Maiden Plays Entire New Album at Concert Opener

Yes, Iron Maiden played all of A Matter of Life and Death at their concert opener last night. All 75+ minutes of it. In order. I wasn't too happy about it, considering live it dragged as much as it does on CD, and a number of other people weren't too thrilled as well.

It would've been fine if they had gone ahead and played for a total of at least 2.5 hours, but the show was finished in just under two hours. So the fans missed out on such staples as "Number of the Beast," and hell, anything off of Piece of Mind, Somewhere In Time, Brave New World, or Dance of Death. What were they smoking?

To top it all off, the sound was in the crapper. The guitars weren't too audible for at least 40 minutes, and any time Dickinson tried to sing louder, the microphone levels would drop. At times I thought he wasn't singing at all, but no, it was just the sound guy forgetting to turn the microphone levels on. Genius. Sad thing is, the opening band's sound (Bullet For My Valentine) was much better.

But hey, I got to see Adrian in leather pants and Gers throw around his guitar like a juggling club. That makes up for it, right? Um, no. Here's to hoping they don't do this for the remainder of the tour.