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Iron Maiden

Live in Tinley Park, Illinois, July 2012

Review by Greg Olma

Let me start off by saying that I have been a Maiden fan since 1981.  When Killers came out, I was hooked and have loved every incarnation (to different degrees) of the band.  One thing that I find odd is that since the end of the Brave New World tour, the band has been coming to the states with a different show than they perform in other areas of the world (A Matter Of Life And Death tour being the exception).  When they toured to US, they did it before Dance Of Death and therefore only played one tune from that disc.  The same goes for The Final Frontier.  I don’t know if they think that we don’t want to hear the new material but we tend to get different shows and set lists.  Well their Somewhere Back in Time Tour must have been a big success so they decided to embark on their Maiden England World Tour.  If any of you were old enough to see them in 1988, then you will notice that on this tour, the stage set looks similar.  That’s not to say that that they just pulled out their stage show from then and dusted it off to cart around in 2012.  They have made some enhancements and also brought along a whole lot of pyro to boot.

I always liked the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son album but aside from that tour, many of the songs don’t get a lot of stage time; at least not in the states.  Well, the guys have decided to correct that with this tour.  The played five of the eight  tracks on the record and I was surprised at the great reception the tunes received.  The concert started with a couple of Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son tracks, namely “Moonchild” and “Can I Play With Madness” and aside from a few of the usual “hits,” the band cherry picked some tunes that they haven’t played in a while.  “The Prisoner” was a very welcome addition to this year’s set list and proved to be quite the hit with the audience.  “Phantom of the Opera” was another older track that has been missing from the set list but went down a storm.  Even though the title track of Fear of the Dark has been performed quite a bit, they pulled out “Afraid To Shoot Stranger” off the same album.  I was glad to see them playing something else from this often overlooked disc.  The highlight for me was easily when they performed “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.”  They gave it all of its epic dues and the crowd ate it up.  I hope they film this tour and release it on DVD because that track alone is worth the whole show in my book.

I’m sure that it will come as no surprise that Eddie made it out onto the stage a few times, but it is still such an integral part of any Iron Maiden concert that we would feel cheated if we didn’t get to see plenty of him.  The band themselves were in fine form, as usual.  You will never get a bad show from Maiden.  There is always a level that they keep and even in the extremely hot July Midwest weather, they still ran around and treated us to the full production.  While I wish that the band would tour the states on their new albums and play a lot of the newer tunes, you can’t fault them for the concerts that they do perform.  If you were unable to see the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son tour, this was going to be as close as you were going to get
This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2012  Volume 4 at lulu.com/strangesound.
 
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