Iron Maiden, Live at the 02, 2023

Review: Dawn Osborne

Photos: Aggie Anthimidou Photography

 

Iron Maiden visit the Future Past and know how to ring the changes to keep things interesting

After focusing on a lot of eighties material in their Legacy of The Beast tour and Download appearance, delayed due to the Pandemic, I was not surprised when Iron Maiden announced that their Future Past tour would be focussed on their newest release Senjutsu album (meaning strategy in battle in Japanese). However, this was with a twist, as they would also be looking at tracks they had not played frequently from older albums and taking a look, in particular, at 1986’s ‘Somewhere in Time’. Clearly, they felt that following a greatest hits tour, the time was here to let the material from the new album shine and change up the set list. They gave us what it said on the tin with five Senjutsu tracks (the Japanese theme of which extended visually into tracks not from that album), five from ‘Somewhere in Time’ and some unusual choices from other favourite albums. There were two or three favourites, but even those were not the most obvious tracks like ‘The Number Of The Beast’. The result was a refreshing change for both band, who attacked their roster with the fire of their youth, and for the audience who had the charm of surprise and delight at the sheer quality of the band’s performance.

Bruce brought his powerful voice, a long raincoat looking vaguely historically Japanese with a long white ponytail scraped to the back of his head, but also appeared dystopian with round dark glasses looking a little Steampunk to add a dash of time traveller into the mix. The band mined ‘Somewhere In Time’ first with ‘Caught Somewhere in Time’ and ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ during which Eddie appeared as a cowboy with a long vintage pistol. Bruce ran around the stage jumping over monitors like a teenager. Kicking up his mike stand and throwing and catching it, at the earliest opportunity he is engaging the crowd including those in the Gods to get them to roar back with the lights lit up on the entire audience after just a couple of tracks.

Switching to the new album and the historical, Adrian started the intro on an acoustic guitar moving into the huge Middle Eastern inspired riff-age of ‘Writing On The Wall’. With its Biblical epic quality we are already reminded that Maiden continue to write and perform Classics to this very day.  Dave and Adrian tear into their different style of solos. Janick is skipping and pointing his guitar at the audience as we move into ‘Days of Future Past’ from the new album which has named the tour. The constant interaction with the audience has them spontaneously chanting ‘Maiden, Maiden’ at this early juncture as they tear into the third ‘Senjutsu’ track in this block ‘The Time Machine’.

We are then literally taken back in time with ‘The Prisoner’ from 1982’s ‘The Number Of The Beast’. With the spoken intro which everyone knows by heart and the stills from the TV series, the nostalgia is real. I cannot have been the only one taken back to my teens who had worn out this album and knew every lyric and every twist and turn on it. The band make the most of the harmonies in the chorus which sound fantastic and Bruce gets the audience to shout ‘Yeah’ repeatedly just by raising his arms.

We move into the mammoth and hugely poignant ‘Death of The Celts’ from the new album. This long track seemed to go by in an instant: the band are at their compelling best tonight. I can’t decide if the solo is Irish or Scottish sounding, maybe it is diplomatically both with their common relevant heritage. Bruce disappears so the focus is on the guitars alone, before coming back and perfectly executing the lovely lyrical phrasing of the dying lyrics as Dave picked out the closing strains of melody (a touch of delicacy as a contrast to the full on nature of most of the proceedings).

It’s time for a classic and for that they choose ‘Can I play With Madness’ which they introduce by saying “some of you weren’t born when this came out”. I am showing my age as I confess I think of it as a newer Maiden track coming from the late not early eighties, I realise how ridiculous this is, just after thinking it, perceptions are funny things. Once again, the band are totally on point with harmonies, with everyone really pulling the stops out for a really lush feel to the chorus.

The crowd begin pogoing to ‘Heaven Can Wait’ as Eddie comes on as a cyborg and has a pyro pistol fight of fireballs with Bruce. Bruce seems to keep getting a direct hit and miraculously escapes his platform before Eddie blows it up. Another track from ‘Somewhere In Time’ follows  ‘Alexander The Great’ with Eddie painted large as an ancient helmeted soldier fronting an army on the massive screens. Nicko provides the military beat and Adrian delivered an atmospheric echo-ey solo. Bruce hits Nicko’s gong with a huge gong clapper and Dave delivered a blistering solo, all making the crowd clap like mad.

Dave begins the intro to another biggie ‘Fear Of The Dark’. Of course this is one of the much loved tracks from the early Nineties, so the crowd sing in a rich low tone, reflecting the fact that most of the crowd are male. The outro is truly lovely and something of which a male Welsh choir would be proud.

We launch into the fast last track of the main set, the iconic ‘Iron Maiden’ from the self titled album way back from 1980. Janick is spinning round and providing the melodic solo amid puffs of smoke and pyro. Anachronistically, as befits a tour with a time travel theme, Eddie appears as a Japanese warrior a la ‘Senjutsu’ and pretends to slice Janick’s throat. He also tangles with Dave who appears to come off a little better from the encounter. Plumes of flame signal the final track and Nicko comes out to throw out his sticks and drum skin to the audience.

Never fear the band are back for an encore of one track from Senjutsu ‘Hell On Earth’ (suitably illuminated by coordinated pyro that qualifies for the description flame art), the anthemic Trooper from 1983 with a quadruple attack from the guitars with a rousing effect on the crowd and finale ‘Wasted Years’ from ‘Somewhere in Time’ (in which Janick appears to lost his mind pushing the amp and Steve is the next one to tear around like he is fourteen onstage). The Finale reflected, therefore, the balance of the entire show. Bruce leaves, saying ‘See You tomorrow, when we will do it all again!’ aware that there will be a lot of Maiden fans there both nights.

Some might have questioned whether a show without the more obvious tracks like ‘Number of The Beast’ focussed on rarer tracks would fly as well. They needn’t have worried, of course the passion of Maiden’s fans is well known and was manifestly on display tonight. One of the things I commonly hear about some other bands is ‘but they have so many good tracks they never play’. Maiden have been listening and provided an evening of new and rarer live tracks. They indicate they will be back. I believe them, why wouldn’t you when you are top of your game.