happen, and (2), just like the Dynamo concert (that time because I was right in the very front row, hence right below the stage) I didn't get to see Nicko during the show! This was a pity, as Nicko is always having his funny little pranks. But alas, just like the Dynamo show, I didn't really see him well until the end of the show (and briefly before the show, as mentioned above).
Great stuff all along, and I certainly hope to see them live again next year!
Mystery Madman