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IRON MAIDEN ANNOUNCE TOUR DATES
IRON MAIDEN will play at the Air Canada Centre, Toronto on Sunday March 16th, 2008 as the final show on the first leg of their ‘SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME’ World Tour 2008. The band will fly in from New York for this one off show on a specially commissioned and customised Boeing 757, flown by Airline Captain and Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson. The Astraeus 757, decked out in Maiden and Eddie artwork, will carry the band, road crew and other personnel of around 70 people plus over 12 tons of equipment. The following day Dickinson will fly the whole entourage home to London, England.
This first leg of the ‘SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME’ World Tour opens in Mumbai India on Feb 1st, and continues through Australia and Japan before arriving in Los Angeles. The entourage then fly to Mexico and onto what will be the band’s first ever concerts in Costa Rica and Columbia, and then on to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Puerto Rica and New York, before finishing in Toronto. Over the 45 day period it is anticipated that Maiden will play to well over 400,000 fans in 21 cities in 10 countries, flying close to 50,000 miles in the specially refitted plane (full schedule below).
Comments Bruce Dickinson, “I have been flying commercial passenger jets for Astraeus Airlines for a few years now and we are commissioning an Astraeus Boeing 757. It will go in for overhaul, painting and conversion in November which will then give us time to ensure we have all the necessary safety documentation, especially with regard to fire safety. It also means it could possibly be flying commercial air routes decked out in Maiden colours for a couple of months before we start!
“Looking at the list of places we would like to play we have always had problems joining up the dots. With sea containers in various places it slows down the whole touring process, which is fine if you want a holiday but not if you want to play. It’s great to see places but we don’t want to sit around for a week waiting for gear to get from, say, Australia to South America, so this way we can get to more fans in more places en route in the same time period”
To tie in with forthcoming 2008 releases on DVD of the classic ‘LIVE AFTER DEATH’ concert video (full details coming soon) this tour, aptly entitled ‘SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME’, will revisit the band’s history by focusing almost entirely on the 80’s in both choice of songs played and the stage set, which will be based around the legendary Egyptian Production of the 1984-85 ‘Powerslave Tour’. This will arguably be the most elaborate and spectacular show the band have ever presented, and will include some key elements of their Somewhere In Time tour of 1986/7, such as the Cyborg Eddie.
Steve Harris comments; “Toronto has always been special to Iron Maiden and it is one of the few major cities in the World where we never needed to support anybody early in our career. Thanks to fantastic support from fans there we have always headlined. We started off at l think the Concert Hall, sold out to about 1000 fans, then year by year progressed through Massey Hall, Kingswood and then to Maple Leaf Gardens for one and then next time two nights. All on consecutive tours! It was quite a ride so we have a lot to thank Toronto for which is why we insisted on finishing here on this tour. We always have a good time in Canada and have many friends there. Toronto is a home from home and we expect to have a great bash after the show and carry severe hangovers home the next day – except Bruce hopefully!!
“ We look forward to bringing the Powerslave show back to Toronto - l always loved that show and think it was arguably our most spectacular ever so we’re all going to have a great time doing this”
The Iron Maiden fan club have made special arrangements in Toronto for their members to get first access to buy tickets by way of an special pre-sale on Tuesday 6th November in advance of tickets going on sale to the public on 10th November. The fan club are also running a special draw for their members whereby 60 winners and a friend will be given first access to the venue and be first to the stage barrier. Full details can be found on www.ironmaiden.com.
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