Published on July 29th, 2016

Legendary heavy metal band Iron Maiden on Wednesday 27.7. for second time visited our sun-bathed Split within The Book of Souls tour, but this time as a place of spectacle they chose Spaladium Arena. Arena is 500 meters from the stadium Poljud where they recall the first performances of 2008. Already a couple of hours before the concert, approaching the Arena one could felt hot atmosphere and it was very promising, considering summer in Split is hellish hot. I must comment the organization because, despite the fact that there were more than 10,000 people there were no long waits or big crowds at entrance or any other 

nervous situation so we had  time to take a beer and enjoy before the start of the show.

 

Concert started on time and that was a a rare opportunity to testify it in Croatia. In 21 hours when they started traditional intro "Doctor Doctor" you could feel the wave of enthusiasm, Bruce came out above the drums through the smoke with initial verses "If Eternity Should Fail" followed by an explosion of emotion and the energy of the audience when the rest of the band ran out on the stage. Followed by ''Speed of Light'', ''Children of the Damned'', ''The Red and the Black'', audience was reserved before salvo of madness that was up on the ''Trooper'' with Bruce running in uniform with a flag and ''Powerslave'', which are  indispensable anthem. What followed were ''Death or Glory'' and ''The Book of Souls'', where spotlights light up giant Eddie and showed us an iconic splendor of Iron Maiden scenography. For the end of the concert they've lined up the hits such as ''Hallowed Be Thy Name'', ''Fear of the Dark'', ''Iron Maiden'' which the audience enthusiastically welcomed and participated in every verse of the songs. Additional enthusiasam of audience made sure that Eddie reapear on stage. A brief pause has prompt the audience for an encore which ended with the legendary introduction "The Number of the Beast" with occurrences of another Eddie with horns behind Nick McBraina. ''Blood Brothers'' and ''Wasted Years'' were full of emotion where the entire Spaladium Arena sang along with Bruce. For the final end, while waiting for perhaps another encoreor for at least one song the audience booed, yelled and kept banging the chairs, but we revieved a standard outro ''Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'' and as the headlamps turned on in the arena that was a sobering evidence this great show has come to an end.

 

I have to look back at few details like the band was in a better mood and with more energy than the last time, Bruce threw a joke that they stole Slaven Bilic (because Steve Harris is a big fan of West Ham) and thanked Split for him. Perfect attendance, on moment bad sound, expensive beer, soaring heat, lack of air, liters and liters of sweat did not stop us from enjoying the spectacle and we hope that they will visit as again.

Written by Antonio Krolo