Iron Maiden at IZOD Arena

Definition of a good show: when you're pissed off at Ticketmaster for screwing you over on your tickets but still have a great time. The scene: the IZOD Arena in the Meadowlands, which has become the more convenient version of the Nassau Coliseum to put on shows of this magnitude: too big for music halls in the City, too small to book at PNC or MSG or Giants Stadium. I saw Maiden there a year and a half ago from a well-placed set of seats, but this time around, I opted - along with a large group of other people I knew through a friend - to do the floor option instead. Little did I suspect that either the fix was in, or Ticketmaster made their ticket purchase page really confusing, but the end result was the same: when my wife and I got inside, we found that our tickets said "floor back" and our friends' tickets said "VIP." Functionally, this meant we were in the back half of the floor, and the rest of the lucky bastards got to work their way up front.

Here's the important point, though: getting stuck in the back pissed me off something fierce, because it put us in literally the worst spot in the whole arena, with the exception (maybe) of the poor souls all of the way up and in the back, who probably paid less than we did for the pleasure of watching a music video with a few glimpses of the band on stage. However, despite the crippling limitation on sight lines that left us mainly at the mercy of the venue camera director and whatever they decided to project on the screens, we still had a really good time, because Maiden put on such a good show. Playing about three quarters of the tracks from the Live After Death DVD, Maiden surrounded themselves with hieroglyphed tablets, mummy statues with red-glowing Eddie eyes, and enormous gorgeous backdrops with art from Powerslave, "The Trooper," "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," and Somewhere in Time. This was a conscious attempt at a big rock show, too: an Eddie robot, steam jets, flame jets, fireworks, a crowd of Maiden fans brought out to sing the bridge of "Heaven Can Wait." Then they blew us all away by almost apologetically promising us more with a return of the tour in June, hooking everyone on the spot for the next go. My favorite part of the night: "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," one of my favorite Maiden songs, done in all of the epic majesty it deserves.

And Bruce...Bruce Dickinson has reserved a special place in my heart. Far more than he did in the 2006 show - and in a way that reminded me of Russell Allen when I saw Symphony X last June - Bruce was storyteller as much as singer, adopting simple costuming - a red uniform jacket and Union Jack for "The Trooper," a shredded black cloak for "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" - and mannerisms and movements to bring his characters to life. Then there was the stage banter: self-mocking about his trademark "scream for me," teasing us with convoluted introductions ("Does anyone here like birds...or mythical creatures?"), telling stories during equipment changes that kept the pace of the show on track. If there's a bard of metal, it was Bruce that Friday night.

Maiden as an Analogy for Symphony X

After several days of discussion about Symphony X stemming from their (partial) participation in this show with my buddy Seth, I built up enough interest to go out and download their full catalog after years (literally - I bought V: The New Mythology Suite five or six years ago and I've seen them live twice since) of intending to do more exploration of the band's history. In general, I'm pleasantly unsurprised by what I'm hearing (i.e., I expected the music to be good and it is), but while listening to Symphony X, their first album, recorded with previous singer Rod Tyler I made some observations I felt I had to share.

Right from the first track, it was painfully obvious that Rod Tyler is no Russell Allen (the current singer). Lines that Allen would take completely over the top (as is appropriate for a power metal singer) leave Tyler's mouth in a comparatively tame fashion. That's not to say he's a bad singer - he's got a bit of vibrato and can hold a tune - but his style is somewhere between "reaching" and "completely wrong" for Symphony X's music. The analog that came to me immediately was Iron Maiden: Blaze Bailey isn't a bad singer, but when he sings Maiden he's a poor man's Bruce Dickenson and everyone knows it.

I also quickly noticed that, in addition to Tyler's shortcomings, the backup vocals on this album are absolutely wretched; at one point I swore I was listening to the results of Alvin and Chipmunks kicking Dave to the curb, dropping their voices a few octaves and forming a progressive metal band. To say that this album is an excellent illustration of the necessity of a strong singer and a good producer might be an understatement.

Then "Masquerade" came on. "Masquerade" is a rocking track and the band re-recorded it with Allen on vocals in 1998, releasing it on Prelude to the Millenium (and then again as a bonus track on The Odyssey). Listening to the original version (with the newer version in my head) I realized that Symphony X is a clear, clear illustration of why Maiden should rerecord The X Factor and Virtual XI. Both albums have their fair share of good songs that have done well when Maiden plays them live with Bruce at the helm - they're just lacking that touch that would put them in the same glorious group as almost everything else Dickenson has done with the band.