Live review: Iron Maiden (for The Music Network)

01 March 2011

by Poppy Reid

Sydney Entertainment Centre, NSW
Thursday February 24 

The sea of black shirts, dirty beards, beer guts and the odd mullet at Sydney’s Entertainment Centre, mirrored exactly what you’d expect a true Iron Maiden fan to look like. If you’d rocked as hard as the English metal masters have over the past 30-odd years, you would look like you’d just stepped out of a greased up aeroplane turbine too.

Opening with new tracks Satellite 15…The Final Frontier and El Dorado, the sextet leapt about their massive 12 tonne spaceship-set as a mini-film spewed artwork and close ups of the band on side screens. An incredible solo-off began between the guitarists’; Adrian Smith held his weapon like a .22, shooting chords at us like bullets, the quietly effeminate Janick Gers twirled about and flipped his hair and Dave Murray juxtaposed his deathly handmanship with his constant grin and rosy cheeks.

Over 16 epic songs, the Soundwave headliners offered only the best of their 15 albums; these guys may be in their fifty’s but a few current metal bands would do good to take a liner note from Iron Maiden’s song book.

Captain of the ship, Bruce Dickinson roared through classics like Fear Of The Dark, The Number Of The Beast and The Wicker Man as the painted backdrop changed with each track; “think of yourselves as the best of the best, or the sadists and masochists,” he chuckled. At times it was corny and theatrical like when Dickinson dodged through beams of purple light like Golum, but we ate it all up and threw our bodies back and forth with him.

A talented female from the audience threw her pink bra over the English flag before Blood Brothers, which Dickinson dedicated to their friends in disaster stricken New Zealand.

Before the three-track encore, a 12-foot robot version of Iron Maiden’s mascot, Eddie appeared onstage; it all became clear why the band’sEd Force One tour plane weighed so much. Closing with Hallowed Be Thy Name and Running Free, the Centre’s energy reached a colossal peak, after every soul-wrenching riff we knew we had just experienced an intimate night with the Gods of Metal.