Live Review
Iron Maiden
Days of Future Past Tour
Glasgow – June 26 2023
On 22nd August, 1992 one of my oldest and best friends, Tony, and myself attended the Monsters of Rock Festival at Donington Park. 31 years later saw Tony and myself enjoying a pre-gig beer at the Solid Rock in Glasgow – One of the truly great metal bars! If you were there, you may have noticed a, youthful for his age, DevilsHorns wearing a 31 year old t-shirt advertising his attendance at what was only my 2nd ever concert!
This is going to be the first live review on this website – perhaps the only live review, who knows! The reason why is that Iron Maiden are the reason why I listen to all things heavy Metal. I adore this band! Ever since I heard ‘Live After Death’ in 1985, I have bought every album released. I have, however, not seen them as often as perhaps my love should have dictated.
That said, I have been to some spectacular gigs, including the original opening night for Clive Burr where we were there for Clive, as well as where they played songs from their first 4 albums at the Reading Festival – I never thought I’d ever hear ‘Children of the Damned’ Live. Anyway, I digress. This is an irreverent review of what turned out to be a rather drunken night watching potentially my favourite live band of all time!
In the aforementioned ‘Solid’, Tony and myself were joined by my friend Kris, a dude who is as cool as his drinks are shorts! This resulted in a few being sunk prior to a typical Glasgow cab driver bemoaning the fact we wanted to pay by card! Luckily Tony had cash and we exited at the Hydro – ironically named due to the rapidly dehydrating state of your half- cut heroes!
We decanted ourselves from Glasgow’s finest cab driver and announced our attendance in the venue by drinking instead of attending the set by German band ‘Lord of the Lost’. I would like to blame this on Tony, with his assertion that he, ‘would not watch a band from Eurovision’. We were soon a good 6 beers/ciders/spirits into the evening, when a call came through from one of the senior employees of the company. Scott joined our motley crew (Spelling is proper), as he is a proper Maiden fan, having attended gigs back in about 1983. Alas, he had a seat and so had to depart as we began to head into the main venue for one of my most anticipated gigs of all time as Iron Maiden take to the stage to deliver The Days of Future Past.
The reason for this anticipation – I started listening to Maiden in 1985 and the first brand new release I bought was ‘Somewhere in Time’. This is my favourite Maiden album bar none. Is it the best? Probably not, but nothing will ever stop me keeping its majesty in my top 5 ever! Let us actually begin the review!
Vangelis plays!
Straight from the off, the capacity crowd knows that the band means business. ‘Somewhere in Time’ opens the set and the drunken me decides I will write a review for the site, not for Metal Epidemic, as I am a bit squiffy! I sing along with gusto! ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ follows, and I am a pig in shit! I know all the words, but manage somehow to get them wrong – a happening throughout the evening!
We then get a triple whammy from the Past section of the gig, from the recent ‘Senjustu’ album. ‘Writing on the Wall’ is followed by ‘ Days of Future Past’ then by what my notes reliably inform me is the ‘have I ever told you about the time machine song’. Turns out this is, ‘The Time Machine’ from ‘Senjutsu’. Who would have known!
Then old school! I manage to get the opening monologue to ‘The Prisoner’ wrong… before Bruce Dickinson kills it. He is one of the Great frontmen! Getting hoarser by the second, I hear the opening refrains to ‘The Death of the Celts’ and so decide for a double whammy visit to the toilets and then the bar, in that order, making it back for the end of the track. I also have a packet of crisps that counts as dinner! Salt and Vinegar! Nice!
As it turns out, during the next track Tony and myself (Kris disappeared earlier) decide that, yes, we can play with madness, albeit out of tune with beers and ciders spilling! The truly fantastic ‘Heaven can Wait’ follows and it is clear that Bruceis as strong vocally has he has been for many a year. The band truly deliver, delivering a performance that would decimate a lesser venue! Then, as the next track opens, beginning to envelope the crowd in its grasp, a previously unknown man next to me grabs my shoulders and exclaims, ‘Did you ever think you would hear ‘Alexander the Great’ live’….
No…. I never….. I am in complete and utter awe. I sing all the words, many of them wrong – I don’t care – I watch a spine tingling solo and I start to think that ‘Somewhere in Time’ should dominate all Maiden shows (remember, I am a good 8 ciders in by now – so don’t judge me).
‘Fear of the Dark’ is also played – my least favourite Maiden song – and I sing along with abandon. Somehow, I have another drink. I know not where it came from, although I suspect Tony as he also has a pint in hand! Despite my, albeit minor, displeasure at the previous song, I gratefully drink as our heroes close out the show with ‘Iron Maiden’ and ‘Hell on Earth’ before delivering a final kick in the testicles with the utterly immense ‘Wasted Years’, a closing track predicted by Kris, who had recently returned. Knowledge tells me he had seen previous setlists before the opening night of the UK leg of the tour!
‘The Days of Future Past’ could loosely relate to both myself and Tony attending a Maiden gig together for the first time in 31 years. Alas, that was the Fear of the Dark era, but let us not be pedantic.
If you have a ticket for this tour – you are in for a treat, and if you don’t – get one!
Iron Maiden will not tour forever. I suspect that this may be my last time seeing them on a headline tour, probably of my own making. If you can get a ticket, go!
You will have an absolute blast!
Touring until July 8th
The DevilsHorns 
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