I was nervous for days leading up to this; driving extra carefully, crossing the road extra carefully, basically trying to avoid any unfortunate injury that would prevent me from seeing Iron Maiden.
I made my way into the city to catch a free bus to the stadium. I found the correct bus stop: the small crowd of bogans in Iron Maiden shirts gave it away. I fit right in.
It had been raining all day, but had basically eased off by then, and we cruised down the motorway, and finally arrived. I'd never been to the stadium before. We threaded our way through the grounds surrounding the stadium, and people were clustered drinking their alcohol and smoking joints before they entered.
There was a large queue to enter, but also another large cluster who were just pushing into the queue at the side, so I joined them, and I was in, and the local support band Chuganaut were just finishing up their set. I wandered down onto the field, checked out the stage and the fenced off diamond-ticket area in front of it, then went back up to check out merchandise stands and beer vendors. The queues were mad long, so I flagged it all and went back down to the field and entered the diamond area.
In the time I'd been away the diamond area had filled up quite a bit more. Furthermore, it was only 19:45. Lauren Harris was scheduled to play from 19:45 to 20:30, and Iron Maiden weren't due on stage until 21:00. So, lots of standing around, but also lots of time to try to find a place closer to the stage.
The diamond entry was to the left of the stage, so that's where I started, and used my patented trick of following in the wake of some big guy who was pushing through the crowd. Unfortunately I ended up behind a thicket of people who were all at least 6-foot tall. Always the way at concerts when you're short, but I felt more sorry for the many women I'd ended up near, all of whom seemed to be more like 5-foot tall. You could see they were fretting about what sort of view they'd get.
Lauren Harris eventually got on stage about 20:00. Some people politely nodded their heads. But really, it was god-awful hard rock. The guitarist and bass player seriously looked like they could have been in an 80s hair band. People all around me were smoking joints, and there was not a lot of movement in the crowd to get me a better view of the stage, and it had started raining, and Lauren Harris was really really not my cup of tea. I let it all wash over me, knowing that the time of Iron Maiden was drawing near, and things could only get better.
Soon after she finally got off stage, a big push forward occured, and things were looking up. Some English guy was telling everyone to "Swim down!" á la Finding Nemo, but everyone seemed baffled - "Is that a song?" - "No, it's from Nemo. Have you not seen Nemo?" I guess not everyone had seen Nemo; I guess they were too young to have kids or something.
The roadies or whoever had put on Deep Purple while they did all the soundcheck for Maiden, and dried the front of the stage now that the rain had stopped, and the damp crowd started to get more and more rowdy as 21:00 neared.
Finally it started, firstly obscure B-side Doctor Doctor was played, followed by Transylvania, for which they displayed footage of Ed Force One and Maiden fans around the world from earlier legs of this tour on the big screens to either side of the stage. And then finally some World War II footage, as Churchill's War Speech was played. Everyone knew what came next...
Iron Maiden burst onto the stage, playing Aces High. This was followed by Wrathchild and then 2 Minutes to Midnight. Already by this time the crowd was moving, and I'd managed to get a little closer to the stage, maybe even a little closer to the middle. I wasn't sure I was as excited I should have been. It occured to me that Iron Maiden play basically perfectly, like it's a recording. Like it's a live recording. Like if you've watched a bunch of videos of their live performance, then you've already experienced this.
But then they stopped, and Bruce talked, and he said they were planning to play some tracks we wouldn't have heard that much except on record, and I had heard a rumour that they were planning some obscure stuff they don't play much for the NZ leg of the tour, and so it was that they decided to play Children of the Damned, and I threw my goats in the air and leapt for joy, and realised that really the only reason I hadn't got excited yet is because they'd just played like the three songs I'd least been interested in.
And the crowd moved some more, and I got closer and closer to the ideal position, and already everyone, already damp from the rain, was becoming damp from sweat as well, and people were already escaping from the front of the mosh-pit because it was just too hot. They followed Children of the Damned with Phantom of the Opera, and that was from awesome to awesomer in my opinion. Unfortunately that was as obscure as they got; the rest of the show was basically the setlist you would expect if you'd done any research about what they were playing on the Somewhere Back In Time tour.
So, we got The Trooper, Wasted Years, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Powerslave, Fear of the Dark, Run to the Hills, Hallowed be thy Name, Iron Maiden, and then an encore with The Number of the Beast, The Evil That Men Do, and Sanctuary.
Anyways, once I'd got into it, and the pit started to really go off, and everyone was drenched from head to toe in sweat, it was fantastic. The atmosphere, the fact that everyone was singing along to all the songs, the pyrotechnics, and the giant Somewhere in Time robot Eddie - just the perfect live act. They claim they'll be back, and are hoping for a crowd even larger than the 18000 they got.
