Milton and the Devils Party – What Is All This Sweet Work Worth?

Milton and the Devil’s Party want you to know how smart they are. The quote P.B. Shelly in the liner notes. Their name is explained at length in the liner notes as well. But, the music contained inside just doesn’t sound that smart. It sounds banal, and oh so familiar. What Is All This Sweet Work Worth? is the sound of a band not sure of what they are. Are they a serious band that makes serious music? Or are they a funny band, that makes memorable, though silly songs? The battle rages throughout the album.

Based out of Philadelphia, and formed by two English professors, Milton and the Devil’s Party want to make a perfect mixture of power pop: the bitterness of Matthew Sweet, the hooks of Semisonic, and the irony of Brendan Benson. They just don’t do it that well. There are glimpses of hope on the album, though. The stinging guitar lead on “Heathen Eden” mixed with the ultra sweet chorus of “And he knew, just when his luck would end/It was love at first sin/In this heathen eden.” The opening jangle of barnburner “Have You Been Around?” opens the album on a promising note. “Theodicy Club” comes very close to rocking out. “Ugly American” presents what American’s look like to other countries. It’s commentary, and smart lyrics make it a highlight.

Frontman Daniel Robinson’s voice falls somewhere between Matthew Sweet and the nasal whine of oh so many singers’ out there today. His lyrics don’t seem to really hold up to all the hyperbole. The worst offender being “Nude for Satan” with lines like, “…And now you’re not going to be ashamed/You’ll dance about so your mammaries bounce.” Maybe the song is a stinging commentary of the pornography age that we currently seem to dwell in these days of the internet. Or maybe it’s just a really idiotic song. “Live Without Me” lacks any kind of soul. “Perfect Breasts” shows that, like most men, Robinson likes boobies. Wow, what insight. “My Most Immemorial Year” opens with a sandpaper riff, but quickly fails to deliver on it’s promise.

The album’s 14 tracks lack any kind of variance, and that makes it a boring listen. The production lacks any sort of kick, with the vocals mixed way high up, and the drums sounding tinny and light. The album’s two closers of “Been Here All Along” and “End of the Affair” are typical examples of how the production can hurt a song.

There is no shame in not delivering a “great” album the first time you try. There are glimpses of hope on What Is All This Sweet Work Worth? to think that one day Milton and the Devil’s Party will deliver an album of heart, smarts, and catchy tunes. But What Is All This Sweet Worth Work? isn’t that album.

Of Montreal – Satanic Twins

In this age of mashups (which, in case you haven’t been reading the blogs, is when you take two different songs and mix them together to create an occasionally decent synthesis), it is rare to find one that is done seriously and not done out of morbid curiosity or for comedic effect. Yes, it is very funny that “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” has the same chord progression as “Wonderwall”, and it is oh-so-witty to put “Fuck The Police” over “Ode To Joy”, but given the technology now available, mashups should be used artistically to take music into new territory.

Greg Gills, aka Girl Talk, has the right idea- straying from the novelty factor of mashups, focusing more on the collage aspect- the ability to take bits and pieces of music and place them next to other snippits, creating something greater and radically different than the individual parts. Gills meticulously crafts his songs, turning them into a sort of aural Jackson Pollock- seemingly arbitrary splotches of timbre bleed together in organized chaos. If you have not heard Girl Talk’s most recent album, Night Ripper, stop reading right now and pick it up (even though it received a less than stellar review from a fellow DOA reviewer).

It goes in the direction Of Montreal (though technically, Of Montreal did not remix any songs on the album- but for I will hold them responsible for giving the album the go ahead) wants to go with Satanic Twins, a collection of remixes from their last two albums, Satanic Panic In The Attic and Sunlandic Twins. Listening to the album, I get the feeling that Satanic Twins wanted to be a mashup album, and an interesting and diverse one at that, but instead ended up being rudimentary remixes. Not because Of Montreal isn’t talented enough- on the contrary, I think Of Montreal is one of the best bands out there right now. Their song writing is fantastic, their sound, while drastically different from earlier years, is tight and rich, and their live show is energetic and engaging.

They easily could have done some provocative mashups. No, the problem with Satanic Twins is lackluster execution. The album sounds like a slapped together remixes with some techno beats thrown in, not the true snythesis of two polar opposite albums it could have been- Satanic Panic In The Attic being more pop-rock and Sunlandic Twins being more disco-dance hall electronica. It’s great source material: Satanic Twins could have been awesome if it played more with the jarring sonic differences in the two albums and searched for some sort of commonality between the two, rather than take the easy way out and keep the two albums separate.

Tossing Fruity Loops quality samples over looped riffs and vocals is the easy way out, and is frankly, a waste of potential. I wish Of Montreal would have given more thought to the album and tried mashing the two together, because these remixes don’t cut the mustard. Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, scheduled to be released later this year/early next year, should set the band back on track.

The Close – Sun, Burn

There was a first impression built beyond my normal expectations when I received this. Terms tossed around like “D.C. post-hardcore” and “The Dismemberment Plan”, Jawbox” had me expecting something in my line of duty. The advertising is slightly false, as it didn’t pan out to become the album I was hoping for. Sun, Burn delivers like a depressed Built to Spill with minor D.C. influenced guitar spurts.

Obviously, the sparsely included angular parts are the better ideas established. If all the tracks shared the spirit of “Sun, Shine,” this might as well be called my Pick of the Week. There’s nothing catchier than hearing flurries of choppy riffs. Predominantly though, songs are plainly paced, which has a life draining effect. The female keyboardist takes the forefront vocally during “On the List,” but her melodies rub off as creepy sounding, and “The John and Donna Thing” sums up what negates my interest the most, it’s practically sleep inducing.

I can fully appreciate the album’s swaggering excerpts, but the rest feels too relaxed.

The Hidden Cameras – Awoo

Although much has been made of the “out-and-proud” homoeroticism of Joel Gibb’s Canadian collective – The Hidden Cameras – behind all the risque gesticulation beats a heart of unpretentious pop ambition. So whilst numerous borderline-homophobic hacks hunting for an easy angle on Gibb’s muse have headed directly for the randy lyrical content of songs like “Golden Streams,” “The Man That I Am With My Man” and “I Want Another Enema,” many have missed the painfully obvious importance of The Hidden Cameras; Gibb and co. make fantastically soulful and tuneful pop records. Perhaps acknowledging such complicit distractions, this fourth Hidden Cameras long-player is rather more a – no-pun intended – straight-ahead affair.

Peeling back the sweeping Phil Spector-meets-Pet Sounds orchestral and vocal-choir embellishments that deliciously drenched the group’s last two albums 2003′s The Smell of Our Own and 2004′s Mississauga Goddam – Awoo focuses on a re-prioritisation of the band’s aesthetic arrangements. First precedence now goes to Gibb’s towering nasal-twanging tones; one part Lee “The La’s” Mavers, one part pre-Monster Michael Stipe and one part Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys. Close behind comes lithe Sterling Morrison-meets-Johnny Marr guitar shapes and a small, subtly deployed, string section to underpin the melodic generosity pouring forth by the oil tanker load.

With less overt lyrical and instrumental accoutrements to divert lazier ears, Awoo finds The Hidden Cameras just getting on with delivering thirteen golden universal pop nuggets. Frankly, you could pick pretty much any song at random and be guaranteed either a gorgeous slab of jubilation or a bittersweet drop of beatification. From the Anglicized pop bliss of “Death of a Tune,” “Learning The Lie” and “For Fun,” via the apoplectic-gabbling of “Lollipop” (essentially R.E.M.’s “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” blurred into the Velvet Underground’s “We’re Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together”) through to the baroque swooning of “Hump From Bending” and the honeyed-harmonies of “The Waning Moon,” Gibb’s gift for intelligent but gleeful musical-hooks is self-evident. His knack for sad-eyed but uplifting tenderness is also clearly palpable, with the likes of “She’s Gone” echoing Morrissey at his least emotionally-guarded and the swooning “Fee Fie” oozing Scott Walker-like string-soaked pathos.

For all the positive comparisons with the great and good of musical history – including indeed The Hidden Cameras back catalogue – the defining and driving essence of Awoo comes from a very astute and imaginative place indeed; Joel Gibb�s own head. And right now, that’s a great place to visit, regardless of your inbuilt sonic or sexual persuasions.

The Melvins – We Reach: The Music of The Melvins

In a few adjectives, here’s the outsider’s cocktail-party crib-sheet on We Reach, an 18-track love letter to underground legends The Melvins: long overdue, sometimes intense but, ultimately, pretty disposable. If you’re not a fan of The Melvins, you can pretty much stop reading right there. For those who worship at the altar of King Buzzo, Dale Crover and whoever’s filling in on bass for them this year, the record, released with apparent blessings from Ipecac Recordings, is a slightly different story.

There’s little doubt there’s an audience for an epic Melvins tribute and even less doubt that the group, whose early recordings were pressed to vinyl 20-odd years ago, deserves one. The questions become who steps up to the challenge of covering the group and what they pull from the ever-expanding canon. The answers seem to be a lot of metal and throat-shredding post-hardcore acts mimicking material that’s heavy on The Melvins’ Atlantic Records years.

Does it work? Well, that depends on where you’re standing. If you like faithful renditions hammered out by bands clearly influenced by their forebear’s thundering delivery, then yes. You’ll get The Dillinger Escape Plan’s blistering rendition of “Honey Bucket,” from Houdini, and easily recognizable takes on “Zodiac” (from Strapping Young Lad) and “Oven” (from High On Fire/Keelhaul). The rage seethes on the dirgy “Boris,” reproduced herein with horror-film fangs by Isis and Agoraphobic Nosebleed. The cacophonous wallop of Mastodon tackling “The Bit,” from Stag, alone might be worth tracking down the disc.

But, as much fun as it might be to hear Maritime Murder’s lightning-footed “Copache” or the straight-forward crunch of Absentee’s “Revolve,” the disc seems to suffer from a lack of invention. For musicians paying tribute to a group known to experiment with formulas, inject dark humor into the proceedings or toy with audience expectations, everyone’s hesitating to stray from the script. Sure, the disc begins with a Cerberus Shoal-like take on the revered “Nightgoat” from Mare and closes with Pincer 2 pulling a play-time Patton on “Echohead/Don’t Piece Me,” but much of what falls between those tracks is the expected sludge and roar. (If I wanted to hear The Melvins, wouldn’t I listen to The Melvins?)

There are, of course, exceptions. Dog Fashion Disco packs all the fury of “Anaconda” into the track’s distorted guitars but they underline the murderous insinuations of the original with sometimes-whispered vocals and, believe it or not, a piano line that borders on the sinister. CKY/Gnarkill cranks up the record-industry-must-be-destroyed commentary on “Laughing With Lucifer At Satan’s Sideshow.” Others don’t seem to take the offer to appear as a dare to push the envelope as much as a chance to paint by numbers. Blessing The Hogs kills the subversive joys of “Hog Leg,” which The Melvins framed on Eggnog with unhinged guitar feedback and that bizarre Christian prayer cut-up, by simply barking the introduction and storming through the proceedings. Made Out of Babies stumbles through “Bar X The Rocking M.” Eyehategod’s lo-fi recording of “Easy As It Was” sounds less like a studied homage than a rip-off of the 10 Songs master.

There are other debates sure to be triggered by the disc, most centering around song selections and what’s missing. (No “It’s Shoved?” No “Mombius Hibachi?” No “Charmicarmicat?” No “Dr. Geek?” No “Ever Since My Accident?”) But, when it comes to tribute outings, those are the breaks and the bottom line’s just as familiar as the record’s tracks. For The Melvins completist, this one’s worth finding. For the listener with only passing curiosity, it’s better to pass this up in favor of the originals.

The USA Is A Monster – Sunset at the End of the Industrial Age

Everybody hates hippies. That hippies suck is the one assumption that jocks and geeks, punks and emo kids, even cats and dogs, can agree on. Patch wearin’, incense burnin’, peace lovin’, Lennon-quotin’ hippies are the bane of many a man’s existence. If I owned a gun (which I don’t), I’d go Cheney on those tie-dye motherfuckers. Can anyone name even one hippie worth saving in this unfair world?

I can, in fact, name two: Tom Hohmann and Colin Langenus, aka The USA Is A Monster. I recently witnessed these Monsters live and dreadlocks and Dead shirts abound. But these aren’t your average vapid hippies. These men have wise souls, deriving their strength from the earth’s aura. Though honestly, who doesn’t these days?

I wouldn’t normally dwell on this trivial shit, but it surprised me that these guys are actually punk rockers disguised as hippies, hopping from town to town, delivering their idiosyncratic brand of boisterous jams at decrepit DIY spaces. That Brooklyn-based USAIAM resides on Load Records should’ve tipped me off; they share the manic intensity and sheer volume of label mates Lightning Bolt. There must be some mind melding between New York bands, too, because The USA Is A Monster croon in cult chants similar to Oneida. Grok!

Speaking of Native Americans, USAIAM’s lyrics predict the end of the hostile industrial age while relating the turbulent past, present, and future of native life to the listener. But the rapacious “entrepreneurs” fueling this industrial age do not look kindly upon the natives or dissenters. USAIAM, who acts The Man in “How We Are Livin,’” warns, “Do not get beyond your time period, liberals/ Man is for war!” Bogus!

Pretty heavy topics for two unassuming guys from the Rotten Apple, right? Through lack of pretension and an ecstatic delivery, Hohmann and Langenus pull it off. As in closer “The Spirit of Revenge”, our boys often sing in staccato bursts, a syllable per smack of the drum: “It-al-ways-falls-a-part-e-ven-with-your-strength”. Don’t expect any choruses, either. Few phrases are repeated at any point during Sunset at the End of the Industrial Age, which is good, for it leaves them more lines to vocalize. The boys approach the subject matter with such curiosity and wild abandon that even cheesy lines about rainbows and salmon sound downright intriguing. No shit, the lyrics compel on this record. I can’t get enough of them. In fact, songs about Indian rites (“Okeepa Ceremony”) and speaking with Grey Owls (“Voices to be Heard”) steal the show. Righteous!

The reason these songs kick so much ass, though, stems from a great musical foundation. Both musicians are octopuses with their instruments. The drummer also tickles the whites and blacks, rocks a key-tar, and handles the low end with a footboard. The guitarist steps on a sea of pedals spread around him like Neil Peart’s drum set. They slay like a band with twice the membership. The opening suite “The Greatest Mystery”/”Sunset at the End of the Industrial Age” stretches for almost twenty minutes and contains almost as many movements. Soaring Casio tones, guitar cum shots, campfire strums, salvos of loud, and hissing static flow effortlessly into one another, culminating a monotone Om of keyboards. Heavy!

Thankfully, not every song breaks the ten-minute mark. Terse statements like “Voices to be Heard” and “Okeepa Ceremony” stick out in the middle of Sunset like Day-Glo on camo. “Ceremony”’s triumphant punk lick is USAIAM’s blood, and “Voices”’s throb beats that blood through its veins. Taste the vibrations!

The USA Is A Monster provides a stunning example of wrongful stereotyping on my part. I think I may have discovered something about myself. I…don’t… think… I… hate… hippies… no… more. No, wait- of course I do. But these Monsters taught me something. I just might give my smelly brethren a second chance. Sometimes you’ve got to admit you’re wrong, even when animosity feels so right, right? Now let’s spark that record, man. I want to take me higher.

Lousy Robot – Smile Like You Are Somewhere Else

October is a weird month here in the Pacific Northwest. From the minute spring temperatures rise above 60 degrees up until now, people flock outside to enjoy the endless green forests and shining waters. Every summer I look around me and think there can’t possibly be another place as amazing as this area. And then the reason my mom has nicknamed this area “The Great North Wet” begins to set in. With everyone’s spirits falling with each dark cloud that rolls in, happy music is definitely a necessity.

Today was probably the last day I would hear lawn mowers ’til April and those sunny, 70-degree days are over. So in my depressed state, I reached for Lousy Robot out of the stack of albums sitting on my desk since they promised me upbeat tunes recommended for those who enjoyed the music of The New Pornographers. However, being a fan of the Canadian singer-songwriter super group, I have to say I do not agree with this comparison.

“Welcome All to My Weird Awakening” opens the album with guitar-based music you would be more likely to hear on an album by Jet than New Porn. I was immediately disappointed because I just can’t get on that bandwagon. However, The Lousy Robot, completely turned it around for me in track two with the hand-clapping, catchy harmony-filled, pop bliss of “It’s Getting To Me”. I particularly enjoy the ending with the guitar melody fighting for the spotlight with the high-pitched piano plinking. This is easily one of my favorite tracks on the record.

The roller coaster continues, however, with “Mile Low Club” that has quite possibly the most annoying keyboard notes grating in repetition in the background. The best part about this song is that it doesn’t last very long and is really just an intro to the following track “Help Me Count The Ways I Say Yeah”. While this song may be better than its intro, it has little to offer with both the lyrics and the music. But if all you want is upbeat, danceable tunes that will make you feel good, then this will do it for you although that’s about all it will do.

A few more non-attention-grabbing songs later and we come to “Slower” which is, surprisingly enough, slower than the rest of the album. A simple piano melody opens the first 45 seconds before hushed vocals enter the scene followed by some 80’s style guitar layered into the background with drums and electronic strings. The vocals in this song are a little hard to understand and kind of mumble their way through the lyrics but it fits the style of the song. I enjoyed this break among the up-tempo post-punk poppers but my mellow enjoyment is slapped in the face when “The Man Who Has Everything” takes the tempo back up again with some electric guitar likely to be heard on several other albums in this genre.

Luckily, the album closes with “A Way Of Overstating” a delightful piano-based pop tune that rivals “It’s Getting To Me”. This lower tempo song leaves me with the feeling that this group makes the best music when the band sits just under the upbeat mark. As soon as they take their music to the danceable level, it gets lost. I’d like to see what they could do if they explored their talent for layering lush harmonies and mid-tempo musical happiness a little further than a couple tracks.

Parhelia – First Light

Instrumental music is a tough style for many people to relate to. With no vocals to be had you are either going to find yourself disinterested or sucked in to the music. There isn’t much middle ground, because let’s face it – if you think of instrumental music as background noise you aren’t likely to slip the disc in more than once in a blue moon. So, instrumental music has to be engaging enough to keep your attention and that can be a tough feat to accomplish.

Irish quartet Parhelia is well on its way to achieving this goal. First Light is the group’s third self-released EP; the first two were recorded under the band’s previous name, Revile, and this is their first as Parhelia. The foursome features bass, drums, and two guitar players – one of which also dabbles in samples. The first thing you will notice about Parhelia is that the four members are quite adept musicians and they play well together.

The EP opens with the title track, which corresponds beautifully with the cover art. It seems Parhelia is attempting to catch that delicate moment between nighttime and daybreak in the songs here. “First Light” comes on quietly and then slowly and softly builds in intensity. Next up is “A Second Changes Everything” is very laidback and features a bit of atmospheric electronica. This one reminds me of the soundtrack to one of those time lapse videos of a flower blooming. The sound gets a bit more progressive on “Cloudbreak” and this track finds Parhelia experimenting with sound a bit more. “Ebb/Flow” and “Waves Turn” round out the EP with more soft, carefully crafted rock.

An EP with only five tracks seems the way to go for Parhelia, as I believe anything longer than five or six songs might be a bit much at this point in the members’ careers. I want to see these guys continue on this path, but also reach further into their imaginations for inspiration. I like the theme on First Light, but I think Parhelia can take it one step further. This is a great debut EP under the new moniker and I’m looking forward to bigger and better things from this group.

The Draft – In A Million Pieces

The Draft plays solid, driving rock songs with a strong post-punk influence. The band includes members of the recently defunct Hot Water Music. That band took its name from a Bukowski book; other than that, I don’t know much about HWM.

Nevertheless, The Draft’s debut album, In A Million Pieces, is an album punk rock fans should enjoy. I know because I don’t like this music and the album still sounds good. What’s more, the group-shouted choruses, which I normally think are stupid, sound entirely appropriate here. True, the vocals are probably layered rather than sung in chorus, but don’t sweat the small stuff.

In A Million Pieces is well produced but, thankfully, not nearly as polished and youthful sounding as product from power pop bands like Houston Calls or Blink 182. The album, clocking in at just under 37 minutes in length, dashes from beginning to end, feet pounding the pavement. That is the strength of the album: it plays from start to finish without becoming redundant or grating on the ears.

The flip side of that coin is that people who like extremes in their music could be bored to tears. Listeners will find no virtuoso guitars, no bowel-born screaming; there is no twee sugariness or emotive sentimentality.

In A Million Pieces features a number of strong tracks, including the opener, “New Eyes Open”, track 5, “Bordering”, and track 8, “Not What I Wanna Do”. All of these are good examples of what The Draft do – write strong post-punk and post-hardcore inspired rock songs with catchy choruses and plenty of momentum. This is an easy recommendation for fans of Hot Water Music or other post-punk bands.

Bullet For My Valentine – Hartford – Dodge Music Center, CT – 2006-10-04

The typical large-venue heavy metal show in 2006 generally caters to an older, nostalgic audience with an appetite for the hits that made the artist big in their heyday. Bands like Motley Crue, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Metallica are content to rest on their laurels, touring for new albums while playing minimal content from the record. Such is not the case with Iron Maiden.

Iron Maiden, known primarily in the U.S. for popular songs like “Run to the Hills,” “The Trooper,” and the controversial “Number of the Beast,” has never been content to rest on their laurels. Since their 1999 reunion with popular lead singer Bruce Dickinson, the band has released three albums and embarked on six tours, alternating greatest-hits style sets (such as last year’s stint on Ozzfest 2005 featuring material from only their first four albums) with setlists drawing prominently from their most recent record.

On October 4th, 2006, Maiden kicked off the world tour for their latest album, A Matter of Life and Death in style in Hartford, CT. The lawn seats at the Dodge Music Center were closed off, making the large venue feel like an intimate, dimly-lit theater. Despite the large amount of middle-aged fairweather fans and drunken rabble-rousers, the band did their best to make the show feel as intimate.

Welsh emo-rockers Bullet For My Valentine opened the show. Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson has often stated that the band love playing for younger audiences, so the addition of BFMV to the bill felt like a cheap ploy to get young fans in seats. The band zipped through a half-hour set of bland, cliche emo stereotypes laced with thrash metal riffs and sweep-picked lead guitar harmonies as the mostly-indifferent audience looked on. The band’s music came off as very hackneyed, as though they wrote a bunch of emo songs and decided to throw in metal sections knowing they’d one day open for Iron Maiden.

After BFMV’s exercise in beating tired cliches to death, the house lights went up and the road crew started setting up Maiden’s set. Soon after, the lights dimmed and UFO’s hit “Doctor Doctor” went on over the intercom. Anyone who has seen Maiden before knows that’s the last song they play before hitting the stage! Once “Doctor Doctor”‘s final guitar solo faded out, a dramatic orchestral score went on, the lights grew darker and a feeling of anticipation filled the venue.

Once the music died down, Maiden burst onto the stage and dug into the opening riff of “Different World,” the first track off A Matter of Life and Death. The Thin Lizzy-esque rocker had the entire venue on its feet. The entire band possessed more energy than many acts half their age, thanks to the onstage antics of singer Dickinson, bassist Steve Harris and guitarist Janick Gers. From there the band went into “These Colours Don’t Run,” the second track off the new album. The audience was still into the show, though their reaction was slightly less favorable than when the band first hit the stage.

The band, still firing on all cylinders, went into the third track off the album, “Brighter Than A Thousand Suns.” By the time Bruce finally spoke to the audience, the band had already played the first five songs off the album! He then announced they would be playing the entire thing, and thanked the audience for going out and buying it. The album hit #9 on the US Billboard charts it’s first week of release, making it the band’s highest charting US release ever.

After Bruce’s announcement they were playing the entire thing, quite a bit of the audience had a negative reaction. Many of the people were there to hear their aging heroes play their greatest hits, and didn’t want to sit through over an hour of new, unfamiliar material. Despite this, the band played with unmatched passion and vigor. The rhythm section of Harris and drummer Nicko McBrain were tight and powerful, the guitar triumvirate of Gers, Dave Murray and Adrian Smith perfectly executed lick after lick of harmonized lead guitar madness, and Dickinson’s aging voice was in fine form.

Highlights of the album set included “Brighter Than A Thousand Suns” (which was accompanied by a heavy, rhythmic light show), single “The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg,” “Lord of Light,” and the incredibly proggy set-closer “The Legacy,” which found each guitarist wielding an acoustic guitar for the song’s introduction. As the song progressed, each guitarist strapped on an electric guitar. When the intro’s final chords made way for the song’s rocking refrain, each guitarist was plugged in.

Once A Matter of Life and Death ended, there was a collective sigh of relief in the audience as the band tore into fan-favorite “Fear of the Dark.” The band finally had the audience in their grip and did not let go until after the third and final encore song from 1982′s Number of the Beast, “Hallowed Be Thy Name.” Despite MANY complaints, vulgarities and insults hurled at them after and during their set, Maiden performed with a professionalism, class and sense of pride in themselves that many younger bands could learn a lesson from. Iron Maiden stuck to their guns, played what they wanted to and showed an audience of stuck-in-the-past old men that they can still deliver the goods… with or without “Run to the Hills!”

Setlist:
Different World
These Colours Don’t Run
Brighter Than A Thousand Suns
The Pilgrim
The Longest Day
Out of the Shadows
The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg
For the Greater Good of God
Lord of Light
The Legacy
Fear of the Dark
Iron Maiden
Encore:
2 Minutes to Midnight
The Evil That Men Do
Hallowed Be Thy Name

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