I didn’t get into Iron Maiden until way late in the game, Somewhere In Time was the first one I bought at the time it came out. They had been a blind spot for me, though I knew their album covers very well. One of my friends in the military was a Maiden nut and he got me where I needed to be. Before Somewhere In Time came out, I was immersed in Piece of Mind and Number of the Beast.
Many years later, September 15, 2000, I finally got a chance to see them, and I had to travel about an hour and a half to do it, but it was well worth it. Not only was Bruce back, but the bill included Queensryche and Halford. All three singers had their air-raid siren vocals that night with Rob Halford setting the tone in the opening seconds.
He started with the song Resurrection and what you hear on the record is what came out of the speakers times about 1,000. He did several songs from that record, Into The Pit from his Fight days and a few Priest classics. The second of two encores was Tyrant to which my friend screamed in my ear, appropriately, “Tyrant??!!!?? Fucking TYRANT?!?!?!?!? The only hangup was that the set wasn’t longer, but Halford was the opener on a three-band bill so that’s how that goes.
Queensryche’s most recent record was 1999’s Q2K. There was only one song from that record as they gave the fans what they really wanted. The opener was Revolution Calling and they went into Empire next. Falling Down followed but the rest of the way it was mostly heavy hitters. I wasn’t as knowledgeable on Queensryche then as I became just a few years later but their set was filled with stuff that would hit home with somebody in my position. I dug it, but I was really psyched for Iron Maiden so when Queensryche left the stage I was ready to move on.
Finally, the mighty Iron Maiden took the stage and, after all this, it was a good show but a little off for me. Bruce and Adrian were back, what could go wrong? Well, they played an inordinate number of songs I wasn’t familiar with and in this case, I’m not sure if that’s a me-problem or if the setlist looks a little off to anybody else. The band was high energy, as expected, and the crowd was absolutely into it. (So, probably me, then.)
A couple of things that struck me odd were basically visual things that just seemed out of place. There was an extended period of time where Bruce was in a cage and there were weird dancing girls around him and I’m sure it was for a story I didn’t care about and probably should have known but I could have done without it.
Another thing that I wasn’t used to seeing at a metal show was Janick Gers doing whatever exercises those were that he was doing. Weird shit. The guy can absolutely rip it up on guitar, but it looked goofy as hell to me. I don’t remember seeing him quite that animated when I saw Maiden on the Book Of Souls tour a few years ago, but on this night you couldn’t avoid noticing.
An extremely good night it was, with about three-hours travel round trip with a couple of co-workers who were true believers. We had tickets for seats pretty close up on the side but Maiden’s stage was bigger than expected, so our section was wiped out and they seated us somewhere else not too far away. That seems strange. Arenas can handle a normal stage, Metallica’s in-the-round-stage, a half-house, all that. But this place in Bakersfield was caught off guard by what Maiden needed? All good. It was a time when I felt that the 2000s were going to be a hell of a lot better than the 90s and this show was just what I needed.