This is the thread where we talk about Iron Maiden!!

next Thursday for me!!! enjoy

I've heard really good things about this tour. The nearest show to me is on Friday but I'm skipping it. Glad to see other ilxors going, though.

I’m going, next July!

I've seen Maiden a few times now, the first time in 2016, and this tour was my favorite from a production standpoint. Nothing radically different, just really well-done.

really wanted to go this year, but if I recall correctly it was on Yom Kippur.

Chicago show was a blast. Still kinda parsing Bruce's take/speech from stage on Covid. But that aside, a fine stellar performance from all. Dave's guitar solos sounded particularly great.

everything about this show was amazing. I took my friend, who'd never seen them, and she was blown away, like, just kept thanking me for the experience. Bruce was in better vocal health than last time I saw them. also LOVED the Senjutsu sets, Senjutsu Eddie, and fuck, the songs themselves.

also accidentally caused a toilet to overflow in the men's room, causing many people to yelp

Bringing the Toilet Boys realness to Maiden

I was heavily tempted by these in the post office earlier but managed to resist

https://shop.royalmail.com/media/catalog/product/cache/d8a7db0523f43dec856c981f9b4fd49e/a/s/as9400d-1-ironmaiden-stamp-pack.jpg

you should get them!

On the R&R Hall of Fame ballot this year.

I want a Maiden theme park

I hate all theme parks, but I would 100% travel across the continent to visit that.

hell yes

Flight of Icarus
Aces High
Powerslave
Run to the Hills
Rime of the Ancient Mariner (log flume)

I mean, the rides sell themselves.

“Our focus groups say that Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter isn’t a ride that’s really gonna go over well, Steve.”

Charlotte the Harlot Flume Ride (18+)

here's one that you guys can probly help me out with: I have S/T through Powerslave, and I think I know all the major songs after '84, "fear of the Dark" "Bring yr Daughter," "wasted years" etc… but a while ago, it occurred to me that I don't know if they have their own "Sad but True" or two, like a really stomping, elephantine cut to stand up next to 70s Sabbath… they seem to be not exactly patient enuff, like they want to get to the fast part NOW…

Not sure if this is quite what you're looking for, but "stomping" and "elephantine" made me think of "The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg" from '06.

"Revelation" is pretty heavy, and "The Clansman" (from the Blaze Bayley era, though they made Dickinson sing it when I saw them in 2003) is a slower epic.

They did "Clansman" last year as well so it's become a bit of a staple I think.

FREEDOMMM

Revisiting Senjutsu in advance of their show in St. Paul in a couple days. It's even better than I remembered. At this point I hold post-2000 Maiden in just as much esteem as '80s Maiden. Their hook writing post-Bruce reunion is so consistently strong

It's been announced that Paul Di'Anno has passed:

https://hellorayo.co.uk/planet-rock/news/rock-news/iron-maiden-paul-dianno-dead/

:-( damn. i had some very hopeful dreams that the big 50th anniversary London show planned for next summer may include mini appearances by Paul and Blaze, shame that can't happen. those first 2 albums KILL!

Best Maiden singer by a long way! Not the greatest human being by all accounts but who cares, that first pair of albums is all the Maiden I ever need.

damn, rip to a real one. throwing on maiden japan IMMEDIATELY.

So sad. Playing 'Remember Tomorrow' and 'Charlotte the Harlot' on blast several times today.

RIP — the Dianno stuff still goes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9vPhim7mQE

Sad news. The only incarnation of Iron Maiden I ever saw was the Paul Di'Anno one. So great!

Oh Well, wherever, wherever you are,
Iron Maiden's gonna get you, no matter how far.
See the blood flow watching it shed up above my head.
Iron Maiden wants you for dead.

Killers was my first Maiden album. It still rules. RIP.

(Also, related by material, I've only just discovered *Beast Over Hammersmith*. Holy shit!)

This probably has less potential for controversy than my post above about the two Dickinson eras, but: I think the Di'Anno albums are still the best records they ever made. They were tough and grimy with him in a way they could never be with Bruce

i think that’s true for a lot of ppl who maybe find Bruce a little much idk

ppl say it semi regularly & it’s not like fighting words, its ultimately personal taste

but in retros D’ianno

ugh

but to be fair, in hindsight D’Ianno was never going to be the singer that takes them through 4 decades plus

like he’s working on a smaller canvas & that limits what the band can do too

it sounds cool, i agree, i love his voice and those 2 albums rule— but “better” comes with a hell of a lot of qualifiers imo

i think it’s unfair to make it a binary of better/worse

theyre completely different types of singers with different skillsets & they can totally exist side by side for our enjoyment :)

anyway

WRATHCHILD

Even though I grew up on a steady of diet of Powerslave, Live After Death, & Somewhere in Time, his gruff delivery & the band's primordial thudding on early stuff like "Running Free" and "Murders in the Rue Morgue" kind of stillisIron Maiden to me, RIP Di'Anno, obv he wasn't as suited to material that came after him, where they really became a different sort of band, but those two records with him are peak NWOBHM greatness

definitely

RIP Paul.

He had a rough life, but what an impact he made on those two colossal records. That East End snarl of his, nothing like it.

really love the early maiden stuff, he gave it a real punk toughness, great singer

dude was just a real rocker

When I first became a Maiden fan there was nearly as much Di'Anno material available as there was Dickinson material, so me and my friends had a lot of fights about who was better. I eventually came to prefer Di'Anno, probably because I began to like punk rock too. RIP.

those two records really changed my life. I love Iron Maiden throughout the years but when I heard those, after I'd heard Number and Piece, a sense of metal's depth and range was clearer to me. and the fuckin hooks. Di'Anno had an ear for a chorus hook, one for the ages.

listening to the first record now, what a ripper 2 tuff

obv he's the gruff belter to bruce's operatic thing but i find his clean, melodic singing here to be very affecting and almost touchingly naive in a way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fkD-jzgMXE

i like what the guy contributed very much and love the era of maiden he emblemizes, but there's a lot of "the first and best maiden singer has died" today, and it comes from people who say they're all about metal and maiden now, but who very obviously looked down on maiden, metal and metalheads in the 80s.

and that is true, UMS, that at the time he and thus surely Harris were invested in projecting a hard man/ world weary POV, and the music makes it clear that it was transparently but touchingly not so.

xpost yeah otm i think there is a lot of truth to that

The first two Maiden albums are really good. But if they'd never changed vocalists, they would have never gotten bigger than, say, Motörhead. When you listen to Di'Anno's post-Maiden work, his limitations (vocal, creative) become very apparent very fast.