Run For Your Lives: Iron Maiden celebrate 50 Years in Auckland

Tonight is a celebration of heavy metal at a sold out Spark Arena as Iron Maiden, on their Run For Your Lives World Tour, and Megadeth bring a combined 94 years of touring and destroying stages to bear.

The anticipation was palpable as the sea of black shirts jockeyed for position in front of both stage and beer queue whilst Megadeth wasted no time, hitting the stage earlier than advertised and tearing into Tipping Point from their 17th and final self-titled album.

Dave Mustaine has endured several health issues in recent years and has let it be known that this is a farewell tour, the set was a nod to that and packed with fan favorites. In fact the stage setup, the dry ice and the song selection seemed like a call back to the early 90’s heyday of thrash and the massive breakthrough record ‘Rust In Peace’.

Hangar 18, from the Platinum selling 1990 release was one of four tracks from the album to feature with Mustaine prowling the stage and delivering a favourite line “Military Intelligence, two words combined that can’t make sense” before latest Megadeth six string recruit, Teemu Mantysarri, steps forward to rip through the solo – playing to a crowd chanting back at every opportunity.

Megadeth clearly came to play and Mustaine’s Viking disease is seemingly held at bay throughout as he trades solos with Teemu at a blistering rate. Take No Prisoners is an absolute treat with the ‘Dethheads revelling in the ‘Take No Shit’! reply in the chorus and a circle pit ominously beckons towards the front of the barrier. There’s a long night of metal mastery ahead and the fans are embracing it with chants of ‘Megadeth’ at any lull in the set with fists pumping in the air.

The opening bars of ‘Sweating Bullets’ are greeted with a roar and Mustaine holds back as the crowd carry the opening spoken “Hello me, Meet the Real Me’ before the frontman takes over.

Tornado of Souls and Symphony of Destruction follow with the later being a full sing along and the volume inside Spark Arena reaches a new high.

Megadeth mascot, Vic Rattlehead makes an appearance during the iconic “Peace Sells”, dressed in a politician’s suit and carrying a briefcase that’s spilling green back dollars. In the wake of the recent mid term elections stateside this feels as poignant now as it was on its release in 1986.

Then the final act of a neck breaking set, the jewel in the Megadeth crown, Holy Wars. From the opening guitar run the roar of the masses lifts everyone to their feet and the metal masterpiece signs off a superb set that was only missing ‘In My Darkest Hour’ for me

If Megadeth’s set felt like a farewell to a friend then Iron Maiden’s was a celebration of metal as one heavyweight replaces another.

The ‘Run For Your Lives’ tour is a trip back in time and it’s accentuated by an amazing digital backdrop that tells the story of the songs being played and the roots of the band.

It’s an immersive experience and I find myself watching the show on the screen as much as the show on the stage at times. It starts with, to steal a gaming term, a first person shooter point of view journey through the streets of early 80s East End London with the Ides of March as the soundtrack, the art echoing that of the bands first albums Iron Maiden and Killers before Murders in the Rue Morgue is unleashed and the Eiffel Tower appears in some sort of Stranger Things miasma.

Wrathchild and Killers quickly follow, sparking the first appearance of the night of Eddie, the Maiden mascot, looking every inch the Killers cover creature with axe in hand stalking the stage and menacing the band.

Where Megadeth main man Dave Mustaine was short and to the point with his audience chat Bruce Dickinson was quite the opposite taking any opportunity to talk about being back in New Zealand, the band’s 50 plus years even doling out history lessons as he did before Phantom of the Opera was unleashed.

Dickinson is much more than a singer though, he’s a ringmaster, a lecturer, and an entertainer taking on roles with quick costume changes throughout the night. He was the condemned in Hallowed Be Thy Name, the pilot in Aces High, The Trooper himself and many more and his voice was as good as I’ve ever heard it in my seven Maiden experiences.

The man knows his audience, he talks about the importance of having a dream as a part of the introduction to ‘Infinite Dreams’ signing off with ‘Scotland have a dream they’ll beat the All Blacks, it’ll likely turn into a fucking nightmare but they have a dream’!

The set wings through the fan favourites with Powerslave, Number of the Beast, Killers providing the backbone of the set and the crowd is in thrall throughout – this was a collective experience of joy revelling in the storytelling, virtuoso playing and camaraderie of twelve thousand gathered for an express purpose.

A particular highlight personally was Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Iron Maiden at their progressive best, this was a performance rather than a song. The sounds of the ship and rigging creaking, the playing throughout each ‘act’ (it really felt like it could’ve been part of a West End spectacular) and Dickinson again delivering as the narrator of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s epic poem. Though what the poet would’ve made of Bruce introducing the song as ‘a cautionary tale if your bird shits on you’ is mindboggling.

Steve Harris is undoubtedly the block on which the band is built and his playing was on point throughout while Dave Murray and Adrian Smith melted faces with some exquisite soloing and Jannick Gers locked it all together whilst displaying some guitar acrobatics and elastic hamstrings.

The encore of Aces High, Fear of the Dark and Wasted Years was a perfect send off to a setlist with more hits than a Mike Tyson fight.

Don’t miss your chance to see this tour, both bands are masters of their crafts.