[Live Review] Iron Maiden, Gelredome Arnhem

Iron Maiden is now fifty years old and that requires celebrating. The party was had in Arnhem and we were invited. Or at least, bought tickets for it. There was no cake.

Iconic British metal flagship Iron Maiden exists for a whopping fifty years now, and that’s reason enough to crank out a celebration tour called Run for your Lives. Both constant and casual readers of this blog know that I love me some Maiden so off we went to see them in Arnhem’s Gelredome arena.

With over forty thousand tickets sold, the venue is packed tonight. Maybe even more than packed because halfway through Maiden’s show it becomes near impossible to move a foot without bumping into someone. Hell, it becomes impossible even to stand still and not get bumped into left, right and centre by your increasingly intoxicated fellow concert goers, whether you’re in the front, middle or even the very back of the hall. Oversold? Definitely.

Iron Maiden have had a long history of bringing awful support acts, and 2025 isn’t any different. The only good thing I have to say about Swedish act Avatar is that for once, it isn’t one of Maiden’s band members’ kids, but that’s about all. I will now shortly talk about Avatar for the first and last time in my life, if I can help it: I hate this band with an almost irrational passion. Here’s a picture:

I wanted to violently punch the grin of that stupid bozo’s face ever since I first laid eyes on him, and their supporting gig in Arnhem only enhanced that feeling. This fucking dude, after an intro that lasted too fucking long, creeped his way out of a gift box, holding a red balloon, all the while wearing that stupid fucking smirk on his face. Then the band kicked in, played boring riffs and delved into annoying choruses while this clown pranced all over the stage. There was much talking in between songs, which helped in keeping the musical damage to a bare minimum, but one can’t help but wonder why Maiden wouldn’t bring a band closer to their own sound, like Wytch Hazel for example. Those guys would benefit greatly from a supporting spot like this. But no, we get Avatar. I hate this band, I hate their music, I hate that stupid bloody fucking clown of a singer and I never want to see or hear anything about them again.

Iron Maiden does a set comprised of songs from their first nine albums to celebrate their anniversary. That’s everything from the very early days with Paul Di’Anno (RIP) up to and including the last thing they did before Bruce Dickinson left for the first time. It also, very conveniently, gives the band another excuse to drag the long overplayed Fear of the Dark to the stage again. I can’t hear Fear of the Dark anymore. I’d pay an ungodly amount of money to never hear Fear of the Dark again in my lifetime. The same goes for The Trooper, The Number of the Beast, Run to the Hills and Wasted Years for an encore, by the way. I get why they are live staples, I get why people love them and I get how important they are for both the crowd and the band, but enough is enough.

The show starts, of course, with UFO’s Doctor Doctor being played over the speakers with the venue’s lights still on. It’s such an iconic Maiden moment that it never fails to induce goosebumps and/or tears. After the proper intro The Ides of March, the band fires away with Murders in the Rue Morgue, Wrathchild, Killers and The Phantom of the Opera, all from their debut and sophomore albums with Di’Anno. Bruce sounds fine, the band sounds fine, the big video screens behind them have impressive visuals on them, but everything sounds sloppy. The sound is off, but more importantly, the tempo is off. And with “off” I mean people are missing their cues. There are moments all throughout the evening where I don’t quite know where we are in a song. Guitar solos kick in a second too late, Bruce kicks in a vocal line too late; it’s all a bit sloppy, like they’re playing some of this stuff for the first time.

Who does play this stuff for the first time is drummer Simon Dawson, after Nicko McBrain’s retirement from touring last year. And where Nicko’s drumming was refined and left room for breathing, Simon just sort of rumbles on rather indistinctively. And the moments that solos or vocal lines came in just a little too late, I also couldn’t understand what was going on drum-wise as well. Where you once got a hi-hat ding right before a solo, here Simon just thunders on, creating confusion when it comes to timing. I’m not sure that actually was the problem, but it sure seems like it. Or maybe the band just had a bit of an off day.

Who did not have an off day was old Bruce himself. Vocal-wise, he was absolutely on point. Sure, he’s getting on in years and when it comes to articulating he’s not as strong after his bout with throat cancer and his bad teeth, making Feventf Fon of a Feventf Fon a bit of a hassle to get through I guess. But when it comes to nailing high pitches and screams, I came away impressed with his performance. Yes, he jumbled some words in said Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and the always impressive Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but when it comes to his voice, he’s still the one and only air-raid siren.

The set list is posted below. There are a few nice surprises going on here like Killers, Phantom of the Opera and The Clairvoyant, but otherwise it’s just about par for the course for Maiden. It would have been nice to have one or two deeper cuts like Infinite Dreams or Be Quick or be Dead, but I guess I understand what they’re doing here. I’m seeing a lot of people complaining online about the band giving No Prayer for the Dying a wide berth, but since either Tailgunner or Mother Russia are obviously off the table, playing anything from that album would have resulted in giving a spot to Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter and I think we can all agree on what a monstrous abomination that song is.

In the end, Maiden did what they did. And they did it reasonably well. It’s a shame actual props, bar the two walk-on Eddies, are now being replaced by video screens, which means we don’t get a traditional blow-up Eddie rising behind the drum kit during Iron Maiden, but I guess that’s 2025 for you. The visuals were impressive and really did a lot for Hallowed be Thy Name, with Bruce escaping his real-life cage halfway through the song and his on-screen version being chased by ghosts behind the band during the solo spots. I’d love to see the band do more of that sort of visual storytelling in the future. Let’s hope we will. Bruce is promising a lively future for the band, and even though I take his words with a grain of salt these days, I think there’s a few years of life left in these old buggers. Up the Irons!

Set list: