They descended upon downtown San Antonio on Tuesday afternoon. Thousands, thousands, everywhere. Thousands more. Everywhere else. Rolling. Scrambling. Diving in headfirst to be the first to the barrier or simply get to their point of dedicated fandom in time.
Fifty thousand-plus strong cutting work and school early likely with no plans on going back the next day. Gutting it out in tunnels and the 95-degree muggy South Texas air more than three hours before they could seek refuge and behold a spectacle that would blow their minds and split their eardrums like the Red Sea.
Two words: Iron Maiden.
The legendary British staples whose lead singer flies them around the world in a jumbo jet called Ed Force One didn’t need to stop this time at the basketball home of the Spurs. This “Run For Your Lives” trek, with Megadeth (ATM coverage here) and Anthrax (coverage here) in tow, called for something more expansive, leading Bruce Dickinson to inform his throng of admirers: “This is the biggest show we’ve ever played in Texas. And maybe the biggest in the U.S.A. It shows what a ridiculous amount of years this band has been together.”
Cult following doesn’t do Maiden’s allure justice.
T-shirts adorned in various designs of larger-than-life mascot Eddie. Flags representing Texas, Mexico, Colombia and points in between. The collective roar as UFO’s “Doctor Doctor” blares across the P.A., signaling Iron Maiden’s impending arrival.
For the next 2 hours, 7 minutes, Iron Maiden couldn’t be fought. And they can never be duplicated. As Anthrax vocalist Joey Belladonna eloquently put it: “We all know the reason we’re here. Iron Maiden is the fucking best heavy metal band!”
Minutes before showtime, a breath of rarefied and unexpected air from a business standpoint unfolded in the photo pit for media. A staffer who has worked with Maiden for 18 years gathered the group and broke down what to expect during its limited time in front of the stage. She advised the best time to take photos of the rabid fans. She suggested not to try and chase Dickinson whenever he was about to maniacally maneuver around the cavernous dome stage, saying, “He’s very fit. He will come to you.” She even warned when there would be “a puff of smoke” and what would immediately follow, concluding with, “The band loves that you’re here. They want you in the pit.”
In 27 years of personally covering concerts, including six of Maiden’s visits to Texas since 2010, no such welcome had ever been granted.
No further hype was needed. But it had just been given. Like a football team swarming out of the locker room, the intensity and adrenaline had ramped up.
The time to climb up the irons had arrived.
After the roughly 60-second video that the staffer had also forecasted would show some of the places Maiden forged as their stomping grounds upon forming in England in the late ‘70s, to the tune of “The Ides of March” intro, the maestros of British metal stormed to the forefront with four songs from their first two albums of the late Paul Di’Anno era: “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “Wrathchild,” the title track to 1981’s Killers and “Phantom of the Opera” (setlist below).
Eddie made his first menacing appearance during “Killers,” wielding a bloody axe that guitarists Dave Murray, Adrian Smith, Janick Gers and bassist Steve Harris always have to be wary of (see 85-photo gallery).
The tour promised only tunes from the first nine albums, spanning 1980-92, though there were no offerings from 1990’s No Prayer for the Dying. And while there weren’t any major surprises throughout the song choices, it was the manner in which Maiden brought many of them to life that eventually left patrons exiting the dome much like “Cross-Eyed Mary.”
In a good way, of course.
There was the band’s first performance of 1988’s “Infinite Dreams” in 35 years. On “The Number of the Beast,” Dickinson bellowed, “We will return . . . and make Texas fucking burn!”
The British flag made its mandatory and customary way into Dickinson’s hands as “The Trooper” thundered throughout the dome, with the cheers increasing once he brought out the Lone Star State banner as Eddie tussled with Murray.
Through it all, Simon Dawson methodically did his job on the drums, entering the pressure-filled void left by Nicko McBrain, who ended his 41-year run with the band following The Future Past tour two years ago with no more desire to travel the globe, at least musically.
It is not Dawson’s job to make fans forget McBrain. That’s never going to happen even if he wanted to try. And though Dawson may remain relatively unknown to even hardcore Maiden fans, the fact is he’s not even a stranger to San Antonio.
Having been Harris’ backstopper in the bassist’s side band British Lion, that outfit played the Rock Box a hop, skip and a jump from the Alamodome in 2020 (ATM coverage here).
Dawson even holds one distinct advantage over McBrain while playing live: you can actually see him perform on the drums the entire show, as opposed to McBrain’s preference of sitting lower than the top half of his setup and only standing up to peer at the audience once or twice before show’s end.
And so the “hits” and visuals kept coming with sheer storytelling force.
Dickinson took a break from his simultaneous madman-like singing and running by drinking from a pail and asking the audience, “You think you know what’s in the pail? It’s just water. Water, water, everywhere . . . “
As the murmur wound its way throughout the dome, anticipating what was to come, the vocalist continued in part: “You’ll see a bald eagle in America. But an albatross? If you do, it’ll be a pound of shit. So again, this is what not to do if a bird shits on you.”
With that, the 13-minute opus “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” was accompanied by stormy seas and a group of skeletons falling overboard as the band looked like small pieces of chess on the most massive of chess boards.
You figured another break would come after the band’s second-longest tune in its 46-year arsenal of albums. But Iron Maiden had other ideas, segueing seamlessly into “Run to the Hills,” with the tour’s moniker ringing throughout the football stadium in harmony from the 50,000-plus strong.
Immediately after that, the 9-minute title track to Seventh Son of a Seventh Son lit up the dome with more intimidating versions of Eddie unfolding on the screens, highlighted by Dickinson holding the final “Ohhhhh” for 18-20 seconds and the rhythm masters showcasing their instrumentation with all their might.
Not to be outdone, naturally, was “Hallowed Be Thy Name,” the song fans voted their No. 1 favorite Maiden track of all-time in an informal ATM poll several years ago.
The spotlight shone on the frontman as he sang the iconic, “I’m waiting, in my cold cell” perched inside a shark tank. Dickinson voiced the first two-thirds from his hallowed cage before the theatrics turned magical with a puff of smoke and pyro making the red jacket wearing vocalist disappear and reappear in white. Clouds transformed into Eddie, who chased Dickinson up a ramp until the singer disappeared again as the band furiously mastered the song’s remainder. Another cloud of smoke, and Dickinson was left holding a noose as he bellowed, “Yeah, e-yeah yeah yea! Hallowed Be Thy Name!”
If it hadn’t been confirmed at any instance the previous 4 1/2 decades, the point was driven home in that moment: the man is an absolute animal.
Maiden gave a small handful of its commonly played songs a rest including “The Evil That Men Do,” “Can I Play With Madness” and even “Running Free.”
The trio of encores were in their familiar place with “Aces High,” “Fear of the Dark” and closer “Wasted Years” — fitting given that the show was taking place on the 40th anniversary of that track’s Somewhere in Time release.
With more promises of an impending return, Iron Maiden had just pulverized its fans into a sea of satisfied and overjoyed oblivion. To first-timers witnessing their majestic works of art visually and sonically, they had demonstrated and proven why Belladonna’s words at the evening’s start rang true and would require the most convincing of viewpoints to argue otherwise.
The exit toward the dome’s doors and the road to recovery had begun. Fans. Mesmerized fans. Scattered everywhere. Perhaps seeking yet another Trooper beer to reminisce of what they had just experienced. And to begin counting down to the next visit from Eddie and the boys.
Up the Irons, indeed.
SETLIST: The Ides of March (intro), Murders in the Rue Morgue, Wrathchild, Killers, Phantom of the Opera, The Number of the Beast, Infinite Dreams, Powerslave, 2 Minutes 2 Midnight, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Run to the Hills, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, The Trooper, Hallowed Be Thy Name, Iron Maiden. (ENCORES): Aces High, Fear of the Dark, Wasted Years