When we arrive at the Moody Center, surrounded on all sides by beer-bellied metalheads whose tour shirts could probably be stitched into a tapestry chronicling the complete hard rock history of Austin, my older, wiser companion turns to me and asks if I’ve thought of a lede for my review.
“Oh you better believe it! I’ve got a really clever one,” I declare, my teeth beaming like a Moonchild, “How’s this: ‘In 2022, can Iron Maiden still run to those hills, or… or are they, like, using a walker… y’know… cause they’re senior citizens.’”
My older, wiser, now-horrified companion tells me people have been making that joke since 12 years before I was born. If my review must proceed from a place of stale, unfunny cliché, I could at least do some schtick about the true kings of the British empire finally outliving WhatsHerFaceCrownyHead.
And, y’know, he’s right. If I believed there was even a 2% chance that the famous Maiden gallop might succumb to sexagenarian slowdown at their totally sold out Wednesday night show, I’d have said fuck the Austin Chronicle and pitched that shit as international headline news. No, when these paragons of unflagging, flag-waving energy (except for the Blaze Bayley era. Only those who wish to play with madness talk about the Blaze Bayley era) hit the road, there are only two questions: what insanely expensive horrors is Bruce Dickinson swashbuckling with onstage and how many boring new tracks – one moment, my older, wiser companion is correcting me here – how many forward thinking, conceptual epics do we have to sit through before we start recognizing some riffs – hold, on I’ve been handed another cue card – recognizing the MOST ICONIC RIFFS ever written?
As someone who failed to do his research – rocking out to The Number of The Beast twice in the time it would have taken me to bob my head to their latest album once – I can unauthoritatively state the three winding wanks (this is meant with love, all hail prog) that opened their set seemed to improve from song to song. While “Senjutsu”’s lazy chugs didn’t do much to distract me from the band’s latest jaunt into period-based cultural appropriation – the night’s stage design riffed on a feudal Japanese fort – the following “Stratego” had me thinking “Woah, slow down guys, this one’s kinda brisk!” That is, until a giant demon samurai came out to menace Bruce and I once again pondered the band’s history of period-based cultural appropriation. Thankfully, “The Writing’s on the Wall,” the final “Iron Maiden Versus the Joe Biden Era” song of the evening, was a front-to-back outstanding banger. Maybe it’s an easy trick to name your triumphant heavy metal anthem after its singalong chorus, but there was no denying the crowd’s reading comprehension; they knew every word. Those words being, “The Writing’s on the Wall.”
We then reached that anointed time, precisely 19 minutes into the concert, where a legacy band must either begin playing their old, beloved material or risk anxious cries of (*checks notes*) “Freebird!” As easy as it’d be to earn an easy whoop from the crowd by making that transition with a ringtone ready crowd pleaser, if I were an old rock dude, unduly proud of his latest compositions, I think my feelings would be pretty hurt by the cathartic release in their ecstatic reaction to old shit I wrote when I was 26. Maybe that’s why instead of playing “2 Minutes to Midnight,” the band played “Revelations,” a great song that nevertheless also happens to be the song in the dictionary next to the entry “nobody’s favorite Iron Maiden song” (Yes, I am aware there are no songs in the dictionary. Jeeze, have a sense of humor).
Also nobody’s favorite Iron Maiden song: the stage banter monologue where Bruce Dickinson claims the pandemic is over! To be fair, he was improving on one of his old rock dude countrymen who seemed to think it never existed (low bar!), but the frontman’s ecstatic cry of “THAT SHIT IS DONE” were still some of his more fantastical lyrics of the night (high bar!). Still, most was forgiven when he then asked the crowd if Utah was a country. Then *all* was forgiven when Bruce not only recognized Argentina’s flag, he blessed us with a brand new pronunciation: Argentinia.
Where was I? Oh, yes, the insanely expensive horror(s). For a good portion of the night, it seemed like a majority of the budget was spent on “The Sign of The Cross” – a conspiracy theory that makes more sense when you realize Blaze Bayley sung that one and Bruce probably demanded the big glowing cross, infernal red lighting, fireworks, and twin shooting flames to keep him invested. “Flight of the Icarus,” saw our beloved BD terrorizing his bandmates with a dual-wielded flame thrower (I suppose this was supposed to represent the end of Icarus’s famous flight). “Fear of The Dark” saw the man reemerge on a stage drenched in ultraviolet light hoisting a lantern (makes sense, dude’s scared of the dark!) and also, for whatever reason, wearing a masquerade mask (makes less sense, they don’t host fancy balls in the dark!).
Where was I? Oh yes! The rest of the band! You might be curious if some of the most skilled musicians the world has ever seen survived Bruce’s aforementioned pyrotechnical assault in order for me to state snarky opinions about them. Good news, they continue to persist past the Elizabethan era and I have no complaints. Rather, if there was any issue, it was with the muddy sound mix. Make the bass louder and make the drums quieter, darn it! Curiously, if one wished to rank the band members on a scale of “most outwardly health-some” to “most resembles zombie Eddie,” you could slot bassist Steve Harris and 70-year-old drummer Nicko McBrain into each respective pole. Double shout out to Mr. Harris. In addition to being drop dead sexy and (lesser accomplishment) the greatest metal bassist of all time, he was also the one dude on stage not wearing Iron Maiden merch (you quibble, doesn’t Bruce change into 27 different culturally appropriated costumes on stage? I respond, you silly goose, that’s the merchiest of all Iron Maiden merch!)
Where was I? Oh yes, back to the glorious gimmicks! It’s unclear to me whether Dave Murray leaning all badass against the stage design with a pick in his mouth during the intro to “Hallowed Be Thy Name” was as choreographed as the cage that locked up Bruce and the gallows noose that descended from the heavens, but it was way cooler! SPECTACLE, thy name is guitar god Dave Murray with a pick in his mouth! For a while, set enders “Number of the Beast” and “Iron Maiden” seemed to proceed from his example by letting the songs speak for themselves. But, oh, I spoke too soon. Here comes a 900 foot tall Cthulhu demon for the final bass solo. Thanks for ruining my “Sign of the Cross” budget theory H.P. Lovecraft.
Of course, the band departing the stage, leaving McBrain to throw his drum sticks into the audience (I apologize for presupposing your senility Niko; you lobbed those motherfuckers FAR), did not herald the night’s true end. Only a metal novice would need me to tell them that Maiden roared back on stage with “The Trooper,” that a uniformed Bruce had a sword fight with a 20 foot tall enemy soldier-beast-thing, and that a tattered union jack was waved (as well as, hmm, a non-tattered American flag…. cowards, hang that shit upside down I say!). What was surprising was the choice to then play “The Clansman,” maybe the first time I’ve seen a band perform a deep-deep-cut in an encore. Certainly the only time I’ve seen a band play a deep-deep-cut in an encore and have the balls to berate the audience for not singing the chorus loudly. After that, it was time for the greatest heavy metal band of all time to berate me, Julian Towers, and my shitty lede idea. Not only did Bruce RUN during “Run for The Hills,” he jumped over various tiny fires before slamming down on a Looney Tunes TNT detonator that blew the whole stage up.
Thankfully, they clearly weren’t *too* mad at me. Because if they were, why would Bruce end the night’s final song – a performance of “Ace’s High” complete with full size fighter jet hanging from the ceiling – by hand-delivering me the perfect “symbolically sums up the band’s whole deal pull quote” as a slam dunk final sentence to my review?
“Wow, I can’t believe it’s still flying,” Bruce said, gazing up at the suspended aircraft, “It’s got no fucking propeller.”
This article appears in The Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival.