Saw Maiden last night. Fan-fucking-tastic!.
Set list:
1.If Eternity Should Fail
2.Speed of Light
3.Children of the Damned
4.Tears of a Clown
5.The Red and the Black
6.The Trooper
7.Powerslave
8.Death or Glory
9.The Book of Souls
10.Hallowed Be Thy Name
11.Fear of the Dark
12.Iron Maiden
Encore:
13. The Number of the Beast
14. Blood Brothers
15. Wasted Years
A few thoughts:
1.
They might be older, but this was easily better than the Somewhere Back
In Time tour. The energy was just as high, especially from Bruce, but
the stage show was just so much better. The Mayan theme just looks so
fucking good!
2. To all the nay-sayers about the new album (not from this forum. It seemed very well received here): Fuck.
Off. Live, those songs just fucking go off. No loss of momentum.
Nothing boring. Everything stacks up incredibly well vs. the old stuff.
Initially I was thinking about how cool it would be to see a few songs
from the albums from 1995 to 2010. There weren’t any. Didn’t miss them
because this stuff is just as strong live, and possibly stronger. Which
leads to…
3. Tears of a Clown is great live. I thought it was one of the weaker tracks on “Book of Souls”, but it’s not.
4. The Red & The Black also goes off live. The solos traded off in it are brilliant.
5.
Death or Glory is probably the best received of all the new tracks.
Why? Because of the reason it copped so much criticism initially(also not applicable here)– “climb
like a monkey”. People started miming climbing whenever that phrase
came up, which made me cringe on first sight, but I was doing it too by
the end of the song! Makes such a refreshing change from fists and
horns. Bruce said in one of the early shows on the tour, two kids in the
front row had a banner saying “climb like a monkey” and started miming
the monkey climb thing, so he did it, and it’s caught on everywhere. And
this was an NZ audience, often quite reserved and unwilling to
participate.
6. The Jannick haters can go fuck off too (for a third time, not applicable here!). Yes,
Adrian and Dave might be better guitarists, but both needed him, because
they looked fucking knackered about three songs in, and he picked up
the slack energy-wise. My step-son loved watching Jannick, never having
seen Maiden before, and thought he was great. Watching Adrian and Dave
play some of those solos is breathtaking at times, when you hear what is
coming from the speakers. There was one of the older songs (I forget
which) where they had changed some of the solos, which were faster and
more complex than on the studio album. Just fucking wow. 
7. ‘Arry is fucking staunch. Rock fucking solid, no flashy bullshit, and still loving his band and what he does.
8.
Nico is a fucking machine. Last time I saw Maiden we were positioned up
the side of the arena and couldn’t actually see him properly. This time
we were dead in front. The old bugger just goes off all fucking night,
and never misses a beat. Loved seeing him lay into that massive drum
kit.
9. Bruce’s tribute to Christchurch was nice. He said he
remembered how beautiful the city had been (it was, as far as cities
go), and that it had changed, with so much of it flattened, the people
killed, and the trees gone (a point I had missed, having being too close
to it), and the city might not be a beautiful again (it won’t be
because most of the new buildings are hideous). But like so many other
people who have been here post-quakes, was impressed with the way people
seem to have coped, and the spirit of the people and place.
10.
Support band The Raven Age were a much better support band than Lauren
Harris last time. They played chuggy music somewhere between trad metal
and speed metal, but were a bit unmemorable. Their singer is a
reasonable frontman, but his singing style is a bit flat and boring, and
they really would benefit from a singer with a harsher voice.
11. There is nowhere in Christchurch which plays decent rock music for having a drink after the show. 
The two so-called “rock” venues had stupid fucking drum-and-bass DJ
crap playing. So we ended up in the one with pool tables. Fucking
earthquakes destroyed all the other venues.
12. Double quarter pounders from McD’s really hit the spot at 3 in the morning. 
Overall,
it was a fucking great night out. This is probably the last chance
we’ll get to see Iron Maiden in this part of the world, which is a
shame. If they do ever come back, I’ll be first in line for tickets.
And I got one of these t-shirts (same as every second person there last night! 
)