Iron Maiden · The HU

Catrina, Preston, and I made the trip out for Maiden on the Future Past Tour, and we did it the right way: general admission, on the floor, standing room. There's something about being packed in down front for an Iron Maiden show that you just can't replicate from a seat. My last Maiden show had been the Legacy of the Beast tour with Carter Salmons, so this was my first time back, and Preston's first time seeing the band live.

The whole concept of this tour is what made it so much fun. The Future Past pairs Somewhere in Time — 1986, the synth-driven sci-fi record — with Senjutsu, the most recent album at the time. Past and future, bookends of the catalog separated by 35 years, played side by side. The stage design leaned hard into it: a Blade Runner–style cyberpunk dystopia with pyramid-arranged lighting rigs and additional screens deep in the set giving the whole thing a three-dimensional feel. It might be the best-looking Maiden production I've seen, and given how visual their shows always are, that's saying something.

The Doctor Doctor tape rolled, the Blade Runner end titles followed, and they came out of the gate with "Caught Somewhere in Time" into "Stranger in a Strange Land" — two songs that almost never get played live. That alone was worth the ticket. From there it was a deep run through Senjutsu — "The Writing on the Wall," "Days of Future Past," "The Time Machine," "Death of the Celts," "Hell on Earth" — woven together with more from Somewhere in Time including a thrilling "Alexander the Great," which the band had finally added to the live setlist on this tour for the first time ever. "Heaven Can Wait" was a highlight, "Fear of the Dark" got the whole floor singing, and the title-track "Iron Maiden" closed out the main set with Eddie making his usual appearance. The encore brought "The Trooper" and "Wasted Years" before the Monty Python "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" tape sent everyone home grinning.

Watching Preston take in his first Iron Maiden show, on the floor, standing next to Catrina and me, was something I'll hold onto. He's been a Maiden kid for a while, but seeing it live is its own thing. A perfect tour concept, executed perfectly.