Death Angel Tour Update 4: Iron Maiden!
- Bleeding Priest
- Jun 22
- 8 min read
Updated: Jun 28
The tour is reaching its final phase and I’ve only had to make two “hot towels” and one Operation : Dumbo Drop so things are on the up and up. The last three gigs have been a wild ride.
DISCLAIMER : I will be discussing in great detail Iron Maiden’s set at Graspop so if you’re planning on seeing them this year or the next and want to be surprised do not read on.
Graspop, what an incredible experience. Death Angel went on at 2:40 in the afternoon which completely broke our day to day routine and really was a shock to the system playing that early but the set RULED! Thankfully we played inside a giant tent out of the blazing heat to a crowd of 15,000. We were completely up for the challenge and walked off that stage triumphant.
After the set I dared to make the quest of making it out to the Metal Market. It was no easy task wading through 60,000 drunken, sun beaten Metalheads but I found it. It was actually not even on the festival grounds but on a lot across the street. It took about a half an hour to get there but it was well worth it.
Within the market there was a giant record tent where I easily could have gone bankrupt. Thankfully I showed some self control and just picked a Scorpions radio broadcast from 1975 in Essen Germany which I believe is one of Rudy Lenners first gigs on the kit. The other was a complete 1977 demo Van Halen recorded for Warner Brothers. This is especially cool since there’s a few songs on here that I’ve either never heard or never seen on vinyl. Total score.
I couldn’t dilly daddle for too long because the event of the day/night was just a short hour away….MAIDEN!
When I returned to the backstage/catering area our tour manager mentioned that Steve Harris was standing “right over there” talking to Death Angel’s European booking agents. WHAT FUCKING LUCK!! That was my in. I walked up to one of our agents and being that I’ve never actually spoken to her before, she knew exactly why I was there. She smiled and tapped Steve on the shoulder and told him I was the drummer in DA and would like to meet him.
His response was “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of you guys”. I was so nervous I replied something that probably couldn’t be deciphered as an Earthen language. We shook hands, took the shot and I was satisfied.
Besides meeting Steve Harris this was a very unique and incredible experience and the most memorable Iron Maiden show I’ve ever seen. Since we had artist wristbands we were able to watch the show from the soundboard. But we went one further. Above the soundboard was a three story high tower that was meant for only personal guests of Maiden but our fearless merch person Christa led the charge up there and wouldn’t you know it, the person guarding the entrance was a Death Angel fan and loved our set. So Christa, Damien, Ted and myself got to watch the entire set above a crowd of 60,000.
Now, the set. As usual, they started the proceedings by blasting UFO’s “Doctor, Doctor” to get the massive crowd primed. Something they’ve been doing for years. This led to a taped and edited intro of “The Ides Of March”.
For this tour they are using an entire digital backdrop as opposed to many different fabric backdrops. During the intro on the screen was the scene of some seedy London back alleys as seen through the eyes of Eddie. Just imagine the buildings and streets of the first two Maiden albums (and a bunch of their early singles too) come to life. It was pretty fucking cool. This led to the first song, “Murders In The Rue Morgue”.
Now before I review the set any further I must address the new drummer, Simon Dawson. People have repeatedly said, including band members, that he plays more like Clive Burr than Nicko McBrain. In all honesty he plays like neither. His is a more simplistic approach to the songs which actually suits Iron Maiden of 2025 quite well. I think this is a wise approach as opposed to trying to replicate either previous drummer’s styles.
Let’s face it, there will always only be one Clive and there sure as fuck will only be one Nicko. With all of that said, homeboy COMPLETELY choked the snare roll at the very beginning of Murders. Not a strong way to start the set. Once things stabilized the song sounded great. The backdrop for this track was a sinister view of the Eiffel Tower.
“Killers” was up next with the album cover as the backdrop. The tempo was revved down a few clicks but it still delivered. Eddie made his first appearance on this song as well. Dressed in his classic jeans and leather jacket uniform and brandishing an axe. Bruce crept up behind him and grabbed his junk. Very entertaining.
“Phantom Of The Opera” followed and was absolutely one of the show highlights. I’m not entirely sure but I think this was the first time I’ve seen this track live. It sounded fucking AMAZING and the crowd went nuts for it. Remember, I was three stories above so I had the best view at the fest for crowd watching. The backdrop this song was the ominous interior of an opera house.
“Number Of The Beast” was next with lots of pyro and creepy clips from the original Nosferatu. Very effective.
Next we had one of my favorite Maiden tracks off of my favorite Maiden album, “The Clairvoyant”. This song always delivers live. The backdrop was the awesome artwork from the inner sleeve of Seventh Son. So far so great! Bruce and the boys are not sounding their age at all.
Then we had a trio of tracks from the epic Powerslave! The first being the title track. This is the first song of the set where they really started utilizing the digital backdrop with shifting versions of the album cover. The second track was “Two Minutes To Midnight” with the single artwork (one of my favorite Maiden art pieces) as the backdrop. At the end of the song the atomic bomb goes off to a blank white screen. Heavy stuff.
The third from Powerslave was none other than “Rime Of The Ancient Mariner”. Some people dread hearing this tune live. I am not one of those people. This is always a set highlight for me. This was actually the best rendition I’ve ever heard. The nautical themed story going on on the backdrop can’t be put to words to give it proper justice. Let’s just say with the top notch performance and the otherworldly visuals I was completely taken away to another world for 13 minutes.
After that sea faring voyage the boys reeled things back in with a snappy rendition of “Run To The Hills” with the single artwork as the backdrop.
Then the kid gloves came off and these motherfuckers kicked into “Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son”. This is peak Nicko drumming right here and I must say the new guy did an admirable job. Damien and I were rocking out HARD to this one. One of my all time favorites. A shifting album cover was the backdrop. Very cool indeed.
Next came “The Trooper" with Eddie making his second appearance, having donned his British military garb with the single artwork as the backdrop. This version of Eddie is most people’s favorite. I love it too but not quite as much as cyborg Eddie. That’s the shit right there.
The crowd went absolutely berserk for the following track, “Hallowed Be Thy Name”. Maiden did all kinds of theatrical new tricks for this one. Bruce sang the majority of the song in a cage atop one of the platforms. When the song picks up in tempo he broke free only to end up in the digital backdrop being chased by a specter. The entity chases Bruce to the edge of a cliff where he must choose to face certain death or death uncertainty. On the screen he jumps only to reappear back on stage amidst flames. It was seamless and quite impressive.
They ended the set with a pretty lethargic rendition of “Iron Maiden” but it was saved by the insane 3-D image of Eddie popping out of the screen. I mean it was freakish how real it looked. It literally looked like Eddie was leaning over the stage. I have no idea how they did it but it was magnificent.
The encore consisted of “Aces High”, “Fear Of The Dark” (puke) and “Wasted Years”. This is where Bruce’s age started to show. It was almost night and day how great he sounded earlier to how he sounded at this point of the show. Especially during “Aces”. He just can’t sing that song anymore and really shouldn’t. Aye, I’m not bagging the man. I could only be so lucky to still be performing at any capacity when I’m his age but he should know when to say when with some tunes. All in all it was an incredible show that I won’t soon forget.
The next day we played a co-headliner with Municipal Waste in Stuttgart, Germany which was a pretty disastrous show for me. Everything that could possibly have gone wrong did. My left kick beater flew out during “Voracious Souls”. Someone moved my rack toms forward a few inches without telling me so whenever I went for a snare roll my stick would catch the lip of the tom and my stick would go flying.
This basically fucked up the first three or four songs for me until we figured out what the problem was. And lastly my monitor blew out during our latest song “Wrath (Bring Fire)”. With all of this chaos going on I was still able to soldier through and I gotta give props to my band mates for picking up the slack and putting on one helluva performance.
The last show in Germany was an evening with Death Angel at this amazing spot we’ve played before called L.A. Cham. This place RULES!! It’s a total Texas Roadhouse BBQ kinda spot with hot rods and Americana all over the place.
They even let all 5 of us ride these gas powered go carts all over town. We had a guide of course but these things cooked! We were hitting 60 on some straightaways. I rear ended Mark at the very beginning and I thought to myself “Can I handle this?”. We all came back in one piece. That was the most fun I’ve had with the other four guys in the band. The food and the hospitality in general was fantastic. Hell, they even had proper tequila behind the bar. Great day/night indeed.
Another great thing about the L.A. Cham show was running into my brother from Vicious Rumors Geoff Thorpe who lives in Germany nowadays. It’s always great to catch up with the Thorpe. Actually Vicious Rumors are playing this same venue in 2 weeks. He seemed pretty stoked on the place and the enthusiastic turnout.
Today is a day off in Lyon, France. To be continued…
–Bleeding Priest
