from the official site
THE BIGGEST ROCK TOUR OF THE NORDICS... EVER
Published: November 5, 2007
SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME WORLD TOUR 08
"THE BIGGEST ROCK TOUR OF THE NORDICS... EVER"
EMA Telstar are delighted to announce the return of IRON MAIDEN to the Nordic countries next year with what will be the biggest Rock Tour that any band has EVER undertaken there. Following their record breaking and massively popular sell outs at Ullevi Stadium in 2005, and the many multiple arena shows around the region in 2006, EMA and Iron Maiden have put together a concert schedule which will allow the band to play to 250,000 fans in the six stadium shows in the Summer of 2008. The full schedule is --
SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME World Tour 08
JULY 2008
Wed 16th - Stockholm, Sweden - Stockholm Stadium
Fri 18th - Helsinki, Finland - Helsinki Olympic Stadium
Tue 22nd - Trondheim, Norway - Lerkendalstadium
Thu 24th - Oslo, Norway - Valle Hovin
Sat 26th - Gothenburg, Sweden - Ullevi Stadium
Sun 27th - Horsens, Denmark - Horsens Gods Bane Pladsen
To tie in with forthcoming 2008 release on DVD of the classic 'LIVE AFTER DEATH' concert video (full details available soon on http://www.ironmaiden.com) this tour, aptly entitled the 'SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME -- WORLD TOUR 08", will revisit the band's history by focusing almost entirely on the 80's in both choice of songs played and the stage set, which will be based around the legendary Egyptian Production of the 1984-85 'Powerslave Tour'. This will arguably be the most elaborate and spectacular show the band have ever presented, and will include some key elements of their Somewhere In Time tour of 1986/7, such as the Cyborg Eddie.
Comments Tour Promoter Thomas Johansson of EMA Telstar "Everyone at EMA is very proud to be making history by giving our rock fans the biggest Nordic Rock Tour there has ever been and certainly one of the most spectacular. Maiden is so hugely popular with the Nordic peoples that we wanted to ensure that as many fans as possible got the opportunity to see this very special show next year as we expect demand for tickets to be enormous."
Steve Harris adds "There is a very special bond between Maiden and the Nordic people and we always feel very at home there. Perhaps Eddie really does have some Viking blood in his veins!!
"On the last tour we opened the show by playing our new album 'A Matter of Life and Death' in its 80 minute entirety. We thought we needed the challenge and it proved the right thing to do. However, it can be hard on the fans playing so much new material and we really appreciated the superb support they gave us. So now l guess it's payback time. It's tremendous to be able to use the profile of the 'Live After Death' DVD to do what is effectively an 80's show. It will be enormous fun and changing the approach to the songs we play tour by tour keeps it fresh and interesting for both the band and the fans alike. l think 'Powerslave' was an incredible show with the Egyptian theme and look forward to seeing it all again myself
"As always we look forward to spending a good amount of time in the Nordic countries and enjoying, as usual, some great nights out! "
The 'SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME' World Tour is in three sections, the travel for the first of which being by very unique means with the group customising a Boeing 757 aircraft, which will carry the band, their crew and over 12 tons of equipment from city to city. This first section of the tour opens in Mumbai India on Feb 1st, continuing through Australia and Japan before arriving in Los Angeles. The entourage then fly to Mexico then onto Maiden's first ever visit to Costa Rica and Columbia, then on to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Puerto Rica and New York, before finishing in Toronto, Canada, on March 16th. Over the 45 day period on this leg alone the band is anticipated to play to well over 400,000 fans in 21 cities in 10 countries, flying close to 50,000 miles in this refitted 757 which will be flown largely by vocalist and Astraeus Airline Captain Bruce Dickinson.
Comments Bruce Dickinson, "Looking at the list of places we would like to play we have always had problems joining up the dots. But without having sea containers all over the place slowing down the whole touring process and by having our own plane it has made it far easier to tour distant places like Australia for the first time in15 years. We have already had a great reaction from fans there, where the arenas in Melbourne and Sydney sold out in 15 and 25 minutes respectively!"
On the subject of returning to Scandinavia and Finland, Bruce enthused,
"If his is going to be the biggest Rock tour in Nordic History we will just have to pull out all the stops to make it one of our best ever and make it truly record breaking in every sense. This is truly a great statement for Heavy Metal music.
I just wish it was happening next week!"
The second leg of the tour will be in mid-May to mid -June in North America, a final third leg which will include the Nordic dates, will take place in July and August in stadiums and major festivals around Europe. In total the band are expected to play to well in excess of one and a half million fans during the whole tour.
Tickets go on sale to the public 9am Monday 12th November, but members of the Iron Maiden fan club will get special and exclusive first access to purchase tickets from 9am -- 6pm on Thursday 8th November. Go to
www.ironmaiden.com for further information.
To allow Iron Maiden fans in Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway to get right up close to the band, The Iron Maiden fan club are running a special draw for members whereby 60 winners and a friend at each show will be given first access to the venue and be first to the stage barrier. Full details can be found on
www.ironmaiden.com.
Full schedule for the first leg of
SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME
World Tour 08
February
Fri 1st Mumbai, India Bandra Kurla Complex
Mon 4th Perth, Australia Burswood Dome
Wed 6th Melbourne, Australia Rod Laver Arena
Thu 7th Melbourne, Australia Rod Laver Arena
Sat 9th Sydney, Australia Acer Arena
Sun 10th Sydney, Australia Acer Arena
Tue 12th Brisbane, Australia Entertainment Centre
Fri 15th Yokohama, Japan Pacifico Yokohama
Sat 16th Tokyo, Japan Messe
Tue 19th Los Angeles, USA The Forum
Thu 21st Guadalajara, Mexico Auditoria Telmex
Fri 22nd Monterrey, Mexico Arena Monterrey
Sun 24th Mexico City, Mexico Sports Palace
Tue 26th San Jose, Costa Rica Saprisa Stadium
Thu 28th Bogota, Columbia Simon Bolivar Park
March
Sun 2nd Sao Paulo, Brazil Skol Arena Anhembi
Wed 5th Porto Allegre, Brazil Gigantinho
Fri 7th Buenos Aires, Argentina Ferrofcarril Oeste Stadium
Sun 9th Santiago, Chile Pista Atletica
Wed 12th Puerto Rico San Juan Coliseo
Fri 14th New Jersey, USA IZOD Center
Sun 16th Toronto, Canada Air Canada Centre
HISTORY BEHIND THE POWERSLAVE TOUR AND LIVE AFTER DEATH VIDEO
The band recorded and released their first five studio albums (Iron Maiden, Killers,
The Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind and Powerslave) one year after the next
(1980 -- 1984) and toured the world extensively with each one.
The 'Powerslave' Tour of 1984-5 also included choice songs from the first four albums, and was actually titled the 'World Slavery Tour'. It opened in Warsaw on Aug 9 1984, marking the first time a major band from the West had played large arenas in Poland at a time when the country was still very much "Behind the Iron Curtain". On top of this Maiden took with them their full spectacular arena show, again a first as no one had ever done that before in Poland.
The tour continued through 193 concerts in 21 countries, including an incredible 112 arena shows in the USA and Canada, in both of which the album went Platinum, playing to over one and a quarter million fans in North America alone.
The tour finally came to a (weary!!) end on July 5 1985 at Irvine Meadows (now Verizon) Amphitheatre just South of Los Angeles, marking the longest and most gruelling tour the band have ever attempted. The band and the lavish Egyptian stage production generated stunning reviews and arenas around the planet were sold out.
March 14, 15, 16, 17 saw the band play 4 sold out consecutive nights at LA's 13,200 capacity Long Beach Arena. Tickets went on sale at 10 am on a Saturday morning with fans waiting overnight for the box office to open. When the first show sold out almost immediately and the second was being added some fans got rather restive as they felt they may not get tickets and this led to the LAPD being called in and LA press reporting riots! Tickets continued to sell and shows added until after about 10 days the band called a halt at a record breaking 4 sold out shows - a record which still stands to this day.
It was during the 2nd and 3rd nights here that the band recorded and filmed, in 35mm, what was to
become the legendary LIVE AFTER DEATH album and concert video, featuring tracks from their first five albums. This was one of the first ever full concert videos with a worldwide release and topped the new video charts everywhere.
It was these concerts that also inspired the idea for the birth of the first specialist Metal Radio Station in America, KNAC. The originators could not believe that a band could sell over 50,000 tickets in LA with no radio support EVER in the marketplace and wisely reckoned that there must be a massive underground market for this band and this music and went on to start a unique station which has had great success ever since and became synonymous with Metal in the USA.
Says KNAC founder Long Paul ;
"The Iron Maiden shows were presented by KLOS FM, now a classic rock format, and they were not playing the band, nor was any commercial radio in the market at the time.
KNAC at that point was an alternative format radio station, the programmers looked at string of sold out dates at Long Beach and thus was the catalyst to make the decision to flip to rock/metal as Pure Rock 105.5 FM."
A review of the concert is reproduced below to give some idea of the show -
Heavy Rock Happenings
By Mark Hanser
Being both a headbanger and a history major, I must confess that any metal act that concern themselves with my two pet historical periods -- Ancient Egypt and Medieval Europe -- are bound to receive my rapt attention, particularly if they're any good. In Iron Maiden's case, the band's fantastic, even without their chronological fantasies. Mystical and magical, cerebral and sonic, Maiden's rivalled only by Judas priest as metal's greatest live act -- something they proved a thousandfold at Long Beach's Arena for four ear-splitting nights, starting Thursday the fourteenth.
Iron Maiden, it must be mentioned, don't just put on a show -- they stage a spectacular. And, good God, what a spectacular it was! Imagine, if you will, a stage lifted from the valleys of Luxor; with pylons like pyramids and funeral pyres, or lighting scaffolds covered with scarabs and runes, further arranged like a dragonfly's wings. Imagine, too, music so riff-laden and magnetic that each song erupts into an eargasm -- and with lyrics both clever and literary, no less. Maiden, you see, dabble in mythology, not misogyny; so instead of hearing singer Bruce Dickinson scream Kiss retreads, the Arena's ears heard such stuff as "The Flight Of Icarus" (you recall, I trust, the tale of Icarus and Daedalus from your high-school primers) and "Rime of The Ancient Mariner" -- bassist Steve Harris' masterful reworking of the Coleridge classic, and the piece de resistance of Powerslave (Capitol), their fifth and finest studio recording. Entertaining, melodic and enervating, Maiden's music is like manna from Heaven in an age of Sammy Hagars.
Opening with "Aces High" -- which segued into their anti-nuclear anthem, "Two Minutes to Midnight" -- the Maidens set the stage afire with instrumental fury. The twinlead guitars of Dave Murray and Adrian Smith became, and remained so throughout the show, textbook examples of metallic transcendence; only Priest's Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing can match them in imagination, and not always as artfully. Rhythmically, bassist Harris and drums-basher Nicko McBrain are no less remarkable building aural tensions instead of aimless boogies. And singer Dickinson, what with his air-raid siren screams and cerebrally witty asides to the audience, is something else again. Surely Ronnie Dio never had a more attentive pupil.
Nor was Dickinson any slouch as a showman, either. During the song "Powerslave," he donned a fearsome, Horus-like falcon mask, and pranced before a suddenly-blazing pyre. It wasn't Cleopatra, perhaps (nor was Elizabeth Taylor in the front row this time for that matter), but it made for some wonderful rock theatre all the same. If the singer was upstaged by anybody, it was by Eddie the Ghoul, then band's nine foot (and mummified, this time) mascot, who dutifully appeared and danced before the knowing masses. As a whole, the band played loud and (not unpleasantly) long, with a (pleasant) minimum of soloing. They encored firstly with their medieval battle-merch, "Run To The Hills," and secondly with "Running Free," a relic from the now-ancient Killers. Then Dickinson, as is his wont, bade the audience a safe journey home. Such was the show, but such a show!
we are all booking the same flights previously discussed so go ahead and book, I don't think we will all be seated close to one another but may do so if we book together, your welcome to crash our joint we already have left that available for you 