IRON MAIDEN Enthralls Singapore With First Ever Gig

By Mikhail Madnani

My rating:

February 15th 2011, Singapore Indoor Stadium, Singapore: Having just released their new album a few months ago, Iron Maiden began their 2011 world tour in Moscow, Russia on the 11th of February. As with all maiden tour opening gigs, I read about mistakes by certain band members on some songs. Bruce's voice also seemed a bit strained on The Talisman in every video I saw from the Moscow show. I travelled to Singapore to see the band on their Final Frontier World Tour and this was the first time I would witness an Iron Maiden gig in an indoor stadium. This was my 4th maiden gig and it was by far one of the best maiden gigs I have witnessed in terms of performance by the band and setlist. Since the band was touring some places for the first time, they included the classics along with the newer material.

The crowd in Singapore was absolutely phenomenal and they were all over excited since it was most of their first Iron Maiden show ever. The organizer for the gig really fucked up on many levels for this show. There was no clear entrance for the general admission standing tickets and they kept making people move from one side of the stadium to the other in the rain. A few thousand maiden fans standing outside were far from happy with this. The second fuck up was First To The Barrier for the fan club members. This was the first time I was eligible for FTTB and I won it. The Administrator on the IMFC (Iron Maiden Fan Club) kept posting updates that the promoter was not willing to give him a proper location for the FTTB meet up. Finally it was cancelled thanks to the production company not responding to the Fan club administrator in time. This really pissed me off. Luckily I met Steve Gadd and Steve Harris at their hotel and managed to score a photography pass so I was in the backstage area before maiden went on stage. I missed Rise To Remain's set. I met Nicko, Rod Smallwood (both of whom remembered me from their Bombay and Bangalore visits) and Bill, Ashley and Paul from the Killer Crew. I managed getting Nicko's wristband as well. I didn't end up using the photo pass because again the promoter had some issues with the camera being used.

I entered the general standing area and met a few IMFC members (Roger, Muz, Rasmus, Sanja and a few others) and was with them for Doctor Doctor (the intro to the show) the first few songs. They opened with Satellite 15...The Final Frontier which was amazing live. What a brilliant opening song! Satellite 15 had a supporting video that was really trippy. Nicko had the best live drum sound I have ever heard at a live show. The Singapore crowd was awesome. None of them were like the crowds at maiden shows in India who just keep pushing people till someone falls and is seriously hurt. Next up was their Grammy winning song, El Dorado. The Final Frontier into El Dorado live is one of the best song segues ever. El Dorado got a good response from the crowd. Adrian burst into 2 Minutes To Midnight next and this song has always been one of my favourite live tracks ever. Steve Harris did his typical bass guitar gun fire action that drove fans wild. Bruce talked for some time and they went into another new song, Coming Home. This song is what it is because of the chorus and the guitar solos in my opinion and it was great to see Dave and H play them flawlessly. Since I had seen maiden on the 'A Matter Of The Beast Tour' and twice on the 'Somewhere Back In Time' world tour, I was in no mood to see more classics live. I wanted to see them play more stuff from the post 1994 albums.

The band always seems to neglect the Somewhere In Time era and the Blaze era. They played Dance Of Death next which was beyond fucking awesome live. H nailed his solo and his Wah is brilliant live. The audience sang Dance Of Death like they chant along with Fear Of The Dark. The only downside to this song live on the new tour is Bruce didn't wear the cloak and dance on stage. They played The Trooper next and I was in no mood to see this song live again. Needless to say, they performed it brilliantly and the audience was going wild. After having seen this song 3 times before and it being on almost every live DVD of theirs, I was bored of it now. Maiden usually never changes their setlist on a tour barring a song here and there at most. After The Trooper, I expected The Wicker Man since they did those in that order in Moscow. Bruce looked at the audience and was talking about fans from all over including India, England etc coming to see the show and he talked about everyone being brothers when it comes to metal. We all knew what was coming up next. Brave New World is one of my favourite albums of all time and I was looking forward to seeing as much of it live as possible. They played Blood Brothers and The Wicker Man back to back and this is where the setlist almost peaked for me. I was beyond ecstatic at this point and then the band broke into their new epic masterpiece, When The Wild Wind Blows. This song is without a doubt, one of the best songs ever written and it is awesome live. It's not as good as Mariner was live but it's a near second to that song and that song alone.

Adrian had some issues with his sound during the beginning of his solo in this song. Bruce's vocals had been top notch in the concert so far. The next song they played was The Talisman. This song is no doubt one of the hardest songs for Bruce to sing live and he pulled it off perfectly. This was the highlight of the night for me. I knew the rest of the setlist was full of their usual live songs so I took a break from the audience and sat down and watched them play Fear, Evil and end with Iron Maiden with that ghastly new excuse for Eddie. The break before the encore lasted for less than 2 minutes. I think this was because of time issues. The encore consisted of The Number Of The Beast, Hallowed Be Thy Name (awesome watching this live again and again) and Running Free. Bruce engaged the audience as he always does in Running Free and the show ended on that note. He promised that they would return to Singapore again. Hopefully he will live up to that promise and I'll be back in Singapore to watch them play since promoters in India seem to think the Backstreet Boys can get a bigger crowd than Iron Maiden can.

The night ended with 'Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life' being played on the PA. Watching Maiden live is always amazing and it was awesome watching them in another country for the first time in an indoor stadium.

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