‘Scream for me, Glasgow' - Age has not wearied Iron Maiden

The Herald Scotland

4 days ago

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).
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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.