Cumartesi 12 Haz 2010, 18:03

Wed 9 Jun – Iron Maiden, Dream Theater

The obvious:

1.) Dream Theater's set was unnecessarily short. Barely reaching the 45 min mark. It would have been much better for a band of their status and caliber to be granted at least an hour, due to the nature of their style and the content of their catalog. That being said, their choice of songs was pretty good. I'm not the biggest DT fan, so I enjoyed hearing the new material (to my ears) played live.

2.) This was not a tour for old school Maiden fans. In fact, most of their 80s albums were absent of a single song included on the setlist. I can understand why this would frustrate people, waiting half a decade or more to see Maiden, and when that day comes, all they play is material post-00s. It was upsetting to not see more included, but I would not change a thing to the set they chose. It would have only added a greater amount of excitement than what was already there, and what was there was plenty.

Overall, DT was fantastic, and the crowd was into it. Of course, I would hope that most metal fans in attendance had at least heard "Pull Me Under." Iron Maiden did not let me down; even if by the third song I felt somewhat cheated to not have heard anything from Powerslave or Somewhere In Time, but it is 2010 after all, and they have a decade's worth of albums after 2000 to promote still, I wouldn't want to see those albums die out in the unwillingness to let the old ones rest. A couple of the songs I had never heard before, which is what I sometimes prefer in a live show. I like hearing something fresh at a near unbearable decible level to discern whether it would suffice an album track. Also, Maiden have released numerous DVDs, Live albums and bootlegs, I really didn't need to hear "Run to the Hills" or "The Trooper" or even "Aces High" live again, I can see it anytime I want, it just would have been nice to. But again, if only ADDED to the set they chose, I couldn't and wouldn't sacrifice anything they played to have heard any of those songs…well maybe for "22 Acacia Avenue."

The highlights for me personally were the Brave New World tracks, which comprised nearly half the set. "Wicker Man," "Ghost of the Navigator," "Blood Brothers" and "Brave New World" were all played. I also enjoyed "No More Lies" from Dance of Death. The ending tracks and encore were out of this world, which is why I wonder how the entire set would have been with tracks similar to those added earlier on.

4.5/5 Up the Irons!!! \m/