Iron Maiden @ Verizon Amphitheater, Irvine. 8/8/12.

ALL HAIL

Iron Maiden played two sold out concerts in Southern California a few weeks back. It was AWESOME. How does a band that's been around since the early 1980's continue selling records and playing to crowds of 30,000 people with little to no support from the mainstream media (radio/MTV)? Through word of mouth. That's Iron Maiden's secret, they've got 30+ years of positive word of mouth, generations of loyal fans that keep their popularity soaring. That and they're a damn amazing band.

This trek celebrated their Maiden England tour from 1988. Meaning they played a lot of material from their Seventh Son of a Seventh Son album. This is hardly my favorite Iron Maiden album but even when they play songs I'm whatever about, they still put on one hell of a show.

First things first. I gotta say that Bruce Dickinson is the fucking man. Really. This was my 7th time seeing Iron Maiden since 2004 and I'm pretty sure this was the most hyped up/energetic performance I've seen from him. Not only is Bruce an amazing singer, but he's such a badass frontman it's insane. He just turned 54 years old this month and yet, there he was: running, jumping, leaping, climbing and throwing that mic stand of his around like nothing. At one point I thought, "SLOW DOWN MAN!" When he stood like 6 inches away from the giant pyro bursts during "Number of the Beast" I seriously feared for his life. I could feel the heat from those flames way out in my lodge seats, he was literally inches away and he didn't flinch at all. Bruce Dickinson, I applaud you sir.

So the show was great. Not as amazing as their Somewhere Back In Time tour from 2008 (probably the coolest thing I'll ever see in life), but still damn good fun. The title track from Seventh Son is no "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", but it's still epic as hell in it's own right. I was stoked they played "The Clairvoyant," one of the most underrated Maiden songs IMO. My absolute highlight of the night was "Phantom of the Opera." The only time I've seen Maiden play that song before was at Ozzfest 2005 when that whole egg throwing incident went down, needless to say I was stoked to finally hear an interrupted version of the song! "Wasted Years" and "Aces High" got some pretty sweet responses from the crowd as well.

(not recorded by me, but by a lucky bastard on the next day's show)

The 15,000 people in attendance loved every second of this show. There were old dudes who've been Maiden fans since the early days, men in business attire holding their new Maiden shirts/merchandise on their arm, parents and young kids, teenagers, literally everyone and their mom came out to see Eddie and the boys. I don't go to church but I'd imagine it's something equivalent to that. Paying our respects to altar of Iron Maiden. So much fun...