I know a lot of folks will be stopping by to pick up Madonna's new record MDNA today (which I recommend doing as it is packed front-to-back with sweaty Ray of Light meets Confessions on a Dancefloor energies), but - sorry Madge - M is for Maiden and that's good enough for me. Iron Maiden that is, and today's double live CD (or double LP) plus DVD concert release En Vivo! showcases a very indefatigable band from a very fan oriented perspective filmed live during the Final Frontier World Tour at Santiago, Chile's Esatdio Nacional. The extras, especially the 88-minute Behind the Beast documentary, are boss and the artwork rules inside and out. Celebrate En Vivo! day with "The Wicker Man" and Behind the Beast trailer below, click here for everything Iron Maiden available via Amoeba.com. Up the irons!!!
You know there's something heavy in the air when Ed Force One, Iron Maiden's custom fitted and supremely airworthy Boeing 757 tour-craft, makes a low pass over your hometown's main gas, food and lodging conduit. Well, up the irons Maiden heads of America - the boys'll be back in town this summer revisiting their 1988 Seventh Son of a Seventh Son world tour with production and content to mirror their Maiden England concert home video* so closely that they're gone ahead and exhumed the title for use on yet another "between albums" tour, or the third chapter in the band's History of Iron Maiden live shows.
'Tis a thing of beauty, no? I am almost at a loss for words to explain how pumped I am for this tour. Seventh Son was the first Iron Maiden cassette I ever owned and it still serves as a source of workaday strength for me, especially the song (and music video for) "Can I Play With Madness" - any of you "talented arts" kids out there will fell me on that score. In fact, eff it, I'm so stoked right now how about we watch the music video for "Can I Play With Madness" and talk tour deets n' things after the break.
Now, if you or any of your clairvoyant friends are in the official Iron Maiden fan club then chances are you've already procured your tickets as they were made available to IMFC members today, but if you're not be ready to get the best of the leftovers on March 2nd or 3rd (check here or your local venue listings for official ticket sale dates and times) and remember to buy paperless and avoid the gauging habits secondary ticketing sites (i.e. the evil that men do lives on and on). For a complete list of set list speculations and 2012 tour dates, see below. Otherwise, up the irons! See you in D.C. and San Francisco!!!!!!!!
"But, are they organic?"
When I go somewhere, I like to linger for over a week in the same area – as opposed to globe-trotting – because experience has taught me it takes a good while to get one’s bearings. The first week in a new location is what I call the “expensive week”, because you end up spending a lot of money before you learn how to do things like a local. It’s important to plan ahead and be aware of this: no impulse buying for the first week, and remain flexible for meal planning and lounging locations; most importantly of all, ask as many locals in whatever location you are for where they go, what they eat, what they like; it never fails that, without emphasizing your interest in their preferences, you are going to be led to the same few tourist traps all outsiders are, and they'll be an expensive shadow of the real thing.
Here’s some red-flag words: plush, decadent, local-style, distilled, anything served on ‘skewers’. These are buzz-words that may alert you to the fact that you have been caught in a tourist trap. DON’T PANIC! If it’s too late to leave, just keep ordering down to a minimum (you can always eat again afterwards) and for the love of God, don’t buy anything you can wear (especially if the price tag looks ‘home-made’), or purchase anything you can clean/perfume your body with (beware of soap bars cut into irregular shapes!), or condiments that come in a tiny jar, i.e., raw honey with truffle, jasmine sugar pearls, or virgin priestess eyelashes candied in unicorn mustard.
Absolutely not.
