IRON MAIDEN and ALICE COOPER at the Molson Amphitheatre, Friday, July 13. Rating: NNNN
Long lineups and insane humidity couldn’t suppress spirits during Iron Maiden and Alice Cooper‘s sold-out Friday the 13th tour stop in Toronto.
Both veteran metal/hard rock acts filled their sets with head-banging retro classics, power-chord onslaughts and unsettling visuals – and the Maiden-shirted crowd couldn’t get enough.
Opener Alice Cooper is still getting mileage out of the Halloween props he’s been using forever – guillotine, super-sized Frankenstein, boa constrictor, decapitated heads, bloody lab coat – though they looked sadly bargain-basement in the daylight.
No matter. B-movie horror’s his thing, and mixed with top-notch showmanship and strong songs like Poison, No More Mr. Nice Guy and School’s Out (with a brief foray into Pink Floyd’s Another Brick In The Wall), it’s loads of fun.
Iron Maiden seemed like rich kings in comparison, on a two-tiered stage with changing backdrops, dynamic lights, pyrotechnics and various Eddies – their zombie-like mascot – that made you shudder rather than chuckle. Theatrical singer Bruce Dickinson rarely stopped running, wailing or gesticulating, while energetic bassist/songwriter Steve Harrisshouted along to every word.
Aside from Dickinson (and perhaps drummer Nicko McBrain, who was completely hidden behind rack toms and cymbals), the members wore bad-ass vintage Maiden shirts, as the tour celebrates their 1988 Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son album.
The set list drew largely from it and the 80s – Run To The Hills, Can I Play With Madness, The Number Of The Beast, The Clairvoyant – and the six Brits played the complex, lengthy tunes with such vigor and urgency that you might think they’d written them last week.
