Barcelona (EFE) Sant Jordi with its forceful guitars and a repertoire that has put classic and new songs face to face.
The jumps, headbutts and screams of the public have been more liberating and wild in the immortal hymns composed in the 80s, the golden age of the band, but the new songs of the latest album “Senjutsu” have lived up to the rhythm. It has not faltered at any time during the almost two hours of whipping that the British have offered, in the first stop of the Spanish leg of their world tour.
Steve Harris and his people have sweated their shirts off at a high-temperature concert, both in a figurative and real sense, because the heat wave that hits Europe doesn’t give us a break, not even at night, especially if thousands of people come together willing to unlimited jumping
Songs like “The trooper” and “Wasted years”, which have closed the concert
The flames that have come out of the stage at various times during the concert have not helped to cool us down, but who can feel cold before songs like “The trooper” and “Wasted years”, which have closed the concert in an atmosphere of collective euphoria.
But the fever has started to rise long before, when Nicko McBrin has sat down in front of the drums and the other five members of the band have jumped on stage, running, singing and pounding their guitars, announcing the electric shock that was coming. to come.
With his jacket in the wind, like a superhero cape, singer Bruce Dickinson, 64, has flown over the loudspeakers, fitter than many younger ones, and has sung five songs in a row from the new album.
Between “Days of future past”, the song that gives its name to the current tour “The future past tour 2023”, and “The time machine” he has explained that the idea of the concert is to get on a time machine, to revive his album from 1986 “Somewhere in time”, from which he has rescued a song never performed on previous tours, “Alexander the Great”, and then return to the present with the new songs of “Senjutsu”.
But the public has listened little, eager for the music to return.
It must be borne in mind that most of them are part of that Spanish generation that finds English difficult, although they know all the Iron Maiden songs.
In any case, there is a certain renewal in the Iron Maiden concerts and some young people are seen who hide surprises under their ‘metal’ hair, such as a shaved neck or a blonde dye, probably children of ‘metalheads’, because the ‘ heavy’ is something that is passed down from father to son.
The first ‘hit’ has been “The prisoner”
The first ‘hit’ has been “The prisoner”, which has unleashed the beast and has been the beginning of a batch of iconic songs from 80s records, such as “The number of the beast” and “Seventh son of a seventh are”.
Returning to “Senjutsu”, Dickinson has addressed the Catalans, just before interpreting “Death of the celt”, to tell them that “if you have a culture, a tradition and a family, they cannot get rid of you”.
In “Heaven can wait”, Eddie the Head, the famous resurrected zombie present on almost all the covers of the band’s albums, has made his appearance and has fought, submachine gun in hand, with Dickinson who, on a catwalk, He has put the theatrical touch so typical of Iron Maiden.
Meanwhile, the three guitarists have been taking turns in glorious ‘riffs’, with Steve Harris in command from his position as bassist.
The public may have missed only one thing, the absence of some of their essential classics, but that is that, in the case of Maiden, the vast songbook can work against them.
We will have to see them again on the next tour to listen to the songs that were missing today, and it will be a pleasure.