Iron Maiden

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Leeds Festival 2005

Friday 26th to Sunday 28th August 2005
Bramham Park, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS23 6ND, England MAP
£125 for weekend (including camping) - SOLD OUT, £60 for any day

Daily capacity: 55,000

Iron Maiden have a solid reputation for being one of the best live acts around, and after this performance at Leeds, it was easy to see why! This had everything you could possibly want at a festival - good solid rock music played how it should be played, fast and very LOUD!

Frontman Bruce Dickinson, commanded the stage like a the true pro that he is, the backdrops kept evolving like a slideshow to reveal gigantic drawings of Eddie and other classic Maiden artwork from their lengthy career. Some bands use gimmicks to distract you from noticing how bad their music is, whereas with Iron Maiden, they use it to enhance the entire live music experience.

Bruce even made several costume changes throughout the set, and considering how old he is, I can only hope that I am able to be as fit as he is when I reach a similar age. Not only was his fitness impressive but his brutally honest perception of the Leeds festival being split into Metal and Indie music over the three days was impressive as well - he even highlighted it to the audience when he spoke to them by saying “Some of you wouldn't be seen dead buying an Iron Maiden album. But this track, if you don't get what Iron Maiden are about with this song, you're fucked.” Just before belting out one of Maiden's best pieces of work ‘Phantom Of The Opera’.

With such a hugeback catalogue, their time on stage seemed to go by extremely fast - a full two hours had flown by - and the classics like ‘Run to the Hills’ and ‘The Number Of The Beast’ once again seemed to be the crowd favourites.

Iron Maiden proved that they are still hard to beat when it comes to playing live! A fantastic choice to finish the first night at Leeds off!