Iron Maiden at the Dome Next Month

On April 11th, Iron Maiden will be performing live at the Tacoma Dome. Iron Maiden has been around since the ‘70s and formed around the time of bands like Black Sabbath. But compared to other newer metal bands, do they still hold relevance? Can they still compete?

Iron Maiden was first formed back in 1975 in East London, in the city of Leyton. Steve Harris, who was the pri­mary songwriter of the band, was the one to form it.

Iron Maiden didn’t grow famous until the early ‘80s. The rise in popular­ity was mainly due to picking up a record deal in December of 1979 with EMI, a major UK record company. With the release of their self-titled album Iron Maiden, they successfully reached the number four spot in the UK albums chart. In 1980 during their European tour, Unmask Tours, they opened for well-known bands such as Kiss and Ju­das Priest.

Following the release of their second album Killers, Iron Maiden’s first world tour occurred. One of the stops in their world tour was the United States where they opened for Judas Priest at Aladdin Casino in Las Vegas. This then sparked later tours to occur in the United States. With the help of other metal bands, such as Judas Priest and Motorhead, they have successfully helped change the genre of metal to be more like rock, and this, in turn, created the name “metalheads” to describe the fans of heavy metal.

As time progressed, Iron Maiden grew in fame. In 1982, Iron Maiden re­leased its album, The Number of the Beast, and that album brought them to number one in the UK album chart. In the years between 1986 and 1989, Iron Maiden went through an experimental phase. It was also a time when some of the members of the band quit and tried to go solo. This harmed Iron Maiden’s popularity. During this experimental phase, Iron Maiden released the album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. The band had experimented with electric piano, and though it was revered as the number one album in the UK, it was not as well received as Iron Maiden’s other albums in the US, being the only album of Iron Maiden’s to receive gold certification at that time. It wasn’t until 1990 that the band had a resurgence and grew in popularity again, with the return of lead vocalist Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith.

With the return of those two mem­bers, Iron Maiden’s popularity began to rise again. The Observer reported that from 1970 to 2015, Iron Maiden has sold more than 90 million total albums. Iron Maiden has also won awards such as the Ivor Novello Award for international achievement.

Iron Maiden’s visit to the Tacoma Dome will mark one stop on their new world tour Book of Souls. In an inter­view with Musicradar, Dave Murray, a guitarist and songwriter for Iron Maid­en, talked about their newest album, Book of Souls. Murray said that for the recording of their newest album, they really had more experimentation with different ideas for songs, beats, etc., say­ing “It was a really fun experience be­cause it keeps you on your toes.”

You can visit various websites for ticket purchase information, or you can go on ticketmaster.com. Prices can vary and can average around $250. Seeing how there is such a strong demand and the fact that they still have a loyal fan base, I don’t think Iron Maiden will be fading into obscurity any time soon. Since their forming they have risen in popularity and have cemented them­selves as one of the most influential heavy metal bands.