What an experience! I went down with my friend - we've seen Maiden a handful of times together already, though not on this tour - and we met up with Cram, his buddy, and Axeman. Had a couple beers, met up with some other people (the "models!") and went in. I saw the last three songs of Ghost. I think I get it, but it's not really my thing. I think some of it is lost in the translation (especially the part about the "female orgasms").
Maiden was amazing. I was on the floor right in front of Cram where he took the selfie (the girl on the left, to his right, was standing right next to me for most of the first half of the show, but then after a bunch of pushing my friend and I got moved up a couple of feet).
It was a little harder to hear where I was, but Bruce sounded, and looked, amazing. He's 58 and he was in CONSTANT motion for the whole set. I've never seen a guy - well, except him - run the length of the stage, run the length of the stage BACK, then jump ten feet to land in front of the mike then start singing his lines. His cardio has to be off the fucking charts.
Dave looked amused the whole show, Adrian looked happy (I have a great shot of him trying not to laugh while Bruce was wearing a monkey mask and playing with two inflatable Curious George balloons during Death Or Glory). Jannick had one GREAT solo - during Book of Souls, I think, though it might have been Blood Brothers - but did his usual guitar swirl/tuck the guitar under his arm nonsense. Harris was his usual momster self, as was Nicko.
Really impressed with the new stuff live. el Barto said once that The Red And The Black was always iffy; you didn't know what you were going to get, something great or something that dragged. At Barclay's, Night Two, we got GREAT. The second half was all jam and it was amazing. It was second least favorite of the new songs going in, but it was probably the best of the new songs in terms of performance.
Stage set was cool. Liked the "live" Eddie better than I thought I would, and LOVED the 'ead. I have some decent video of that as well. I'll try to upload what I can but it might take a day or so.
Bruce said more than once that they were going to be back soon, and at one point he said that they had some amazing ideas that were going to blow your mind, though he couldn't tell us right then "because he'd have to kill us". So it seems more than just idle "See you next time, Brooklyn!" nonsense.
Oh, I loved when Bruce threw the wife beater; before he did, he wrung it out (there was a flow of sweat from it) and after he threw it, he said "You might want to wash that one!". All the members interacted with each other - yes, including Adrian and Jannick - and Nicko gave great hugs to Dave in particular, but I don't recall Bruce interacting much with the others or than Dave and Nicko. Does anyone know the mood in the band now? Is it an operation like the Stones where there are friends, but they sort of tolerate each other - especially Bruce - because he's (still) the greatest frontman in metal and they have to?