Iron Maiden's Still Got It!

Dude, some bands should just quit while they're ahead. Too often, a band will stay together way after their prime just to cash in and it always looks weird and pathetic (e.g. The Doors and The Backstreet Boys and sometimes The Rolling Stones). I don't mind reunion tours like what Van Halen is doing, but if they released a new album it would probably make me throw up.

Iron Maiden, on the other hand, is still tearin' it up! Last week Shandi and I were just sitting around at my house and decided we weren't being metal enough so we popped in this Iron Maiden concert DVD from 2002 (thank you Chris Brunelle for this great gift). Even though these guys are at least 50 in this show, they are ROCKIN' it way better than most bands half their age. They're jumping around, ripping through solos, headbanging, and Bruce Dickinson keeps changing into silly costumes. It's great. Also they had 50-foot tall statues of the Grim Reaper. I should watch that DVD every day just to remind me of what life is really about: guitar solos and singing about demons.

So I've been on a bit of a Maiden kick and just now I dug up my copy of their 2006 album "A Matter of Life and Death." I had never listened to it before all the way through before today and it KICKS ASS! On the rare occasion that an old band puts out new music and it's actually good, I find that it's normally a little more mellow than their previous stuff (like AC/DC's "Stiff Upper Lip"), but not this. It's been TWENTY-SIX years since their first record and these guys still know how to play fast crazy epic songs and Bruce Dickinson still sounds like the baddest-ass metal opera-singer lady you've ever heard. Totally awesome.

I'm gonna go pick up a bicycle now.