01) Iron Maiden at the Barclays Center on 11/02/24

Photo by JOHN McMURTRIE
Scream for me, Brooklyn! Apart from having to sit on my ticket for a full year, I was crashing through eleven months of work leading up to another one of those holy fuck, holy fuck, holy fuck, holy FUCK! I cannot believe this is happening kind of nights, and the result was the best gig I have seen in 2024. The overall vibe at the Barclays Center was electric, but some sections were more amped than others. From my vantage point, people only got up and moved around in my row was during the hits like Fear of the Dark and the Trooper where as I was throwing it down haaaarrrrd during Stranger in a Strange Land, the Time Machine, and Hell on Earth, but that’s par for the coarse, because, hey, that’s what you do when you know more than the Trooper and we all know Maiden are defiant in what they do in terms of set-list. The Hu was fundamentally one of the freshest openers Maiden has had in a while. Their sound was phenomenal, and reminded everyone just how legendary Iron Maiden truly is. Iron Maiden and the Hu took over the Barclays Center like absolute metal titans. Both bands sounded great. The Barclays Center got it right for once in terms of acoustics, and the gig was totally worth the one year wait.
Looking back, it was also a bittersweet show, and now an incredibly emotional experience—being that it will be the last time we’ll see Nicko McBrain perform a full set with Bruce and the boys. Enjoy your retirement, Nicko. I’m glad that we saw you on your ‘farewell‘ tour and to be apart of it in Brooklyn. Horns up from the choir you’ve been beating the drums for, for forty-two years, because Iron Maiden wouldn’t have cemented what many consider to be the classic Maiden lineup without your wondrous talents behind the kit.