24th February 2009 - Iron Maiden rocked the wet and soggy Mount Smart Stadium in Auckland on Friday night in what might go down as one of the best concerts I’ve ever gone to...and not just because of the show put on but because I got to see the original line up, of what I think, is the most iconic metal band of all time. There are maybe three other bands in history that I would rate up there with Maiden, as not just iconic metal bands, but iconic bands in general that if able to put their original line ups together would be amazing but will never be able to due to death of band members or general bad blood between members. So to have a band that has been going since the mid 70’s still able to put an original line up on stage is pretty amazing stuff. Also when I say original line up I mean the line up that made them famous which was from 1981 onwards even though the band was formed back in 1975.

Now the outlook for the day was for heavy rain and thats exactly what happened. But did it put a downer on the night? Not at all. In fact by the time we got there at around 8pm to see the end of one of the warm up acts the rain had pretty much stopped and for the rest of the night either it didn’t rain or just had a gentle drizzle. In fact the drizzle helped cool down everyone as it was still a pretty muggy summers night and the rain just added to the whole atmosphere. They played only hits and songs from their 80’s albums as it was called the ‘Somewhere Back In Time’ tour and so they would go from playing one of their hit singles to classic rear hits that they almost never play live. So it really was a once in a life time event especially seeing as it was their first time to New Zealand since 1992 for the ‘Fear Of The Dark’ tour and so who knows when they will be back again...and all alive to make the journey.

In fact I’m finding it hard to even find the right words to describe the experience as even during the night I found it hard to comprehend watching this band that I have been listening to since the early 90’s rip out tune after tune with a huge stage spectacular that even included a 12 foot Eddie puppet that walked out on stage and played with the band during one song! I mean come on!!! Thats just cool! Not to mention I have a new out look on growing old. Why? Because of Bruce Dickinson. At age 50 this man can still head line a 2 hour long show where he spends the whole time running around the stage, changing outfits and generally destroying your ears with his powerful voice. Not only that he seems as fit as a man half his age, he's trendy as hell and just damn cool! So when I hit 50 and I can be half as cool as that Ill be happy.

Iron Maiden live gets 9 out of 10 from me and its going to be hard for that to be topped in my eyes for a long time to come.