Review Summary: The overriding feeling you get from Maiden when watching this is they just wake up and piss an ingrained, graceful class.
There’s a scene here when the world renowned colossal metal beast Iron Goddamn Maiden is playing somewhere in South America they had never been to (one fan self-admitted it was the “ass” of the world), and a fan catches a drum stick hurled by totally badass drummer Nicko McBrain. The dude is literally sobbing for what appears to be hours after the show has ended, overcome by raw emotion, fervently clutching the canvass hammer like the memory of his fist sexual conquest. It’s a great moment in film that you can just tell wasn’t scripted, and it says more than any words can about the power of riffs and music.
This is a documentary about Maiden on the first leg of their "Somewhere Back in Time" tour, and for even a passing Maiden fan, an absolutely essential viewing. Maiden have been around for 40 years and have something like 943 live albums and are pretty much the best live band ever, but this particular tour was more than routinely metalling the absolute sh*t out of 20,000 seat stadiums, this was an logistical achievement of epic proportions. They traveled over 50,000 miles in 45 days and played 23 shows in 21 countries in 5 continents. Read that again. Now realize these guys were all around 50 years old. Then realize that aside from being a totally rad fencer and the band’s singer, Bruce Dickinson was the Goddamn PILOT of the plane. The entire band, crew, their equipment, families, wives, groupies, teams of dentists, and guitars of might all fit on a 757 with sweet Eddie decals that Bruce flew around the world with the grace of a champion.
Maiden was playing massive shows with rabid, insanely loyal fans across the world. These are people that have over 250 Eddie tattoos, loyalists that camped out for over a week to get into the show despite having their food and water confiscated by their commie government, roustabouts that besieged every airport and hotel with the force of 500,000 menstruating female teenagers in the Beatles heyday, and hooligans that serenaded their heroes with mighty OLE soccer chants. In country after country, there was an overpowering force of unrivaled adoration. To these people, many who have literally nothing but the awesomeness of riffs and metal to calm their starving stomachs, Maiden are serious business.
More than anything, that reverence is what this film is about
: hero worship, and the gregarious, graceful way the revered metal Gods repay their throngs of followers with legendary performances, epic sing-alongs, and riffs that are among the best riffs ever. The music itself is predictably fantastic, all of the material is from their first 7 albums. Every member is an exceptional tactician, and effortlessly executes epic song structures and leads/fills/yelps/bass gallops of Goddamn truth. The overriding feeling you get from Maiden when watching this is they just wake up and piss an ingrained, graceful class. For that, they will always be loved, and for good reason. There is and only can be one, and never let it be said that Iron Maiden are not transcendent to their faithful. Up the F*cking Irons.
