After the monumental Legacy of the Beast tour and two triumphant indoor shows in Paris, it seemed difficult to imagine Iron Maiden becoming any bigger. Then came the Run For Your Lives tour and its staggering arena production, which somehow managed to exceed even the loftiest expectations. Surely this was the upper limit. Surely there was nowhere left to go.
Turns out there was.
The formula is deceptively simple: take that same colossal production and place it in the most excessive environment imaginable. A giant metal festival. One of the largest heavy metal crowds in Europe. A merciless sun beating down on tens of thousands of black T-shirts. And then unleash Iron Maiden.
Trying to describe the scale of the spectacle quickly becomes an exercise in futility. Size alone is beside the point. Plenty of bands have large stages, giant screens and pyrotechnics. What separates Maiden from every other stadium act is the accumulation of details. The setlist. The musicianship. The production. The audience participation. The camaraderie among the six musicians. The sense of occasion. The realization that every person in the crowd knows exactly why they are here and exactly what this means.
There are bigger festivals. There are bigger stages. There are technically more sophisticated productions. But heavy metal was made for this. Fifty years after Steve Harris founded the band, Iron Maiden still represents the genre at its most ambitious, theatrical and life-affirming. If heavy metal is indeed the law, then this was its high mass.
Hyperbole inevitably falls short because the scale involved resists description. All one can really do is stand there, somewhere beneath the giant Eddies and among one of the loudest choruses in Europe, and join the congregation. Up the Irons!
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TesseracT @ Main Stage 2 (Photos, setlist)
Point Mort @ Warzone (Photo)
Queensrÿche @ Main Stage 1 (Photos, review, setlist)
Stoned Jesus @ Valley Stage (Photos, review, setlist)
Bloodywood @ Main Stage 2 (Photos, setlist)
Accept @ Main Stage 1 (Photos, review, setlist)
Sepultura @ Main Stage 2 (Photos, review, setlist)
Helloween @ Main Stage 1 (Photos, review, setlist)
Opeth @ Main Stage 2 (Photos, review, setlist)
Iron Maiden @ Main Stage 1 (Photos, review, setlist)
DAY FOUR
Scour @ Temple Stage (Photos, review, setlist)
Eyehategod @ Valley Stage (Photos, review)
Six Feet Under @ Altar Stage (Photos, review, setlist)
Corrosion Of Conformity @ Valley Stage (Photos, review)
Possessed @ Altar Stage (Photos, setlist)
Agnostic Front @ Warzone - (Photos, setlist)
Acid Bath @Valley Stage (Photos, review, setlist)
Marduk @ Altar Stage (Photos, setlist)
Napalm Death @ Altar Stage (Photos, review, setlist)
Down @ Valley Stage (Photos, review, setlist)