Live Review : Iron Maiden @ Co-op Live, Manchester on June 22nd 2025
The fluidity of fame and fortune is incredibly fickle. We describe Iron Maiden’s late eighties period as the biggest metal band on the planet, as their imperious phase when. However, if we are honest, they are more popular now than they ever were at their peak. Iron Maiden have transcended being a band and are now an institution, a cultural phenomenon. A national treasure with their own beer, stamps and merch that is sold in ASDA as part of its Father’s Day range. The Co-op arena is an inter-generational melting pot of different creeds, colours and cultural backgrounds. This selection box of diversity shares one uniting thread; they love Iron Maiden with a passion. Grandfathers and mothers, sons and daughters, grandkids and probably in a number of cases great grandkids, this is the ultimate partisan audience. Frankly, Bruce, Steve and the rest could have come and collectively farted the theme tune to 'Only fools And Horses and the 22,000 people would still have gone ballistic.
Needless to say, we get the show that we are promised. In the build up to this tour, the sell was a visual spectacular far beyond anything the band had attempted before. Now given that they have in the past presented us with gun-toting cyborgs, inflatable Spitfires and a real-life dogfight happening over our heads, this felt rather an over-reaching boast.
When you have everyone’s favourite monster looming over you every night for the last fifty years, where do you go from there? The answer is you embrace the digital world. The gigantic IMAX-sized screen that dominates the backline and dwarves the band, changes everything. Songs are brought to life in a startling explosion of technicolour vision. The long epics which in the past have been guilty of being stodgy and rather bloated in the live arena, are now transformed into immersive cinematic experiences. 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ becomes the centerpiece in a whole set of center piece epics. It is accompanied by jaw dropping visuals that bring the entire tale to life. Even if you are not aware of the narrative of the epic Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem the song is based upon, the haunting animated images looming in front of us graphically illustrate the tale.
Bruce early on describes this as the nearest that they will get to a greatest hits set, yet their biggest selling singles here in the UK (‘Can I play with Madness?’, ‘Bring Your Daughter… To the Slaughter’ and ‘Holy Smoke’) are all conspicuous by their absence. What they mean by greatest hits is most loved as opposed to bestselling and what we get tonight is an Iron Maiden's fans fevered dream of their most iconic moments. ‘Phantom of the Opera’ is 45 years old, yet still possesses one of the most evocative and memorable opening riffs in metal history (and for those of us old enough evokes memories of Daley Thompson hurtling down the track in that Lucozade advert). Like every number this evening, it is beautifully rendered and presented in an avalanche of kinetic energy. The three-guitar attack of Adrian Smith, Janick Gers and Dave Murray gives the sound real depth and textures. Decades of instrumental synchronicity means that there are no egos at play. The different guitar parts intersect with each other in a ballet of virtuoso cohesion. There are solos a plenty but there is so much visually and aurally to gorge upon in this show that nothing outstays its welcome.
‘Hallowed Be Thy Name’ is also reinstated to the set and becomes a masterclass in theatrical opulence. It is one of several tracks where Bruce goes all role-playing on our bottoms and happily inhabits the worldview of the song’s protagonists. He is the prisoner being read the last rites, he is the infantry man facing the human wall and he is the man that walks alone. This is no longer just a mere concert, it is a musical extravaganza of Broadway proportions and the tales that the band tell suck in everybody within this vast sprawling arena.
Even Eddie has had an upgrade, we get gigantic wandering version of the band’s habitual mascot during ‘Killers’ and ‘The Trooper’ respectively. They menace the band and force Janick and Dave to fend them off with their guitars. ‘The Trooper’ variant of Eddie even starts to play a guitar on his sabre. But the most extraordinary reinvention of their illustrious seventh member is saved for the self-monikered closing number. There is then some griping that the “endgame” Eddie is no longer an inflatable 3D entity but believe us the Goliath monster that dominates and thrusts out on the screen is simply astonishing.
Every ten-bit metal bands that have brought a bit of flair and theatrics to their stage presentation were influenced by the Iron Maiden performances of the mid to late eighties, but here 40 years on, Steve Harris and the boys have considerably upped the game once again. The Run For Your Lives World Tour takes songs from the first two- and a-bit decades of their illustrious fifty-year career and wraps them up in state-of-the-art production to create the most remarkable interactive experience. They may well all be staring down the gun of their government sanctioned bus passes but Iron Maiden have never been stronger, never been better and have never ever put on a show of this magnitude before. Iron Maiden is still gonna get you but this time it's in 50 ft digital clarity.
Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Iron Maiden
I just love Metal. I love it all. The bombastity of symphonic, the brutality of death, the rousing choruses of power, the nihilistic evil of black, the pounding atmospherics of doom, the whirling time changes of prog, the faithful familiarity of trad, the other worldlyness of post, the sheer unrefined power of thrash. I love it all!