Iron Maiden are back, and kicked off the 2024 leg of the Future Past tour on Sunday in the little old town of Perth, Australia. It was a much-anticipated show, with the cancellation of their 2020 Legacy of the Beast dates meaning the last time they played here was when they were touring The Book Of Souls.

It’s been almost four years since I dropped the bombshell on The Lebrain Train (now Grab A Stack Of Rock) that I hadn’t been to a single live concert. Now, at the age of 25 I have finally rectified that one mistake, attending the brilliant spectacle on September 1st.

So let’s get right into it. It was awesome. Bruce sounded great for his age. Perks of seeing an early date. His voice sounded clean and clear, with power. The band were tight, and the show was without some of the mistakes that were seen in the opening show of 2023 in Slovenia (although Bruce did humorously trip over Janick’s guitar cord at the end of “Hell on Earth”).

Caught Somewhere In Time

This was the song I was most excited to hear. I was very irrationally scared that it would be gone for some reason, but thankfully not. I had an absolute blast with this one.

I mainly stayed off my phone, only taking a few photos of key moments as well as two short videos. One of these was the soloing in this song, which can be viewed below (Apologies for the shaky cam, focus shifting and any other issues with the footage. I was too busy enjoying the song and not paying attention to my phone).

Stranger In A Strange Land

A great song, last played during the year I was born. I was also totally thrilled to see Adrian using his black/green guitar- it’s one of my favourite-looking guitars in all of heavy metal). Eddie made a brief appearance at the end too.

The Writing On The Wall

The only song from Senjutsu of the three played on the Legacy of the Beast tour to make a return on this tour, I was really happy to see it back in the set.

Days Of Future Past

One of my favourite songs on Senjutsu. It was sheer delight to hear and see it done live.

The Time Machine

While some of the songs they played from Senjutsu aren’t my favourites on that album, I didn’t mind their inclusion as they played every song I really wanted them to from the album. I took the time during this one to take a much-needed bathroom break, which more than a few other people also decided would be a good idea.

The backdrop was really cool though, harkening back to the single cover for “Wasted Years”. Here’s all the easter eggs I could find on the dashboard console.

• 666 – The number of the Beast appears on the left, along with an assortment of numbers and letters of which I can’t discern the significance of.

• 25/12/1975 – The top date in the centre, this is the date Iron Maiden was formed.

• 03/09/2021 – The middle date, this is the day Senjutsu was released.

• 29/09/1986 – The final date, as expected this is the day Somewhere In Time was released.

• 23:58 – On the right side the time can be seen as two minutes to midnight.

I’m sure there’s more on there, particularly the pairing of the orange and red words on the right side, but their meaning escapes me. Sound off in the comments below if you can work out what any of the other things mean.

The Prisoner

This was the first of the ‘classic’ songs not affiliated with the main theme of the tour. It was cool to hear it and to have it back in the setlist after a ten-year break since the Maiden England tour. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get a definitive overview of the last 50 years in one show so I just focused on enjoying what I did get.

Death Of The Celts

While this wasn’t on the list of songs from Senjutsu I was dying to hear, I still enjoyed rocking out to the music very much. The smoke machines also went overtime to set the scene on stage too.

Can I Play With Madness

Anything from Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son is always welcome, in my opinion.

Heaven Can Wait

Always fun to hear. We didn’t get the crowd onstage to ‘woah-oh-oh’ along, but we did get to see Bruce and Eddie engage in a cool shootout. Once again, apologies for lack of quality footage, I was watching the action, not my phone.

Alexander The Great

The big one. The one everyone went crazy about back in 2023. While I’m not one of the people who think it’s the best thing Iron Maiden have ever done, I still enjoyed it very much. Plus it’s the only time I can think of (outside of the preview of “Wildest Dreams”) that Iron Maiden have debuted a song live not on it’s original album tour.

Fear Of The Dark

It was a shame this was the only 90s-Maiden representation in the entire set, but it was still awesome to hear. The crowd loved it too. The energy was great all night, but it went up a notch during this one, “Iron Maiden” and “The Trooper”. A few more cell phones came out during these three songs, but overall it was still far far less than I expected to see.

Iron Maiden

Of course. I think this tour might be the only time though that we got a walk-on Eddie and a big stage Eddie during the same song.

Hell On Earth

The encore kicked off with my favourite of the final three, ten minute songs on Senjutsu. I was chuffed to be hearing it. The pyro also ramped up like crazy on this one, after being virtually absent on most other songs. And I could feel it too. I was a lot closer than the camera makes it seem. In order to look at the screens on either side of the stage I had to turn my head.

The Trooper

This was the only one of the classic songs I would have been disappointed to hear. I love “The Trooper’. Listening to it is like seeing an old friend again after a long time.

Wasted Years

Closing out with another great song from Somewhere In Time.

So the setlist was the exact same as the 2023 leg, but I was 100% ok with that because that setlist was totally killer and I was afraid they would change it up a little like they used to do for the second legs of tours.

It’s hard to imagine an Iron Maiden show without “The Humber Of The Beast”, “Run To The Hills” or “Hallowed Be Thy Name”, but I wasn’t missing them one bit. The ‘NoB 3’ are all great songs, but they’ve been clogging up setlists for far too long. Bring on the deeper cuts.

There were also a couple of interesting omissions, due to the way the setlist fell. Bruce didn’t do any of his banshee screams (age may have also been a factor in this), and there weren’t any songs like “Revelations”, “Powerslave” or “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” that featured dedicated guitar harmony sections in their soloing.

Please note that these are merely observations, not complaints. All in all I had an absolute blast, in spite of any of these coincidental omissions. And as someone who has Somewhere In Time as one of their top five Iron Maiden albums, what I got was exactly what I wanted.

And I’ll be there for the next tour for as long as they can keep coming here.