Iron Maiden

 Iron Maiden
 Legacy of The Wombat Tour
 Barclays Center
 Brooklyn, NY
 July 27, 2019 

An Iron Maiden is defined as “an instrument of torture consisting of a coffin-shaped box lined with iron spikes.” After spending 2 hours listening to the band, I can honestly say I would have preferred the coffin-shaped box. 

The “Legacy of the Wombat” tour made its stop at The Barclays center in Brooklyn, NY. There is no place like Brooklyn in the summer. It takes 5 hours to get there, even from Brooklyn. I enjoyed the subway ride though. It was a balmy 150 degrees underground and the stench of urine was invigorating. 

I was poked, prodded, strip searched and violated. (And that was just in the men’s room.) I finally make it to my seat and relax, so I can get a good dose of people watching before the show. I love that Iron Maiden fans are a diverse crowd. Of course, by diverse I mean entirely 50 year old white dudes wearing black Maiden T-Shirts and mom jeans. 

The show opens with “Aces High”, lead singer Bruce Dickinson is wearing a pilots hat and there is a real life plane over head. I run for the hills as I am reminded of the Vic Morrow tragedy during the filming of The Twilight Zone movie. 

We all survive the plane, so Dickinson endangers our lives further during “Flight of the Icarus”. Dickinson comes out waving a flame thrower. The first 7 rows lose their eyebrows. A clever guy pulls out a pack of hot dogs and cooks them right there. I have to say they were pretty tasty. 

There are lots of costume changes, swashbuckling, and dramatic theater. I check with security to see if I made a wrong turn and ended up at The Helen Hayes Theater. No, this is not “Pirates of Penzance”. It is more like “Bruce and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”.  It is Spinal Tap meets broadway. 

For every song, they pump more smoke into the crowd. At one point they ran out of smoke and had to connect a hose to one of the tour bus tail pipes. Even that couldn’t calm down this crowd. It was a sea of fist pumping, devil horns and poorly done “Eddie” tattoos. It is a Beavis and Butthead wet dream. 

The show closed with an epic 35 minute version of the band’s classic “Run for the Hills”.  I counted 9 guitar solos, 2 drum solos and a 9 minute crowd sing along of the line, “Run for the hills, run for your life”. I would have been happy with 1 minute of that, but to each his own. 

Remember folks, D minor is the saddest of all keys! Now how do I find the subway from here?