You all know I geek out about Iron Maiden … but the time has (not come) to close our eyes …
The Legacy Of The Beast World Tour has begun … and the Beast Cowers in Shame and Envy. And when it it hits the stage in The States mid-month, the truth and the shit truly hits the fan.
The new Maiden album is rewriting (the history of) music. So I do proclaim the singularly named Maiden as the most important band in human history. Many Others have their right place, but few so glaringly without a weakness. So move over Beatles and Mozart, and Beethoven and Brahms, Stones and Zep, even Sabbath and Priest, and take your place slightly aside — note the placement proclaimed — behind God’s True Maiden.
How often, yes at times, does the set list, and song placement on that list, that a heavy metal band Chooses from its vault of all almost 200 that keep on topping themselves, (note we need to give an “average” set list because there are so many things to say), determine the place in which we find our worldwide culture (more on that later). “What we (were) are and what we have become …”
— By their fruits you will know them. Or their ice cream and if you hurry from the summer job that brought you a bit of extra cha-ching, spend it at Culver’s with that new cutie from homeroom. See Pick’s of the Week. —
You could write a book on the set-list picks, and what they all mean to the state our seven-continent and more culture, but lets just take a gander at these that include the golden goose. They show among many themes the true heart of the band. Revelations. The Sign of the Cross (not what it would seem). Hallowed Be Thy Name. The Clansman (about the oppression of the Scots and broadly the recurring chant of “Freedom,” as Iron Maiden does irony, you dummy). Both are seen in For The Greater Good Of God and Where Eagles Dare (about continuing war, and specifically WWII, a fave theme for all its even-more-revealed cruelty). Then of course Two Minutes to Midnight, about the metamorphic atomic clock. “We oil the jaws of the war machine and feed it with our babies.” Close even in Japan with Aces High. Oddly missing is Rime of the Ancient Mariner, as apparently there are things these days with more immediate import then lengthy philosophy. (And this 13-minute song would be tough to make room for, given their large arsenal). Included in its stage set is an implication that a House of Asia (actually three houses) will be the newer center of the world.
But and so, like to understand all of history, we first have to back up. Although my writings are not a doomsday machine, as I’ll leave that to Ozzy, The Writing on the Wall from the Book of Daniel is the ultimate cautionary tale about the very end, and then rebirth, of humankind — somehow cramming in a new religious, political and cultural reference every few seconds — with get this, Adam feeding an an apple to Eve, not vise versa. Note that grinding of the motorcycle wheels of a trio of saviors, yielding to one of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, guess which one of the three or four, then fades and gives way to Revelations and Fear of the Dark. But is it really an end, or indeed Mr. Crowley … “It is time to quell the wind and rain … the one who will be King, the watcher in the ring.”
— All eras have their strengths and maybe even more surmounting challenges, but today’s seem more importantly final and oddly personal with the onset of social media and all the twists and folds of modern technology. How often, yes at times, does the concert set list, and song placement on that list, that a heavy metal band Chooses from its vault of almost 200 that keep on topping themselves … determine the place in which we find our worldwide culture. “What we (were) are and what we have become …” —
Maybe when Bruce introduces himself and the band, and changes it up depending on the concert site and how far they are into the dozens of cities, he says it best for both today and the rest of human history. (Thus follows the Aces that were High as a Pilot of the Storm of WWII … All eras have their strengths and maybe even more surmounting challenges, but today’s seems more final with the state of nuclear war and drones and “better kinds of death,” and immediate and oddly personal with the onset of social media).
Here we go, per frontman Bruce with well chosen words from some of their classic songs, (“The devil knows the time is short?), slightly paraphrased as on this Labor Day I am not laboring enough to run through the concert footage again:
It has been what, one or two or three years (before we have been before you) … These years have been f—— crazy. But tonight all of that stops, (said with theatrical pause). We have people from all over the world here tonight. We don’t care what country you are from. Or what color you are. Or what God you bow down to. Or any God … We are the brothers and sisters of Iron Maiden.