Why is Iron Maiden such a guy thing? Find out in Edmonton next year
There is no band with a bigger testosterone cult following than Iron Maiden. Seriously, it’s almost all guys in black shirts at their concerts – the same expected when the legendary British metal band returns to Edmonton next summer.
Tickets to their Rogers Place show on Friday, Aug, 30, 2019, are $45-$125 and go on sale Friday, Nov. 16. The opening act will be The Raven Age, featuring Iron Maiden bassist Steve Harris’s son George – so this is a family affair. Maiden’s frontman Bruce Dickinson, meanwhile, is a Renaissance Man of many talents: Singer, songwriter, author, actor, airline pilot, radio announcer, and fencing champion; he is also well-versed in classic literature from which many of his lyrics are drawn.
Why Iron Maiden attracts mainly male fans is a mystery. Perhaps it has something to do with nerd culture. This band was and always will be a horror comic set to music: Children of the Damned, Death or Glory, Fear of the Dark, The Number of the Beast, and less obviously from the title of their biggest hit, Run to the Hills – and that’s because it’s the scariest one of all, dealing the European conquest of aboriginal people in North America.
Back to scary lyrics and horrorshow production values, nerd culture was once considered the domain of manhood – extended boyhood, anyway – and while a lot more women have been showing up at Comic-Cons and metal shows, Iron Maiden at least up to now has retained its mainly male following. It’s not like a men’s movement ritual or anything. It’s just a rock show. And anyone is welcome: Everyone gets along at an Iron Maiden concert – even on a tour called “The Legacy of the Beast” (which by the way is also the title of their new video game). Just waiting for Beauty.
