Live review: Iron Maiden, London Stadium

“Welcome to this amazing evening,” grins Bruce Dickinson, gladhanding the 75,000 people in front of him at the home of West Ham. “It’s a homecoming for Steve, and a homecoming for us after 50 bloody years.”

One week from tonight, Black Sabbath will take one final bow, a stone’s throw from the Birmingham streets that birthed them, at Aston Villa’s ground. Tonight, with an equally bassist-pleasing location, Iron Maiden have come back to their spiritual home, not Donington Park, but the East End of London.

That it’s taken the band half a century to do the most Maiden thing and book themselves into Steve Harris’ holy stadium only makes tonight even more of a celebration. And though this tour is one that looks back, concentrating on roughly the first quarter of their lifespan, from 1980’s self-titled debut through 1992’s Fear Of The Dark, rarely have they been as charged, vital and energised as they are tonight.

At six o’clock, as those still making the transition from pub to venue are in the process of being turned into human jerky by the sun, The Raven Age have a weather update. “Tell you what, it’s a bit fuckin’ hot in here,” grins singer Matt James, apparently not noticing the mass of melted skin gathered in front of him, or the fact that he’s wearing a jacket. With the sun still up, he does the get-your-phone-lights-up thing, admitting that it’s probably a lost cause in blinding daylight. What does work in a big place like this in the early evening, though, are melodic metal bangers like Forgive & Forget and The Day The World Stood Still, sounding far beefier than they do on record, leaving The Raven Age looking very comfortable and confident in such a beast of a setting.

As do Halestorm, with the added feature of Lzzy Hale being the most excited person in the whole place. She arrives clad in a cape, drops the chunky second half of opener Fallen Star by yelling “Kick it!”, and generally carries on like She-Ra with a guitar. West End theatre’s loss is very much rock’s gain. Tonight, the Pennsylvania pounders play furiously, as if they’re running to catch up with themselves, and through I Miss The Misery and Freak Like Me they’re potent. For someone with such a big voice, Lzzy also has a scream full of gravel, which gets a particularly heavy bang-for-buck airing. There’s still no need for Arejay Hale’s drum solo, but even so, Halestorm go down a storm.

None of this actually matters, though. As an intro video of Eddie-fied East London – The Cart And Horses, Leytonstone Tube, The Blind Beggar – start to roll, there isn’t another band in the world. Not Halestorm, not The Raven Age, not Linkin Park playing diagonally across London at Wembley, nobody at Glastonbury – only Maiden. Even so, as they arrive and rip into Murders In The Rue Morgue, you’re not prepared for just how feisty they are. Be it the sense of occasion, the digging out of some of these old songs, whatever it is, as they bowl into a brawling Killers and shout-along Wrathchild, the unfussy rawness makes this leviathan venue feel like a rough pub.

New skinsman Simon Dawson gets an introduction - “You may have noticed the drum kit’s got a bit smaller,” notes Bruce, “and we’ve got a drummer you can actually see!” – and although nobody will ever be able to lay out the road for these songs quite like the retired Nicko McBrain, he does an impossible job excellently. It’s even more of a big thing to take on when you consider the breadth of what Maiden did in the 12 years from which this set draws, from the direct hammerings of the earliest stuff in the opener, through epics like Phantom Of The Opera and Hallowed Be Thy Name, to mega-hits Run To The Hills and The Number Of The Beast.

The production is also on another level. As things expand from one-two early stuff to the high drama that follows, there isn't a moment not represented with perfect visuals.

The horror clips during NOTB eerily changing artwork during Powerslave (for which Bruce emerges in full face mask) are easily some of the best Maiden have ever had. But it’s during the massive Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, getting aired for the first time in almost 20 years on this tour, that you get properly bowled over. “We’re in East London, quite close to the sea,” notes Bruce, as the screens fill with images of vast, frozen oceans and the song’s doomed ship. During the lengthy, bass-led abyss in the middle, the stage fills with fog, the screens with souls in the murky ocean, and 75,000 people in a boiling hot football stadium are suddenly there in the claustrophobic void. It’s fantastic.

Tonight was always going to be an easy win. But Maiden have never been about easy. For 50 years, they have played like they have everything to lose, and a day they need to seize. Which is why, even with an historic setlist like this, there are still curveballs among the classics, why they do things as against gravity as delivering a near-14 minute song based on a 19th century poem to this many people. A salute to the late Paul Di’Anno would have been a nice touch, as would something from the entirely absent No Prayer For The Dying. On every other level, though, as the mandatory chorus of Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life comes over the PA following the encore – with Steve, rather endearingly, changing into a football shirt – you exit once again marvelling that this is the greatest heavy metal band ever to exist, and they have never been better than they are right now. These, these are the golden years…

Final score: 666 – nil.

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