Live Review: Iron Maiden - Co-op Live, Manchester
22nd June 2025
Support: The Raven Age
Words: Dan Barnes
Photos: Scott Clarke
It’s a night of firsts for Iron Maiden this evening: the first time at the town’s newest arena-sized venue and the first Manchester show without Nicko in decades. Outside, in a week when we’re warned about scorching temperatures and an amber alert has been sounded due to the heat, the Co-Op is subject to a biblical deluge that – were it not that Iron Maiden were in-da-house – may well have taken the shine off the event.
But, hardy-souls that we are, we squelch into the enormous arena and are warmed up by support band, The Raven Age, whose accessible and inoffensive hard rock is recreated in crisp clarity by the venue’s PA system. Combining swirling passages with chugging guitars, they kick the night’s music off with Forgive & Forget from last record, Blood Omen. A couple of newer, non-album tracks in the shape of The Guillotine and Hangman suggest a more aggressive direction for any upcoming albums, whereas Essence of Time sees singer George Harris strapping on an acoustic for a tune that, a generation ago, would have been impossible to ignore. Serpent’s Tongue has the core of Malmsteen’s Rising Force and the call for mobile lights to be turned on for Grave of the Fireflies, gives the auditorium the look of a star-field.
It all ends with Fleur de Lis and the reminder that the band will be back in Manchester on their own tour come the autumn. Supporting Iron Maiden – and any other band with a fanatical fan-base - is a poison challis at times: most of the punters are jostling for the best position possible and want you off so that the main band can come on. The Raven Age faired better then many I’ve seen in front of a Maiden crowd in all honesty.
There’s always a sense of anticipation when the house lights come on after the support has finished and the stage is cleared. Entertainment comes via the PA and a series of NWoBHM anthems, including Girlschool and Saxon, until the obligatory Doctor, Doctor arrives and is the first of many singalongs.
I’ve got Fan Club seating as I’m still an active Trooper, and one of the perks is to sit with other fanatics and exchange Iron Maiden-related war stories: whether that be the first Maiden show at Donington in 1992, or the Twickenham experience when an army buddy fell asleep in a port-a-loo and had to be rescued in the early hours of the morning. Those lads and lasses now bring their own kids, who know every word as well as we do.
As UFO ends and the arena goes dark, the huge stage screens blaze into life. To the strains of The Ides of March, we’re given an animated tour of the hotspots on the east end origins of the band. This is a celebration of fifty-years of existence, so places like the Ruskin Arms and the Sound House make an appearance, as well as Charlotte’s old haunt at 22 Acacia Avenue.
But it’s a nip across the channel and back to nineteenth century Paris for set opener Murders in the Rue Morgue, which hasn’t been in regular rotation since The Beast on the Road Tour in 1982 and is a song I never thought I get to see the band play live, following closely by the more familiar Wrathchild and Killers, which itself hasn’t been out since 1988. We get the first Eddie of the evening on this one, complete with spiked hair and brandishing an axe, he prowls the stage as Bruce belts out his best Ian Gillan screams.
The digital backdrop eliminates the need for large canvases and the projection of an ornate staircase accompanies another rarely played number, this time Phantom of the Opera. Before those of us of a certain age are reminded of Lucozade, we get Bruce’s first audience interaction in which he welcomes Simon Dawson to the fold and says tonight is the closest Iron Maiden come to a Greatest Hits set.
He isn’t kidding either, as The Number of the Beast is given an early airing, accompanied by monochrome horror movie images, The Clairvoyant’s bouncing bass and singalong chorus and, the first of Bruce’s costume changes for Powerslave as he dons his now familiar feathered mask, and the digital recreation of the album cover makes it look more imposing than ever.
We’re only seven songs in and I’m already hoarse from screaming and singing, when the fat opening riff of 2 Minutes to Midnight comes along. With the events of the previous night down in the middle east still the top of every news story, the song has never seemed so pertinent.
A rant about Telegraph and Guardian journalist, and the longevity of a canteen from the Matter of Life and Death Tour, leads to the notion of water, water, everywhere; and the cautionary tale of what not to do if a bird shits on you. Not sure that was Coleridge’s intention when he wrote the poem, but Maiden’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner is packed full of atmosphere and animated to perfection. For me, in a set of absolute highlights, this took the top honours.
A switch of gears brought us in a one-eighty-degree turn and the vast epic tale of the albatross-killing seaman is followed by the short and catchy tale of the native American genocide in Run to the Hills. Should it need saying, but Iron Maiden’s versatility and vast scope of influences comes as Seventh Son of a Seventh Son’s inclusion between Run to the Hills and The Trooper doesn’t seem in any way jarring.
Trooper Eddie joins the fray, wielding a sword as Bruce makes another costume change and dons the red tunic and tattered Union Flag of the Crimean soldier; he then becomes a caged condemned prisoner for Hallowed Be Thy Name and a Battle of Britain pilot for the first encore of Aces High.
For Iron Maiden itself, Eddie’s appearance fills the rear screen and he stares menacingly out across the arena’s packed floor, the scars and blemishes of his Piece of Mind iteration clearly visible for all to see.
Churchill’s Speech introduces Aces High, and the animation takes its cues from Derek Rigg’s artwork from 1984, giving Eddie the role of dog-fighting Spitfire pilot, giving the Bosch what-for. A lantern-carrying Bruce walks into view, cast against a full moon at the beginning of Fear of the Dark, the newest of the material on offer tonight, though it’s not-easy to remember a time when this 1992 classic wasn’t in the set.
Due to the nature of the night, the whole show ends with Adrian Smith’s Wasted Years, the only stop off at Somewhere In Time this evening, and poignant of how time flies. Heck, I still have my VHS copy of the Twelve Wasted Years documentary, when Stranger In a Strange Land at Sheffield City Hall was some of the most up to date band footage of the time.
A two-hour set over in the blink of an eye and you can’t help but wonder how many more tours Iron Maiden have left in them. Tonight’s show was probably the best setlist of any of the many Maiden gigs I’ve seen, performed by a group of musicians who simply don’t know what mediocre means.
I thought the Legacy of the Beast show in 2018 would take some beating, but this Run for Your Lives set managed to do just that. I cannot think of which of the seventeen songs I’d swap out, so other than having them play for another couple of hours, they had it probably perfect tonight.
Photo Credits: Scott Clarke Photography
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