For all those of you out there who have created an altar in your music room for albums like The Evil That Men Do, Charlotte the Harlot, Can I Play Madness, The Number of the Beast and are often seen swooning with numbers like Judas Be My Guide, Flash of the Blade and the rest…this is truly nirvana time. Go grab your front row seats for this string of exquisitely recorded concerts of the heavy metal band that seems to be immortal. Yes, Iron Maiden, the English cult band that came into being on Christmas 1975, under the able stewardship of Steve Harris, may have been around for more than thirty years. Yet, it’s popularity hasn’t diminished and surprisingly, the band has managed to find new fans, generation after generation. So that, in a single family, you could have mom and dad headbanging with their teenagers and tweenagers too.
In 2008, the band undertook one of its longest musical tours entitled `Somewhere Back in Time’, spanning the entire globe in 45 days. They travelled from India to Australia, Japan, America and South America in their customised plane called the Ed Force One. More importantly, the plane was piloted by lead vocalist, Bruce Dickinson, who literally turns out to be a high-flyer, both on and off the stage. This is the first time the band allowed a film crew to be with them for such a prolonged period, enabling the interviewers to capture them both at work and during their free time. So that, in one frame, you have the group sending its fans into mass hysteria with their high-decibel performances, and in the other, you have them chilling out, either with a sweaty game of tennis or teeing off on the golf course. Sometimes, the camera even intrudes their work space and pans on Steve Harris as he pens the lyrics and plays anchorman to the group.
Needless to say, the film lights up, mostly in the concerts which are shot in high definition surround sound: enough to send heavy metal buffs into a rhapsody. Also endearing are the encounters with fans, specially in South America, where the band is treated with godlike devotion. Sometimes, you do miss the `real’ story, since the film is such a hunky-dory depiction of the motley group. No drugs, no rivalries, no creative quirks…just squeaky clean.
Go, join the headbanger’s ball, all you heavy metal fans out there.
