Whenever Iron Maiden go on tour, there is always one person who tries to count for which time will they see them, no matter their age. Why? Because it is never enough! Their present tour, called “The Future Past Tour”, includes not only one of the hottest setlists that could ever exist through the years but also a spectacular show. All the above make us wonder which time will be the last? But this is not the reason why this specific tour is going to be written in history. The real reason is, of course, the greatest poem of them all, Alexander the Great, which finally is performed by the band with great success.
So we gathered together almost 50 people from Thessaloniki and Athens and we went to Milan, Italy through a great trip which was organised last winter. I want to believe that Maiden will land in our places in the summer of 2024 but even in the thought of this not happening, we should enjoy them somewhere abroad. The festival which hosted the legends of heavy metal, also includes Stratovarius, Epica, Blind Channel and Rave Age. Unfortunately we did not manage to see the last because of our late arrival in San Siro Ippodromo.
Beginning with the Blind Channel, it was the only band that I, personally, was not interested to see at all. First of all because they are not my type, and I considered it a little bit irrelevant in comparison to the rest of the lineup. I would rather see Rave Age in this place as their time was limited no matter what. However, people in the front seemed to have fun with their songs.
The third name of the day was the Dutch Epica. As I lost the opportunity to see them in Release Athens last year, I wanted to make sure that what I saw in the videos was the same in real life. I believe that both the band in the field of symphonic metal and Simone Simons as a front-woman, have nothing to be jealous of anyone and I am absolutely sure about that. The combination of Simone’s fairy-tale voice with the brutal of the guitarist and second singer Mark Jansen is the golden mean of the band and what makes them so unique. Despite the high temperature, they managed to excite the audience with their seven songs, only in 45 minutes and this was obvious from the rush of people as it seemed that many of them had come to watch them too.
SETLIST : Abyss of Time – Countdown to Singularity, Victims of Contingency, Unleashed, The Final Lullaby, The Skeleton Key, Beyond the Matrix, Consign to Oblivion
The band for which a big part of the audience had come, including me, was the Finish veterans of power metal Stratovarius who seemed to fit like a glove as a next to last name. Unfortunately the band showed up on stage an hour later and they only played the Black Diamond and the Haunting and Low, after a series of unfortunate events that happened during their trip, with the peak, the cancellation of their flight. As the basist Laurri Porra confirms, their car broke down in the middle of a tunnel, which forced them to drive with different, smaller vehicles to the festival. However, when they went up on stage, they gave their 100% of them and even in this way they earned my respect and I know that when they will come to Greece in November I’m gonna see them in the right way!
The sun has already started to set and the settings are now revealed. The time has come for Steve Harris and his friends to come over the stage. The intimate intro of every concert, Doctor Doctor, starts to play in the speakers and we got goosebumps in every part of the body. I couldn’t think of a more hair- raising introduction than the historic soundtrack “Blade Runner” of Vaggelis Papathanasiou. Just a look in the aesthetics and the cover of Somewhere in Time is enough to understand why. Caught Somewhere in Time and Stranger in a Strange Land are two of the songs that definitely belong to the “Past” place of the tour but they still amaze us , even today. The show escalates to another level when these songs are combined with these pictures behind McBrain and Eddie of the past era making his appearance but also Bruce dressed as if he came from another planet! The first thing that made me really happy was the fact that I would hear live, for the first time, the most of my favorite songs from Senjutsu! I may have listened to the Writing on the Wall last hear in Athens but the Days of Future Past and the Time Machine are by far two of the best hits of the specific album. All three songs were played with characteristic virtuosity by the British, and the night has come for good. But, before we move on to the fourth song of the 17th disc of the band , we have to go through the third disc, the name of which is needless to say! Man,The Prisoner! For how long will this band keep on blowing our minds? This song is a fucking anthem from every aspect. What a solo, what a lyric! It’s like the time never touched them! The Death of the Celts, as a whole, includes the characteristics of the late Maiden period and it has the appropriate place in the setlist. The acoustic intro and outro, the narrative voice of Bruce and the changes of the tempo in the middle, it is the band of today which personally never gets me.
We turn back in time again with a fire- five ! Can I Play with Madness was the only song which was heard from the Seventh Son and somewhere here we come to realize that inside the setlist the band plays both with time and with mind. It may be a short song but it always manage to raise the audience with its refrain and this is more than enough. Heaven Can Wait which follows, includes as a highlight the battle between Bruce and Eddie, who exchange fire and offers a unique experience, which is proof that the band always finds a way to take your breath away while you are watching. As about Alexander the Great, there is no need to describe the awe and the emotions I felt by hearing it. I’m just gonna say that this song SHOULD be played in GREECE where we will absolutely give some audience lessons again! Fear of the Dark will always be a concert anthem and will always create the same feelings to people who listen to it. We are close to the end of the set before the Encore where there would be no other song that the irremovable ‘Iron Maiden’. Either you prefer it with the voice of Di Anno or with the voice of Bruce , it always reminds you what is this band as a whole and why it was born. The enormous Eddie appears in the back of the stage and the real Eddie dressed as a samurai makes sure to tease Janick again.
We now enter to the last 3 songs of the encore where I must say a great ‘Thank you’ to the band for playing Hell on Earth in this exact moment of the night. It is a poem which will be written in history and it was played exactly as it should have. With flames in the sky and Bruce nailing it as if he was in the studio! Trooper and Wasted Years closed the Maiden show in a deafening way, a show which is not reported as my last but it will be engraved in my mind as the first concert that I experienced in another country by listening an anthem which till today seemed impossible to be played! Finally, I came to realize that I do live in my “golden years” and I feel very lucky about that!
Kostas Mouzakitis
P.S. You already know the setlist, it doesn’t have to be written!
