Iron Maiden 2008
Iron Maiden, on their Somewhere Back In Time Tour, passed through The Netherlands once again… and as usual me, Patrick, Leon and Marco went to see them. We have done this ritual the last few times they came through on their different tours. I think this was the 3rd time we saw Maiden as a group actually, while it was the 8th time for me!
Since the first lineups would start aroung 4:30pm / 5pm (lauren harris) we figured it would be a good idea to leave a little bit early. So at 2 we were on our way from Almere to Assen, the TT Circuit, where the concert was being held. Luckily we left early, because for the first in all our concert trips we had big car problems; the coolant hose ruptured when we were a few hundred meters away from the concert grounds!
Luckily for us we were not the only ones with car trouble. A guy (not even 50 meters further down the road) broke down an hour and a half before and had called the ANWB. So after about another 20 minutes waiting the ANWB guy helped us out with patching the cable with some special tape and filling up our coolant tank again.
One very important thing I learned last time at Fields Of Rock was to have some extra supplies for after the concert when you try to get out of the parking lots (it took us 2 hours back then)… these supplies were a welcome thing while standing in the burning sun with a broken car!
When we finally arrived at the concert grounds (around 6pm) first thing to do is grab some drinks and food. The food was actually of good quality, I had a big chicken leg and the other guys had some chicken wrap type of thing and a square (?!) hamburger; they seem to be enjoying it!
Due to the car trouble we missed the first 2 shows really; Lauren Harris and Kamelot which was a shame. Only one act left which was Within Temptation, which was actually very good, they have grown really rapidly from the last time I saw them live! So much even that I went out to get their album today!
Then, finally, the biggest and baddest show I have seen in a long time. Iron Maiden lived up to its name and played an amazing set of old songs that made the crowd go wild from the first sounds of Churchill’s speech! Time flew so fast that I totally forgot to take pictures :(, but I saw Marco use his iPhone, so hopefully he has some good pics to show on his blog.
After the concert we had some drinks to fill up the bodily fluids once again! Standing between 30 000 metal heads, men and women, and going along in the music makes you sweat like crazy!
When the largest part of the 30 000 people crowd is gone you can truely see how large a mess is made during such a concert.
The way back went very smoothly, the Assen-er people seem to know how to deal with large crowds of cars and people and we were quickly on our way, albeit with a gigantic detour through the outer side of Assen/Drente. When we came in it took us 10 minutes to get from the freeway to a parking place, on the way out it took an hour to get back to the freeway because of the weird detour.
All in all a very good experience once again! Loved the concert, loved the crowd!