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Saturday 5th July 2008
IRON MAIDEN have confirmed the UK and Ireland leg of their World Tour this coming summer, and will be joined by acclaimed American band TRIVIUM as their Special Guests.
The World Tour will start in Scandinavia on Nov 9 and response to the shows on sale there last week was phenomenal with ticket sales already exceeding 95,000 across the Scandinavian dates. All three of the Swedish shows sold out in just over an hour and a third date was immediately added at the Stockholm Globen which also sold out in hours making it 48,000 sold out in Sweden alone. The 8000 tickets in Bergen Norway went in just 30 minutes, Tempere sold all 6,600 tickets out in a couple of hours while Helsinki registered first day sales of over 17,000 tickets over their two shows.
The live show will include new album material which the band are now recording and which will be released prior to the tour. They are currently considering album artwork and the Production for the tour, which of course will be in true Maiden tradition with spectacular stage production and massive sound and lights ... and, of course, Eddie!!
Says Steve Harris, "We've finished most of the writing of the album and have just started recording with Kevin Shirley so we're all very charged up at the moment to make a great record. Reaction to the tour so far has been brilliant and we're looking forward to putting a great show together for the fans and getting back out on the road towards the end of the year and playing new materiel live "
Maiden have invited the critically acclaimed American band TRIVIUM to be their Special Guests. Trivium have enjoyed increasing success in the UK these last few months and Maiden are sure that their fans will give them a great reception.
Maiden's World Tour will take them around much of Europe through to Christmas then playing selected dates in other parts of the World early in the New year. About Iron Maiden Known for such powerful hits as "Two Minutes to Midnight" and "The Trooper," Iron Maiden were and are one of the most influential bands of the heavy metal genre. The often-imitated band existed for over 20 years, pumping out wild rock similar to Judas Priest. Iron Maiden have always been an underground attraction; although failing to ever obtain any real media attention in the U.S. (critics claimed them to be Satanists due to their dark musical themes and their use of grim mascot "Eddie"), they still became well known throughout the world and have remained consistently popular throughout their career. Iron Maiden were one of the first groups to be classified as "British metal," and, along with Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and a host of other bands, set the rock scene for the '80s.
Iron Maiden was first formed in 1976 by bassist Steve Harris, who would soon join up with rhythm guitarist Tony Parsons, drummer Doug Sampson, and vocalist Paul Di'Anno. Before finally obtaining a record deal, the group played in local areas throughout the '70s, receiving a fair amount of London airplay. Parsons replaced Dennis Stratton, and the band made its record debut in 1980 with the self-titled Iron Maiden album. Although the release was recorded in a hurry, it was nonetheless a hit in the U.K. due to the single "Running Free." Iron Maiden's 1981 follow-up, Killers, displayed a harder approach to their music than before, and also saw the replacement of Stratton with Adrian Smith. Due to his uncontrollable alcohol addiction, Di'Anno was forced to part company with the group and would soon be replaced with vocalist Bruce Dickinson in 1982 for the band's groundbreaking Number of the Beast. This album, boasting such songs as the title track and "Hallowed Be Thy Name," would come to be known as one of the greatest rock recordings of all time. Since the unexpected worldwide success of Beast made Iron Maiden international rock superstars, they changed very little of their style for their next album, Piece of Mind. They undertook two major tours before recording 1983's Powerslave, which would go on to be another cult hit. The product of Powerslave's 11-month tour was 1985's Live After Death, a double live album the featured all of their biggest hit singles.
By the release of Live After Death, Iron Maiden had already established themselves as a powerful and unique metal band. Their long-awaited 1986 supplement album, Somewhere in Time, showed a bit of departure from their past releases, showcasing the use of synthesizer guitars and songs more relevant to the same themes. 1988's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, a concept album like its predecessor, featured the singles "The Evil That Men Do" and "The Clairvoyant," and soon became Iron Maiden's most critically acclaimed album since Number of the Beast. After another exhausting tour, Smith departed and the band took a one-year hiatus. With new guitarist Janick Gers, they resurfaced with No Prayer For the Dying in 1990, a record that returned to the classic sound the group used when recording their earlier releases. One of the album's singles, "Bring Your Daughter...to the Slaughter," was granted the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Song of the Year, but it nonetheless gave the band their first number one U.K. hit. By the time the group finished their 1991 tour, Dickinson expressed desire to leave and work to promote another band he had founded, the Skunkworks. Fear of the Dark, the band's last album with Dickinson, debuted at number one on the U.K. charts and became one of their biggest selling albums to date. After their supporting tour, two live albums were released in 1993: A Real Live One, which contained live versions of their newer hit singles, and A Real Dead One, which featured the more "classic" Maiden songs live. Dickinson's replacement, Blaze Bayley, marked his debut in 1995 with The X Factor. While the record failed to chart as well as some of its predecessors, it was still a minor success in England. Iron Maiden marked the end of 1996 with Best of the Beast, a double compilation album. In 1998, little interest in the Virtual XI album prompted Bayley's termination; Dickinson and Smith returned to the band for a tour in 1999, and a new album, Brave New World, emerged the following year. The band toured throughout the early 2000's, relasing the live Rock in Rio and the greatest hits collection Edward the Great in 2002, followed by a new studio album (Dance of Death) in 2003. They followed DOD with the Rainmaker EP, as well as the live DVD's History of Iron Maiden, Pt. 1: The Early Days and Raising Hell in 2004. Sanctuary put out the two-disc Essential Iron Maiden in 2005 to coincide with the group's co-headlining Ozzfest tour with Black Sabbath, a tour that found Maiden pulling out due to a series of confrontations with Ozzy's wife/manager Sharon Osbourne. They released the live CD/DVD Death on the Road in September of 2005.
