IRON MAIDEN
Hellinkikon Basketball Arena - Athens, Greece
March 11 2007

After the "A Matter of Life And Death" tour, when they played the whole album, Iron Maiden decided to play 4 shows in march 2007: Bangalore (India), Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Athens (Greece) and Belgrade (Serbia).

It was the same tour, but the setlist changed. I started planning a trip to one of the shows and it was to Athens that I found the best price. I was not the only one: I met people from the UK, from Germany and even from Israel and a guy from Brazil!

As the show was moded to a bigger venue (from Faliro Pavilion to Hellinkikon Basketball Arena) I tought I could find a ticket on the spot...I was wrong, it proved quite difficult to find a ticket but finally I managed to have one.

I arrived in Athens the day before and met that guy from Israel. He came alone and it was his first Maiden show, he was so excited to see the band. We went together to the hotel and met Steve at the door.
I spent the next day just wandering up and down through Plaka, the center of Athens, and bought a train ticket to Thessaloniki for the next day.

Of course a lot of people was wearing Iron Maiden shirts in the city!

I arrived at around 5pm at the venue, it took me maybe 2 hours to find a ticket and then I got in. I saw some people inside wearing the Dubai event T-shirt.

After the Lauren Harris show Maiden started with songs from the A Matter Of Life and Death album, but this time they didn't play the entire record, just 6 songs of it.
I was pleased because the songs they played are my favourites from that album, but I just would have love to hear The Longest Day, maybe instead of Brighter than a Thousand Suns.

The older songs played were the unmissable classics, but the surprise came when they almost played Alexander The Great...Bruce started singing it, and the as the audience didn't reply as he expected, he screamed "Oh You Forgot!" and played Iron Maiden.

I'm sure Bruce was just having fun, they never play that song, but it was very cool to hear at least the chorus!

The show was the day before Steve Harris' birthday, you can see a picture of a gift some fans made for him.

It was very good show. Great lights, good set list, and Eddie as a soldier on his tank during "Iron Maiden", and again walking the stage during The Evil That Men Do.

Instead of returning to my youth hostel, I went to Iron Maiden's hotel, and spent an unbelievable evening at the hotel bar with Dave, Adrian, their crew and some other fans.

I got out of the bar at 5 am, with Costas, a greek Guns n'Roses and Iron Maiden fan I met there.

After that I went then to my youth hostel and slept just 3 hours, before going to the station to take my train to Thessaloniki and visit Macedonia (the Greek region and the country) on the footsteps of Alexander The Great, before coming back home. Details of this trip can be found here.

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Setlist Iron Maiden – Hellinkikon Basketball Arena – Athens, Greece – March 11 2007

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