Iron Maiden @ Sweden Rock Festival 2023-06-09

Iron Maiden is arguably Sweden Rock’s biggest name this year and as always the anticipation is high. Last time I say them at Sweden Rock was a bit of a disappointment. 2023 the band returns with a somewhat ballsy setlist – just the fact that they leave out the classic Maiden anthems The Number of The Beast and Run To The Hills for one thing! Personally I would not have minded if they dropped Fear of The Dark instead, but I applaud the bravery.

Maiden opens in a furious tempo -no signs of age related fatigue here! I am still baffled by the fact that Bruce Dickinson, who struggled a bit with his voice towards the end of his first tenure with Maiden, almost 25 years after his return he sings better than ever. I still wonder what he did to his voice during his leave of absence.

Last time at Sweden Rock was an endless stretch of men in their 60’s fighting monsters with plastic Swords and flame-throwers. All that was cool when I was a teenager, but now it is just silly. Thankfully Maiden now presents us with a much more mature show. Of course there are a couple of brief encounters with monsters and such – otherwise it would not be Maiden – but thankfully they keep it brief.

Unfortunately the sound is a disafter at times. During the first songs when I was up front the sound was excellent, but later on when I moved further back it was to low and it kept drifting with the gusts of wind. The problem is probably the lack of speakers in the pylons in the middle of the crowd. During the last hour I moved even further back and that placed me behind the back pylons, which had speakers and that made a huge difference.

I don’t want to blame Maiden for the sound. It is probably the festival organizers who are to blame. Iron Maiden makes one of their best performances I have seen in quite a while. Still it does not reach the levels of Dickinson’s reunion tour back in 1999, but I can’t see how it could considering that is among the top 5 concerts I have seen.

As mentioned above the setlist shows guts. The encore consists of Hell on Earth, from the latest album Senjutsu, The Trooper and the very unexpected finale Wasted Years, which actually works excellently as a closing number.

After my last encounter with Maiden I was pleasantly surprised by tonight’s effort. Maybe they were still high on the fumes after West Ham Uniteds first European title, winning the UEFA Conference League a couple of days ago!

Up the Irons!

Who: Iron Maiden
Where: Sweden Rock Festival
When: 2023-06-09
Rate: 8/10