Up The Irons!

Only thing missing is the fire coming out of his head

Last night Jodi and I went out to Jiffy Lube Live to see Iron Maiden and Alice Cooper. This was the first time I have seen Maiden since 1990. I was especially excited to see this tour because Maiden are using a version of the set list from the 1988 Maiden England tour which supported my most favorite of Maiden records: Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son. Jodi is not what I'd call a Maiden fan but she likes to run to "Run To The Hills," knows to yell UP THE IRONS! and had seeing a Maiden show on her bucket list.

Eddie as General Custer. Jannick could run between his legs

The show was, as I expected it to be, GREAT! They opened with the awesome "Moonchild" before going right into "Can I Play With Madness." From 7Sof7S they did my fav "The Clairvoyant," the title track, and "The Evil That Men Do." Other natural hits trotted out were "The Trooper," "Run To The Hills" (with Eddie coming out dressed like General Custer), "The Number Of The Beast," "Wasted Years," "Phantom of The Opera," "Iron Maiden," "Running Free," "The Prisoner," "Aces High" (opening the encore), "2 Minutes To Midnight." The outlier tracks were "Fear Of The Dark" and "Afraid To Shoot Strangers" from 1992s Fear Of The Dark. The latter was a god sing-a-long while the former was a bit of a momentum-staller, complete with Bruce rambling on a bit before hand.

Hail Britannia!

Speaking of Bruce Dickinson he was in great form. He's one of my favorite front-men in rock. The stage gives him lots of ramps to run around on and man does he run. He still his classic-Bruce-move: plants his feet far apart, crouches down and points back-and-forth to the audience. His still brings out the giant Union Jacks during "The Trooper."

Low-end menace!!

The rest of the band was in great form. Steve Harris is one of the most under-rated bass players on the planet. Dave Murray and Adrian Smith are great co-lead guitarists. Jannick Gers is the third guitarist and he tends to stay off to his side of the stage acting strange. I wonder if he and Adrian Smith get along because they didn't really spend any time next to each other. Jannick replaced Adrian when he left the band for a couple years so I hope there isn't any bad blood.

Alice Cooper was the opener and he was surprisingly good! He also had three guitarists with him, which seemed like a bit of overkill but why not. He also had more costume changes than Taylor Swift. It's mainly about the spectacle with AC but the band was real tight and put on a good show. The one guitarist looked like CC DeVille. For all I know it was CC. Alice came out dressed like a giant spider, had the giant Frankenstein walking around, had the big snake around his shoulders for "Billion Dollar BabiesNo More Mr. Nice Guy." He ran a sword through a photographer running around the stage. They chopped his head off before finishing the set with "School's Out." For a 64 year old man he can still bring it.

A few words on the crowd. First the negative: boy, Americans are FAT. I mean big and fat. I wonder if the merchandise tent bothers bringing any tee-shirts smaller than large. The median weight had to be somewhere around 250. That said, I stand by my earlier statement that metal crowds are the awesomest. No fights, no shit getting started, scary looking dudes with Slayer t-shirts and tattoos of eagles on their neck politely begging my pardon as they squeezed past me in the slushee line. Lots of kids with their dads there; I get the feeling the dads remember going to the World Slavery tour and were more than happy to bring their metal head kids to the show. Yay bonding!!

So, an evening of awesomeness in Northern Virginia. Even with the 100 degree heat it was a great evening!

Pictures are courtesy Jodi because she has a better iPhone than I do!