Review – Iron Maiden at The Hydro ⭐⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A number from across the globe are flag-ready in the front row. They sing along to every word of the UFO intro, Doctor Doctor, before Maiden begins with Murders In The Rue Morgue.
Bandleader Steve Harris leans forward on the monitor and begins the rumbling bass line of Killers. Much-loved mascot Eddie bounds onto the stage with an axe, aiming to take out each member of the band one by one. Bruce Dickinson is just too quick on his feet, using every inch of the stage while holding his microphone stand in the air.
Some fans may be old enough to remember the Lucozade advert featuring Olympic athlete Daley Thompson running to the epic riff of Phantom of The Opera. The song has lost none of its majesty, augmented with Dave Murray's exquisite guitar solos. For the heavier parts, Janick Gers stomps around the stage with manic glee.
The mythology and storytelling aspect at the heart of Maiden keeps the audience in the palm of the band's hand. A case in point is Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which is bolstered by stunning graphics and pyrotechnics. Dickinson takes on various characters and dons several costume changes, among them a Dickensian persona in a top hat and black cloak holding a lantern during Fear Of The Dark.
It's a cliche that most groups trot out, 'the audience is getting younger', but in Maiden's case, there are several small children who love every minute, especially the appearances of Eddie and for them, a Horrible Histories aspect to the show. The talismanic mascot returns for The Trooper, another fan favourite that finds Dickinson in a redcoat while flying at Saltire. This galloping classic remains one of the most arresting metal tracks of all time.
Added to the demographic are many female fans who are well represented in the front rows. It's a hit-filled set list which includes the top ten single Run To The Hills, this writer spent his pocket money on the record back in 1982.
I still have it to this day, and what a thrill it is to see it performed live and take in those solos by Dave Murray and Adrian Smith.
Maiden has been an exceptional live act for close to 50 years, but even veteran gig-goers suggest they are as good live as they ever were. Perhaps the highlight was Aces High supported by Churchill's 'We shall fight on the beaches' speech, Spitfires on the big screen, air-raid sirens and beams of light over the audience. Dickinson manages to hit every impossible note (still in its original key) as the triple guitar assault reaches its peak.
What else is left to say but 'Up the Irons', they remain one of the best live draws on the global circuit.
All photos Richard Purden
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Edinburgh Reporter
3 days ago
- Edinburgh Reporter
Review – Iron Maiden at The Hydro ⭐⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Around 95% of Iron Maiden supporters are expressing brand loyalty with a variety of t-shirts, including Eddie as 'The Clansman' in Braveheart warpaint. A number from across the globe are flag-ready in the front row. They sing along to every word of the UFO intro, Doctor Doctor, before Maiden begins with Murders In The Rue Morgue. Bandleader Steve Harris leans forward on the monitor and begins the rumbling bass line of Killers. Much-loved mascot Eddie bounds onto the stage with an axe, aiming to take out each member of the band one by one. Bruce Dickinson is just too quick on his feet, using every inch of the stage while holding his microphone stand in the air. Some fans may be old enough to remember the Lucozade advert featuring Olympic athlete Daley Thompson running to the epic riff of Phantom of The Opera. The song has lost none of its majesty, augmented with Dave Murray's exquisite guitar solos. For the heavier parts, Janick Gers stomps around the stage with manic glee. The mythology and storytelling aspect at the heart of Maiden keeps the audience in the palm of the band's hand. A case in point is Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which is bolstered by stunning graphics and pyrotechnics. Dickinson takes on various characters and dons several costume changes, among them a Dickensian persona in a top hat and black cloak holding a lantern during Fear Of The Dark. It's a cliche that most groups trot out, 'the audience is getting younger', but in Maiden's case, there are several small children who love every minute, especially the appearances of Eddie and for them, a Horrible Histories aspect to the show. The talismanic mascot returns for The Trooper, another fan favourite that finds Dickinson in a redcoat while flying at Saltire. This galloping classic remains one of the most arresting metal tracks of all time. Added to the demographic are many female fans who are well represented in the front rows. It's a hit-filled set list which includes the top ten single Run To The Hills, this writer spent his pocket money on the record back in 1982. I still have it to this day, and what a thrill it is to see it performed live and take in those solos by Dave Murray and Adrian Smith. Maiden has been an exceptional live act for close to 50 years, but even veteran gig-goers suggest they are as good live as they ever were. Perhaps the highlight was Aces High supported by Churchill's 'We shall fight on the beaches' speech, Spitfires on the big screen, air-raid sirens and beams of light over the audience. Dickinson manages to hit every impossible note (still in its original key) as the triple guitar assault reaches its peak. What else is left to say but 'Up the Irons', they remain one of the best live draws on the global circuit. All photos Richard Purden Like this: Like Related
Daily Mirror
4 days ago
- Daily Mirror
UK location that gets more UFO sightings than anywhere else on planet
A new UFO documentary charting the reasons for the rise of alien activity is released for UFO Day on July 2 – and reveals a mysterious stargate in an unexpected part of the UK Mass sightings of mysterious drones lighting up the New Jersey skies in November 2024 triggered an online frenzy and had every conspiracy theorist leaving their bunker to claim we were being invaded by flying saucers. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) received more than 5,000 drone tip-offs from worried citizens, describing them as objects 'the size of cars' and sometimes flying low in formation. 'The truth is out there,' concluded Mulder and Scully in The X-Files – but not, apparently, if you're asking the Pentagon. The US government quickly dismissed all UFO reports, claiming the lights were from manned aircraft. And the Federation of Aviation Authority (FAA) was forced to begrudgingly admit the drones were authorised research. This attempt to suppress information by authorities is being investigated by a new show UFOs: Why Are They Here? tonight on BLAZE at 9pm, to mark today's World UFO Day (Weds July 2). 'Time and time again you see cases where very credible witnesses see something inexplicable in the night sky. But the official statement is to minimise that eye-witness experience… which makes it look like they're covering it up,' reports investigative historian Andrew Gough, who along with the documentary's team of UFO experts, historians and archeologists, helps connect the dots between the increasing numbers of detailed encounters recorded and what we think we know about alien life. 'There's much more to life than we understand. Somewhere out there is other life,' he says. World UFO Day commemorates the first and most important widely reported UFO sightings in June 1947, when pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed he saw nine shiny crescent-shaped flying objects travelling at high speed near Mount Rainier, Washington. A few weeks later, the Roswell incident occurred. Those who believe say an extraterrestrial spacecraft crashed in the New Mexico desert and alien bodies or 'debris' were recovered by the US government. 'Roswell happened,' argues Andrew. 'Two weeks later the US Department of Defense is created and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is created. These things are created in a reaction to Roswell.' With our very busy skies in the last century, it's perhaps unsurprising that Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have been renamed the less dramatic Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs). Believe in UFOs or not, 3.7 million people in the US alone claim to have been abducted by aliens Otherworldly encounters and unexplained disappearances investigated on the documentary include the Bradshaw Ranch in Arizona, which was acquired by the US government and sealed off after years of UFO sightings. And the mystery of Northwest Flight 2501, which disappeared over Lake Michigan in June 1950. UFO historian Dr Matthew Hayes says it 'was never really found, which is unusual'. Three years later in the same region, the Kinross incident was caught on radar when a fighter jet went missing chasing a UFO over Lake Superior in November 1983. It looked on the radar as if it had been swallowed by its target. No wreckage was found. 'Where did the aircraft go? Did it somehow merge with the ball of light? Did it come out the other side like it went through a portal and now is in another dimension?' asks Andrew. The documentary reveals there are three areas in the world which boast more UFO sightings than anywhere else – the Lake Michigan Triangle, Arizona Triangle, and bizarrely – the Falkirk Triangle - an area of special interest between Glasgow, Edinburgh and Falkirk, considered by many to be the UFO capital of the world. Archaeologist Natasha Billson notes:'These are places where there are also many military air bases and airports.' Scotland 's first official UFO sighting was in November 1979, when forestry worker Bob Taylor parked his pick-up truck off the M8 – and found himself being ripped at by UFOs with metal spikes and dragged towards a space craft. 'Bob had no history of mental illness, he's never been into UFOs before. There's nothing to be gained from making it up. So why did he tell this story?' asks neuroscientist Dr Mazyar Fallah. A police investigation found deep tracks at the scene. Investigative historian Tony McMahon explains: 'They concluded that Bob had indeed been the subject of a particularly vicious attack, but by what?' In November 1992 a close encounter on the A70 in Scotland saw friends Garry Wood and Colin Wright allegedly abducted and electrocuted by 6ft-tall aliens with four fingers. The pair gave their testimony under hypnosis and passed a polygraph test. But philosopher Dr Rohit Dalvi says: 'The weakness in this test is if you really believe something, it's going to be seen as true when you take the test.' Declassified files 20 years later show the Ministry of Defence conducted an investigation, but failed to reach a conclusion. Another explanation for increased alien activity in these triangles is that they are sites of trans-dimensional vortexes. One of these mysterious portals is Rosslyn Chapel on a Scottish estate within the Falkirk Triangle 'It was founded in 1446 by a nobleman who wanted it to be a place where priests could pray for his family souls,' explains archeologist Natasha. 'From the outside it looks like a small stone church, but inside it is extraordinary. 'Every inch of the walls and ceilings is covered in intricate stone carvings. Stars, flowers, vines, angels playing instruments, and grotesque gargoyles. The most famous carving is The Apprentice's Pillar, which is a twisted vine-like design which some think looks like a DNA helix.' The tiny chapel appeared in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, and theorists believe there are engravings of sweetcorn and aloe vera, which were carved long before Christopher Columbus went to the New World and brought those plants back - adding to theories that this is the work of people who had encountered aliens. 'One of the most striking things you see in the ceiling are these carved blocks in rows,' explains Tony. 'One theory is that they are musical notes. By deciphering them you can play a piece of music. This represents an understanding of acoustics that was way ahead of the time the chapel was built. 'For people to have known that, they would have had to be informed by somebody with future knowledge.' But Natasha, while in awe of the carvings, scotches the idea that the chapel is a passage to another universe. 'We are looking through a modern lens at medieval iconography at what we think might be sweetcorn or aloe vera, but that doesn't mean it is.' She also points out that some of the work could result from 19th century Victorian restoration of the ceiling. The documentary also delves into petroglyphs (rock carvings) of strikingly similar images drawn by civilisations who had never met - reinforcing the theory that we've been visited by extraterrestrials for a very long time. If you believe it Andres says: 'You have to ask why did UFOs come here?' He wonders if our TV and radio broadcasts have reached aliens in space, saying: 'Could it be that an alien civilization is answering back?' In August 1977, someone – or something – did respond when the Big Ear Radio Telescope at Ohio State University, which monitors the sky for signs of communication, detected a very strong signal from deep space. An astronomer was so impressed by the result, he circled the reading of the signal's intensity, 6EQUJ5, on the computer print-out, and wrote the comment 'Wow!' which gave the signal its name. 'The Wow! signal is the holy grail for astronomers,' says forensic engineer Robert Sparling. 'It would be acknowledgement that we're not alone here.' Since 2012 we have been beaming our own message back – but we are still awaiting a reply! Some people believe nuclear bomb tests in the 1960s detonated high into outer space have alerted aliens, prompting increased activity. Archaeologist Natasha thinks instead of looking to the sky, we should be looking to our past for answers about extra terrestrials and UFOs. 'We're amazing now, so why were our ancestors not?' she asks. 'We are completely in a different technological world right now. We've gone quite far from a flint tool, yet we still use flints as tools. There's this connection, just as there's hand painting, we still paint our hands on the wall, so did our ancestors tens of thousands of years ago. 'Sometimes people think it has to be otherworldly rather than just us.' Another possibly more dispiriting theory is the zoo hypothesis, which historian Tony explains, saying: 'That is that we are essentially an animal in a cage as far as passing UFOs are concerned. And they're not really bothered unless we do something interesting.' But Andrew wonders: 'Maybe they also just want to know that they're not alone in the universe.' • To mark World UFO Day BLAZE is showing a 24-hour stack of all of the best UFO and alien content the channel has to offer. UFOs: Why Are They Here? premieres on July 2 at 9pm.
The Herald Scotland
4 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
‘Scream for me, Glasgow' - Age has not wearied Iron Maiden
Age has not wearied Iron Maiden. At 8.50pm on Monday evening the band roared onto the stage at Glasgow's OVO Hydro and played hard and fast for two hours solid. No let-ups, no pauses for breath. 'This band is 50 years old,' front man Bruce Dickinson, sporting a man bun and looking more and more like the actor Kenneth Cranham's younger brother, reminded us. 'We plan to go on for at least another 50 years.' Probably from the grave, he added, in a nod to the fact that most of them are now in their late sixties. But in Glasgow this evening they had the energy of the first flush of youth. Playing a setlist that drew on the band's early years, this was Maiden in excelsis: Steve Harris 'machine-gunned' the audience with his bass at regular intervals, Dave Murray's fingers danced up and down the fretboard of his guitar like a surgeon in a hurry, Janick Gers -, when he wasn't planting his leg on top of the highest speaker he could reach (and for a 68-year-old man that was pretty high) - hopped and bounced and duckwalked around the stage looking like a slightly demented overgrown leprechaun, whilst Dickinson threw his mic stand into the air in between dressing up in cloaks and masks, acting out lyrics, playing carnival barker and, inevitably, demanding that the audience, 'scream for me, Glasgow.' Adrian Smith and new boy drummer Simon Dawson played their part too, alongside dry ice and fireworks and video-game quality visuals of ghosts and fighter pilots and band mascot Eddie (who invariably also appeared on stage a couple of times, 10ft tall and wielding an axe and a sabre respectively). Read More: In short, the whole evening was the manifestation of a 12-year-old boy's id in song and visuals. That was always one of the appeals of Iron Maiden. They displayed none of the leery cartoon sexism of some of their heavy metal contemporaries. Instead, their songs and performances ransack the toybox. The result is endearing and hugely popular. This sold-out Hydro gig came after the band had played to 75,000 in the London Stadium. A reminder that there is a corner of British pop that will be forever metal. That corner can be overlooked. Even written out of the story. When pop culture remembers the 1980s - when Maiden were at their peak - it's always deely-boppers and Duran Duran and Princess Di that get mentioned. It's never snakebite and black and headbanging. But here in the audience were all those long-haired kids from back then now grown up, the hair gone, still ready to rock. And they came with their wives and their sons and their granddaughters. This was an all-ages crowd. It seems appropriate as Iron Maiden are a band who have never grown up themselves. Yes, they can shift gears, as on the extended eerie instrumental coda in the middle of Rime of the Ancient Mariner; an ominous moment of musical tension that would grace the soundtrack of any horror movie. But for the most part they're happiest gunning through tracks like Run to the Hills and Aces High. The result is both exhilarating and, maybe, a little bit exhausting. But that might just be sixty something me talking. And for a band who constantly sing about death and destruction, Iron Maiden are perversely full of life. Tonight, Glasgow belonged to them.
