On Saturday, July 3rd, 1982, I was halfway through spending the weekend at my grandparents, while my parents were attending a concert at Rich Stadium, just outside of Buffalo, NY. I was only 8, so I didn't really have awareness of exactly what they went to, but while watching the 6 o'clock news with my grandfather, they showed a clip of the concert, a few guys running around stage and a giant Frankenstein monster guy with them! I was already a fan of giant monster movies thanks to UHF television- Godzilla, War of the Gargantuan, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and the like and I was TOTALLY onboard with what I saw on the news. "That's the concert your parents are at!" My grandfather exclaimed, kind of shocked. That was my first introduction to Iron Maiden and my parents were never that cool again.
By the time I was 12, I was a full-on heavy metal maniac. Iron Maiden were my favorite band with Metallica quickly closing in by the time I was 13. A month after my 13th birthday, Maiden played Buffalo and a few of my friends and some classmates went; my envy was off the charts, even if I didn't really think Somewhere in Time was as good as Powerslave. In 1988, my uncle to pledged to take me to see them on the "Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour" and boy was I was excited! The tour was for an album I actually love- I rode my bike (during easter break if I recall) to the store in the spring to buy it on cassette and it essentially didn't leave my Walkman until ...And Justice for All came out in the fall. Now, I SWEAR he told me the show was at the Niagara Falls Convention Center and that he had bought tickets and it got cancelled. I remember my friends talking about the show being cancelled but looking at online information about the tour and cancelled dates, the only NY shows I see that are listed as cancelled are Utica and Binghampton. Perhaps it was booked and canned so fast that there's no online record of it? I may also be confusing this with a David Lee Roth concert that was there in '88 that I desperately wanted to attend, but that show happened for sure. Regardless, I wasn't interested in going to the Rochester shows in '91 or '92 (this is an ongoing theme with Rochester) and didn't finally see Iron Maiden until February 1996- a very bleak time for them and metal in general. The venue only has a capacity of 2,500 and it was nowhere near full. Plus, Blaze Bailey was singing. A very strange and non-epic gig.
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| Great tour, TERRIBLE video game. |
In 1999, Bruce and Adrian returned to Maiden and a bunch of us crammed into a car and drove to Cleveland to witness the "Ed Hunter" tour and that was EVERYTHING we had hoped for. The set opened with the goddamned Churchill speech into Aces High and I've seen them 8 more times since.
Not that it's been all gravy since 1999, I left pretty disappointed in 2012 on the "Maiden England" tour because Bruce was constantly being a total buzzkill BITCHING about the height of the venue stage and I didn't think they played especially well. Also, and a further bummer, though I've seen them a total of 10 times I had tickets to two shows (2017 "Book of Souls" and the first leg of the "Legacy of the Beast" in 2019) that I couldn't attend because of events at the college I used to work at. When I caught the post covid leg of "Legacy" they opened with three fucking boat anchors from Senjutsu- not exactly the legacy I signed up for. Regardless, Maiden are an exceptional live band on a level that is only rivaled by Metallica.
This is the LIST of every song I've seen them perform at least once:
S/T
Iron Maiden
Phantom of the Opera
Sanctuary
Prowler
Remember Tomorrow
Running Free
Killers
Wrathchild
Killers
Murders in the Rue Morgue
Another Life
Drifter
Number of the Beast
The Number of the Beast
Hallowed be Thy Name
Run to the Hills
The Prisoner
Piece of Mind
The Trooper
Die with your Boots On
Revelations
Where Eagles Dare
Flight of Icarus
Power Slave
Aces High
2 Minutes to Midnight
Powerslave
Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Somewhere in Time
Heaven Can Wait
Wasted Years
Seventh Son
Moon Child
The Evil That Men Do
The Clairvoyant
Can I Play with Madness
Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Fear of the Dark
Afraid to Shoot Strangers
Fear of the Dark
X Factor
Man on the Edge
Lord of the Flies
The Edge of Darkness
Fortunes of War
The Aftermath
Blood on the World’s Hands
Sign of the Cross
Virtual Xi
The Clansman
Futureal
Brave New World
The Wickerman
Ghost of the Navigator
Brave New World
The Mercenary
Dream of Mirrors
Blood Brothers
Dance of Death
Wildest Dreams
Senjutsu
Senjutsu
Stratego
The Writing on the Wall
