i reached the venue at 1:30pm. quite early i thought but the place already had around 500-600 people gathered and standing ready in line, though some were roamin around and smoking n having a beer. after some time wasting, got into the queue and was inside at 3. after getting the Official T-shirt for the show began the LONG wait for the start of the acts. we had to wait for 2 hours from 3pm to the opening acts to start, which really sucked cos it was hot as an oven and it was fuckin unbearable!!!
Opening Act
so come 5:30 or so, and out come F.t.N. not much of a great band...just some college punks playin some nu-metal. nothin too great. Then came Parikrama, which i feel were the 2nd best band today. tehy played a set totally comprised of own compositions as compared to their usual covers thrown in! they were just simply amazing!!! then came Lauren after a 15 min stage work and played some of 6-7 songs. their sound wasn't that great at all. her voice volume was pretty low compared to the guitar n drums! the songs themselves seemed very similar to each other in terms of structure, the vocals, guitar solos. some choruses were catchy, but that's it!!! even her voice was generally not very strong n powerful, though she and the others did have great stage presence!
Now to the main act...the build up was great...some rock n roll songs played in the BG with the lights goin off to signal they're coming. when they eventually did, the crowd just went berserk!!! a lot of ppl seeing maiden for the first time, so obviously there was energy and puching n shoving n jumpin around!!! problem was that not a lot of people knew the new stuff. but despite that, the ones who did nkow it sang along really well to Different Worlds, There Colours Dont Run and Brighter Than a thousand suns. the whole setlist was pretty much the same one as in Dubai and Belgrade. the crowd response and sing-along was as good as you'd expect in ANY maiden concert. their reaction to the classics as compared to the AMOLAD songs was much more energetic and the singalongs continued. all in all, it was a great response and surely the band liked it.
Bruce was great. though he sstrained to sing certain parts of few songs, the usual running all over the stage and climbing support poles n flag waving n crowd interaction prevailed. a few rants would've been nice too, but too bad they didnt happen. Dave was very delightful and very energetic as well. Adrain was at his best again. their solo's were very good too. their solos of the classic stuff was far better than anything i've heard before! I didnt get to see much of Janick, mainly cos i was on the left side, and he was on the right, and to my right were a bunch of tall guys totally blocking my view!!! though i did notice the support thingie on his right leg, so he didnt move around much and wasnt the crazy, energetic Janick i'd usually seen on DVD's. and the only place where i saw Nicko was on the white-screen!
Bruce commented on how great this concert was for India and how they felt and how we had to wait for such a long time for an IM concert here. he DID go on and said that though we've had to wait around 17 years for an IM gig, this wasnt the last and that said that it may not even be 17 months before we see another IM gig here!!! he finished it off with a RiR style band+crowd picture!!!
Set-list
Intro/Different Worlds
These Colours Dont Run
Brighter Than A Thousand Suns
Wrathchild
The Trooper
TROBB
FTGGOG
TNOTB
FOTD
RTTH
Iron Maiden
Encore:
2 Minutes To Midnight
The Evil That Men Do
Hallowed Be Thy Name