Live review: Iron Maiden's Eddfest

Consider yourself amongst English rock’s God-tier talents? Then you’ve probably headlined at Knebworth. From Pink Floyd and Queen, to Oasis and The Rolling Stones, those 250 acres in Hertfordshire have hosted some legendary gigs. But they’ve never seen anything quite like the scenes when Iron Maiden planted their flag in the ground here for Eddfest.

Eddie The Head is everywhere. Glaring at you from tens of thousands of T-shirts, pasted or painted over the walls, looming in his various guises from museum exhibits, pointing out the height limits for funfair rides. The unstoppable zombie mascot is even stencilled on the sides of the bloody bins.

His old muckers Maiden have taken top billing on these grounds twice before, headlining Sonisphere in 2010 and 2014, but bringing their 50th anniversary celebrations to a crescendo with two days of EddFest sees them completely taking over.

Join one snaking queue and find yourself under the needle for a custom Maiden tattoo. Try another and you’ll get a photo with an actual tank parked up to recreate the artwork from 2006’s A Matter Of Life And Death. Everything from the nifty black-and-red camping wristbands to the beer served behind the bars is emblazoned with their jagged logo. And the 50,000-odd in attendance are lapping it up. Maiden have always been master world-builders, but the scale and detail here are staggering.

Musical proceedings start properly on Friday night where the ‘Maidenville’ stage plays host to a line-up, curated by Steve Harris, celebrating the long and winding road to this point. A lovably quirky/naff Awake performance from one-time Maiden keyboardist Tony Moore gets things underway, before a special reformation from Steve’s first band Gypsy’s Kiss, then Airforce featuring former Maiden drummer Doug Sampson, and a storming showing from covers band Maiden United featuring their old six-stringer Dennis Stratton.

London hard rockers Stray are the surprise package, mind, bringing bagloads of cheeky-uncle swagger (“We accidentally put our three-hour set in the microwave and it's come out at 40 minutes!”) and dropping old classic All In My Mind, covered by Maiden in 1990, to delight thousands of fans and Steve himself banging along.

Really, though, Friday is all about headliner Blaze Bayley and his band. From a truncated opening cover of U.F.O.’s Doctor Doctor to a grandstanding Sign Of The Cross against the setting sun, Maiden’s 1994-99 vocalist delivers a set heavy on fan service. But there’s also an odd poignancy, with Blaze visibly moved by the deafening singalong not just to The Clansman but also his own solo standard Born As A Stranger, which could have been a Maiden song in another life.

“You are amazing,” he grins to masses reaching full voice, holding back tears. “This is all your fault. You support live music. You sound incredible. You smell pretty good, too. Forget the outside world and be here with us now. Because you don’t know when moments like this will come round again!”

Saturday’s supports are an odder fit. They’re a cracking bunch of bands, one-and-all, but where literally everything else at Eddfest is tied so intrinsically to the headliners, they don't always connect.

Scottish legends The Almighty are celebrating frontman Ricky Warwick’s 60th birthday today, even bringing out a cake during Wild & Wonderful. But Over The Edge and Thunderbird are songs better suited to jam-packed clubs than wide-open spaces like this, meaning they never quite hit full power.

Airbourne, too, can’t quite make the sort of impact they’d like to, even with the firepower of Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast, a blast of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid and frontman Joel O'Keeffe scrambling out into the crowd to try and revive a sun-wilted audience with a water pistol. The climactic Running Wild remains a stone-cold Aus-rock banger, but they never quite conjure a sense of occasion.

The HU fare considerably better. Whether one bloke in a shirt of the actual Who pulling a long face as the Mongolian folk-metal heroes step onstage is taking the piss or not, he must surely be won over by the sheer gut-wrenching force of it all. The only band of the weekend other than Maiden themselves with a sound that feels fully-realised in a field this size, they seem almost to be revelling in the language-barrier at this point. Weirdly reminiscent of Rammstein, the rhythmic pound of Yuve Yuve Yu and Grey Hun speaking in a way that words never really could.

It looks for a moment like we might get a somewhat contrarian showing from The Darkness. Opening with lesser-known (albeit knowingly funny) new song Rock And Roll Party Cowboy, they come on like a tease to tens of thousands of casual onlookers. But Justin Hawkins and the crew don't waste time rolling out the hits. Growing On Me and Get Your Hands Off My Woman haven’t sprouted any rust since the last time they were rolled out in this field, supporting Robbie Williams in 2003. Neither has Justin himself, doing handstands off the drum-riser and clapping his feet.

There’s just a taste of Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End) – "If you want that, come and see us at Christmas... in arenas!" – but also a blast of The Immigrant Song from fellow Knebworth alumni Led Zeppelin. I Believe In A Thing Called Love is as barnstorming as always, but they sign off with a blazing Love On The Rocks With No Ice this evening: proof that despite what the naysayers here who would’ve preferred a more ‘metal’ support say, they’re anything but one-hit wonders.

Not that any of that really matters, as Iron Maiden duly blow everyone else away. A year on from their long-awaited homecoming at West Ham’s London Stadium, it’s not so much about whether they can surpass that incredible night as whether they can add to it with another that will live forever in fans’ memories. From the moment Doctor Doctor spills over the PA into The Ides Of March and the intro tape takes us on a virtual trip down memory lane, with rich rays of light from the setting sun spilling in from the west through the back of the stage, that feels guaranteed.

Going right back to the beginning with Murders In The Rue Morgue, Wrathchild, Killers and Phantom Of The Opera, it is the same Run For Your Lives setlist they’ve been playing all summer (with only a swap of The Clairvoyant to Infinite Dreams from last year’s run) but no-one’s complaining. Instead, the well-versed faithful treat it like a run-through of their favourite compilation.

The rhythm of proggy epics (Powerslave, Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son) broken up by shorter hits (The Trooper, Run To The Hills) is still brilliantly effective. And while many will know what’s lined-up next, when every song coming round the bend is this good, it’s still a hell of a ride.

“Fuck me, anyone would think there’s a football match on,” Bruce Dickinson grins cheekily, singling tonight out not just as a return home, but also a warm up for England’s World Cup Quarter Final. “Apologies to Norwegians in the audience. We can argue about it later – after we've won!”

The frontman might insist he’s struggling a little, battling a bug (“Spanish flu”) caught in Cartagena last week, but with cameras rolling for a tour movie, he pulls out several incredible moments, Rime Of The Ancient Mariner and Hallowed Be Thy Name sounding as fine as they ever have.

If there’s a complaint – and there isn’t, really – it’s that with so may of Maiden’s classic props sitting in the museum at the top of the hill, the state-of-the-art video display with which most of them have been replaced feels a little less impactful at times. But that’s a fleeting thought as we’re slingshotted into a peerless encore of Aces High, Fear Of The Dark and Wasted Years.

There is an undeniable pang of bittersweetness seeing the band leave the stage, though, with indications they won’t be back until “at least” 2028.

“We’re not going away,” Bruce waves off with a promise. “Like James Bond, Iron Maiden will return.”

Looking fit and healthy, there’s little doubting the players onstage have years left to go. But chances are some of the first-generation fans marking five decades this evening won’t be here next time. And even the mighty Maiden would need to move Heaven and Earth to match the fanfare and heart of this weekend.

Like Blaze said, there are moments you need to cherish, because you don’t know whether their like will ever roll round again. This was one of those, a get-together to remember forever.

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