A
Anonymous
Guest
I will post the setlist in another thread to avoid spoilers here for those who want to know about the show, the crowd and what Bruce said without hearing about the setlist.
I took 2 days off work and drove 4 hours from Ottawa to catch the show.
I met with a bunch of fans at the Hard Rock Cafe before the show. Most of the people were from ironmaiden.org. I've never hung out there so I don't know how I found out about the meet-up. I swear I heard about it here somewhere.
It was awesome. A bunch of the gang from Quebec had made up their own shirts. They had the Iron Maiden logo on the front with a Beaver holding a guitar and making 'devil horns'. The beaver had Eddie eyes and lobotomy scar like the 'Piece of Mind' Eddie along with the slogan "Where Beavers Dare!" In the 'Piece of Mind' font. On the back was the Quebec flag, show date/venue and "Scream for me Quebec City!". Very sharp shirts made by one of the guys in the group for the Quebec show. Many had their shirts signed by the members of Maiden who saw them and were dead impressed.
The Hard Rock played 'Rock in Rio' on the TV screens and all the Maiden fans were singing along at the top of their lungs. Then a few Mai-den! Mai-den! chants and all the folks eating dinner started looking nervously around for a riot. haha [!--emo&
--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
The show was not sold out and scalpers with lots of tickets were selling below face-value. But the venue was packed so it must have been close to a sell-out. But when you have 10,000+ you can stick out in the middle of nowhere on the Lawn there's always room for a few more bodies.
I have read some reviews that complained about poor sound at times but I thought it was great throughout. I was dead centre right in the stands just behind the pit. From there the sound was excellent.
The band was totally pumped for this show! Desperate for more of that Canadian love having spent some time in the US on Ozzfest since the Quebec love-in. Bruce mentioned many times how great the crowd was and Steve was so intense he could have carried the show all by himself! These guys are not getting older they are getting better.
Bruce was talking about being on Ozzfest in front of crowds that are not intense Maiden crowds. Then he said Ozzfest was turning into Maidenfest since Ozzy had been off sick for the past few dates. A pretty funny line. He said Toronto was definately an Iron Maiden audience.
At one point someone threw a fake rubber tit and hit Bruce. He picked it up and almost fell over laughing. "Well this is a first he said." Then the second one flew up and he played with them, laughing hysterically, then threw them at Janick then out into the crowd. Someone near me picked one up.
Bruce went into an 'anti-pot smoking' rant on one fan just like he did in Montreal during one of the last shows. Complaining about the guy smoking pot and stinking up the place "while I'm trying to sing!" Then he said "I'm going over here where I can breathe" and headed for the other side of the stage.
During the Bruce-audience interactions in the encore, Janick sat at the front of the stage autographing things handed to him by fans in the pit.
Bruce said they would be coming back to Canada for sure. They have a new album coming out next year "probably in the fall or late-fall" and they will tour again after that.
The guys were ON, ON, ON! A fantastic Maiden show that exceeded my expectations as Toronto traditionally can have some rather tame crowds. Not tonight. Everyone on their feet for the entire show. Just fantastic audience and LOUD! The band was clearly loving it. Bruce kept asking for more noise so he "could take some of it with me to Detroit" the next night. He was calling out to people waaaay at the back of the lawn saying "if you think I can't see you you're wrong, I can see every one of you right to the back. I see you four with your hands in the air, now another one just stood up." He said how fantatic the crowd looked. Looking back from my seat it was amazing. A sea of people.
A great crowd and a terrific show.
Mahlon
I took 2 days off work and drove 4 hours from Ottawa to catch the show.
I met with a bunch of fans at the Hard Rock Cafe before the show. Most of the people were from ironmaiden.org. I've never hung out there so I don't know how I found out about the meet-up. I swear I heard about it here somewhere.
It was awesome. A bunch of the gang from Quebec had made up their own shirts. They had the Iron Maiden logo on the front with a Beaver holding a guitar and making 'devil horns'. The beaver had Eddie eyes and lobotomy scar like the 'Piece of Mind' Eddie along with the slogan "Where Beavers Dare!" In the 'Piece of Mind' font. On the back was the Quebec flag, show date/venue and "Scream for me Quebec City!". Very sharp shirts made by one of the guys in the group for the Quebec show. Many had their shirts signed by the members of Maiden who saw them and were dead impressed.
The Hard Rock played 'Rock in Rio' on the TV screens and all the Maiden fans were singing along at the top of their lungs. Then a few Mai-den! Mai-den! chants and all the folks eating dinner started looking nervously around for a riot. haha [!--emo&
--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--]The show was not sold out and scalpers with lots of tickets were selling below face-value. But the venue was packed so it must have been close to a sell-out. But when you have 10,000+ you can stick out in the middle of nowhere on the Lawn there's always room for a few more bodies.
I have read some reviews that complained about poor sound at times but I thought it was great throughout. I was dead centre right in the stands just behind the pit. From there the sound was excellent.
The band was totally pumped for this show! Desperate for more of that Canadian love having spent some time in the US on Ozzfest since the Quebec love-in. Bruce mentioned many times how great the crowd was and Steve was so intense he could have carried the show all by himself! These guys are not getting older they are getting better.
Bruce was talking about being on Ozzfest in front of crowds that are not intense Maiden crowds. Then he said Ozzfest was turning into Maidenfest since Ozzy had been off sick for the past few dates. A pretty funny line. He said Toronto was definately an Iron Maiden audience.
At one point someone threw a fake rubber tit and hit Bruce. He picked it up and almost fell over laughing. "Well this is a first he said." Then the second one flew up and he played with them, laughing hysterically, then threw them at Janick then out into the crowd. Someone near me picked one up.
Bruce went into an 'anti-pot smoking' rant on one fan just like he did in Montreal during one of the last shows. Complaining about the guy smoking pot and stinking up the place "while I'm trying to sing!" Then he said "I'm going over here where I can breathe" and headed for the other side of the stage.
During the Bruce-audience interactions in the encore, Janick sat at the front of the stage autographing things handed to him by fans in the pit.
Bruce said they would be coming back to Canada for sure. They have a new album coming out next year "probably in the fall or late-fall" and they will tour again after that.
The guys were ON, ON, ON! A fantastic Maiden show that exceeded my expectations as Toronto traditionally can have some rather tame crowds. Not tonight. Everyone on their feet for the entire show. Just fantastic audience and LOUD! The band was clearly loving it. Bruce kept asking for more noise so he "could take some of it with me to Detroit" the next night. He was calling out to people waaaay at the back of the lawn saying "if you think I can't see you you're wrong, I can see every one of you right to the back. I see you four with your hands in the air, now another one just stood up." He said how fantatic the crowd looked. Looking back from my seat it was amazing. A sea of people.
A great crowd and a terrific show.
Mahlon