And 40 years later, Iron Maiden’s heavy metal reached the gates of the great temple, the Olympic Stadium, bringing together the largest clientele in its history in Barcelona, more than 50,000 people according to the organization (by Primavera Sound). Metal may retain some of that ‘underground’ mood, a pariah of trend traffic, but ‘the Maiden’, as they are secularly known around here, rise as rampant classic and ‘blockbuster’ of the tours, powerful attraction for an audience (that has not changed much) of male dominancecaptured by this ‘Legacy of the beast world tour’.
tide of black t-shirts occupying the floor, and pay attention to the old ritual: fans already know that, when ‘Doctor doctor’, by UFO, sounds canned, you have to hold your breath and prepare to receive your majesties. There was SteveHarris, much more than the band’s bass player, ready to sing all the verses to himself, underpinning the theme ‘Senjutsu’, which gives the title to the latest album, with its eight minutes of rattling and its martial chorus. Bruce Dickinsonsporting a loud voice and abracadabra gestures, and fencing with the group’s mascot, Eddiedressed as a samurai. In the background, a kind of Japanese-style Poble Espanyol, with a temple and two tall pagodas.
Greetings to family
When this tour started, in 2018, the script was panoramic, but the edition of ‘Senjutsu’ altered it by injecting three new songs, all crammed together at the start: there were ‘Stratego’ and ‘The writing on the wall’, developing the secular ‘Maidenian’ trot ‘ generously. Acoustic introduction of adrian smith on this last issue, in which Dickinson took the floor for a concise “Hello, Catalonia!” and some macabre laughter as a celebration. He later extended the speech sighing at having returned to Barcelona after these “three crazy and fucked up years” and greeting the ‘supporters’: “You are the Maiden family & rdquor ;.
Just because the band pulls out an anthology doesn’t mean that theirs was one of those concerts where almost all the songs come from their first albums. Iron Maiden is aware of his work as a whole, and he travels to an eighties piece like ‘Revelations’ just as he goes to a mid-season song, ‘Bloodbrothers’, associated with the 1999 reunion, or incorporates a couple of pieces from those years 90, when the singer was BlazeBayley. Mystical ‘Signofthecross’, with Dickinson wrapped in a cloak, a cross nailed to the stage and flares this high to warn ungodly souls. Liturgical choirs worthy of the monks of the Silos monastery and an edge-progressive metal development open to solos by Smith, Dave Murray and Janick Gers.
afraid of the dark
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At this point, the Japanese ‘props’ had already vanished and taken their place a curtain of gothic cathedral stained glass windows. Maiden, traveling to the depths of his soul with the old milestone ‘Flight of theicarus’ (the album ‘Pieceofmind’, from 1983, was the most cited, with three songs, as many as ‘Senjutsu’), with a bird-man on top and Dickinson turned into a walking flamethrower. Mythology ‘in crescendo’ with that totem called ‘Fearofthedark’, from when Iron Maiden fought the grunge wave with a double dose of pomp and circumstance (back in 1992), and from then on, a non-stop number of legendary numbers, including the invocation satanic 666 from ‘The numberofthebeast’, on the way to the seminal ‘Iron Maiden’, with the evil one entering the scene in the form of an ugly horned figure.
Iron Maiden thus pulled a montage unapologetically watered by scenic ‘gags’, grateful additives when it comes to a stadium concert, although the thick ammunition was provided by the songs, and there were, in the encores, ‘The trooper’ and ‘Run to the hills’, and that ‘Aces high’ with his speech of Churchill. Last fireworks of a concert that had some reward for those historical fans of the group that, when the ‘heavies’ were a dark urban tribethey received him at the old Palau d’Esports, 40 years ago.