Heavy metal legends bring parade of oldies to town

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JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS British icon Iron Maiden performs Tuesday night to a crowd of 8,000 at the MTS Centre. (WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

Iron Maiden has released four albums over the past dozen years, but the newest songs performed at the MTS Centre Tuesday night were 20 years old.

Those songs -- Afraid to Shoot Strangers and the title track of 1992's Fear of the Dark -- were the oddballs of the set loosely drawn from the British metal legends' 1988 7th Tour of a 7th Tour (witnessed by this reviewer as a 14-year-old at the Winnipeg Arena) in support of the album, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, but it didn't matter to the 8,000 black T-shirt-wearing fans who packed the downtown rink: they were into everything the sextet offered during its third visit to town since 2008.

The set was something of a greatest hits show with the majority of the material culled from six of the band's first seven studio albums (nothing from Killers made the cut) along with different set dressings and backdrops from each era.

The veteran group opened the one-hour-and 45-minute, 17-song show with Seventh Son album opener Moonchild on a stage that looked like the frozen landscape depicted on the album's cover.

"It's kind of like the forecast in Winnipeg in December," quipped frontman Bruce Dickinson.

They stuck to the album with the single Can I Play With Madness before the early highlights of 1982's The Prisoner and 2 Minutes to Midnight, which turned into the first sing-along of the night.

Dickinson is the youngest member of the band at 53, but had the energy of a man half his age as he darted across the stage, pumping his fist in the air and employing the crowd to, "Scream for me Winnipeg!" repeatedly. His distinct operatic voice has lost none of its power and he can still hit the high notes.

Main songwriter Steve Harris was in almost constant motion throughout the night while mouthing out the lyrics and playing those famous galloping bass patterns. The interplay of the three-guitar lineup -- Adrian Smith, Dave Murray and Janick Gers -- is one of the best in the business and a blast to watch as they trade off solo after solo while roaming the stage. Gers was the most energetic of the bunch as he kicked his leg in the air, did windmills a la Pete Townshend and pranced around -- or should that be galloped?

Behind them all was hard-hitting drummer Nicko McBrain -- hidden behind a comically enormous kit -- keeping everything together and locked into a tight synch with Harris.

Things slowed down slightly for Afraid to Shoot Strangers, which gave fans the chance to grab a beer, before the night truly kicked into high gear with a string of classics that earned Iron Maiden its reputation as one of the greatest metal bands of all time.

The Trooper had the entire crowd singing along while Dickinson played the part decked out in a British Army red coat waving a Union Jack in front of the famous banner of their mascot, Eddie, charging forth in the same pose.

An evil horned sphinx watched from the side of the stage as the band tore through The Number of the Beast as flash pots exploded all around them.

The band went back to its 1980 self-titled debut for the prog rocker The Phantom of the Opera, which would be bested in both length and complexity three songs later by the 10-miniute tempo-shifting Seventh Son of a Seventh Son title track. Between those two set-pieces came the sing-along fist-in-the-air favourite Run to the Hills, which had the crowd roaring even louder when a giant Eddie walked on stage as a 19th century American Calvary soldier, and Wasted Years, the most sentimental and arguably the most melodic song in the band's catalogue.

The band's main 90-minte set finished with its eponymous anthem as Eddie emerged behind McBrain, with fire shooting from his head while holding a grotesque baby.

Winston Churchill's Second World War speech about defending England, "Whatever the cost may be," led into the military-themed Aces High as fire exploded around the band to kick off the three song encore that featured the Evil That Men Do and the early rocker, Running Free, a teen anthem if there ever was one that turned into a call and response and ended with the crowd screaming for more that never came.

rob.williams@freepress.mb.ca

Concert Review

Iron Maiden

MTS Centre

July 24

Attendance: 8,000

4 out of 5 stars

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 25, 2012 C3