Playing to a staggering crowd of over 50,000 fanatical metalheads, the British music icons, Iron Maiden, proved that age is just a number by unleashing a relentless, highly theatrical 2-hour set.
Getting inside Athens’ Olympic Stadium (OAKA) on May 23, 2026, was a test of endurance in itself; parking was practically non-existent and left me tracking a brutal kilometer away from the gates, but every single agonizing step was well worth the trouble. Come rain or shine, I was completely rough and ready to witness the Irons for what was easily my 16th time. Initial weather forecasts had threatened a heavy, unrelenting downpour, but the heavy metal gods clearly heard our collective prayers, leaving the evening completely rain-free and setting the stage for an unforgettable, historic night.
Anthrax delivered an explosive, high-octane opening set that perfectly primed the crowd at the half full (by that point) OAKA stadium. Frontman Joey Belladonna commanded the stage with boundless energy, his vocals cutting sharply through the evening and despite the poor sound the thrash metal icons had to endure they ripped through a ferocious greatest-hits package. The band turned the stadium floor into a fairly massive, swirling mosh pit during anthems like “Caught in a Mosh” and “Indians”, while guitarists Scott Ian and Jonathan Donais unleashed a wall of crushing, razor-sharp riffs. Their performance was tight, aggressive, and deeply respectful of the headliners, proving exactly why they belong up there with all the rest of metal royalty.
The full setlist included: “Among the Living”, “Caught in a Mosh”, the incomparable “Madhouse”, the anthemic “Metal Thrashing Mad”, the crazy “I Am the Law”, as well as the duo of standard covers the band has done – “Got the Time” and Trust’s “Antisocial”, while the band finished up with an awesome performance of “Indians” that caused half of the crown in front to join a massive war-dance pit.
Meanwhile, the crew was changing the stage, I managed to get a fairly good spot in the line of fire of the band’s massive amp-arage, and by the time the British titans, Iron Maiden, hit the stage, celebrating half a century of heavy metal, I was on seventh heaven and in cloud nine – by all accounts.
Opening with the blistering double-punch of “The Ides of March” and “Murders in the Rue Morgue”, the band immediate captured the audience’s raw energy despite pre-show rain concerns. The absolute climax of the evening for hardcore fans occurred five tracks into the show. Bruce Dickinson paused to address the ecstatic roaring crowd, acknowledging their legendary passion. To a wave of collective gasps, he explicitly joked, “No, it’s not ‘Alexander the Great’… but when you go to bed tonight it will be your ‘Infinite Dreams’”. The band then launched into “Infinite Dreams” for the first time live since 1988, swapping it into the setlist to replace “The Clairvoyant” from the previous tour leg. The unexpected inclusion of this “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” masterpiece left the stadium in a state of absolute awe. Dickinson hit almost every mark with dramatic, theatrical perfection, utilizing massive video screens and intense pyrotechnics. The triple-guitar transitions between Dave Murray, Adrian Smith, and Janick Gers during numbers like “Phantom of the Opera” completely melted the floor. It was my first time witnessing drummer Simon Dawson (British lion, Deep Switch) who stepped in for the retired Nicko McBrain – and he held down the band’s famous galloping rhythms without much issue.
I am guessing, he gives a more energetic profile to the band, who thus chose to do a lot of earlier numbers while McB’s jazzier, slightly looser but perfectly timed style was a little groovier, but at any rate there wasn’t much to quibble on or not to like.
And as for the captain of the good ship Maiden, Steve Harris was there, visibly a little older, but always unrelenting and giving it his everything. The curated 17-song tracklist focused entirely on the band’s classic golden era, prior to Dickinson’s departure and as such we got almost every album checked with the exception of “NPFTD”.
The full setlist is as follows, The blistering one-two of “The Ides of March”/“Murders in the Rue Morgue”, followed by a restless rendition of the “Wrathchild”, it self-upended by a pretty awesome performance of “Killers”, Then a change of pace and even a curtain call for the haunting “Phantom of the Opera” which was succeeded by “The Number of the Beast” making a rather suspect entrance – this early during the show (as it’s usually reserved as an encore). The aforementioned “Infinite Dreams” really chilled and mellowed things up a little before the pharaonic “Powerslave” took over, in its full splendor and majesty (complete with Bruce’s pornmask). While it was a lot earlier than “2 Minutes to Midnight”, its performance was intense and masterful and when Dickinson came out with a military flask to drink, my heart was beating a little faster – I thought he could segue into “Alexander The Great”, who famously denied and spilled the water that his troops had gathered for him, choosing to endure thirst with them while traveling through the desert, but ALAS, it was not meant to be… instead, Dickinson’s jest was about water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink, heralding “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” based on one of the coolest poems of English Romanticism, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
“Run to the Hills” picked up the slack and gave a swift kick up our backsides, while the band chose to go 1-1 for the next, following each of their slower epics with a faster anthem, thus doing “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” that was overtaken by “The Trooper” and then “Hallowed Be Thy Name”, which utilized some really clever graphics to allow Dickinson a rare off the stage breather, while a digital duplicate was getting hanged off, on the top of the stage. The band then burst into a celebratory rendition of their most classic song – none other than the “Iron Maiden”, closing the main show with aplomb.
Despite my trepidation, the band encored with “Aces High” with Dickinson doing a very respectable job of it – unlike last time (a hard song to do that late in the show), and then went on to kick our heads in with “Fear of the Dark”, followed by a delightful and joyous version of the “Wasted Years”. All in all, AWESOME.
Iron Maiden’s return to Greece, after the last time, which was marred by a couple of unfortunate incidents involving some members of the audience with a slightly diminished mental function, was glorious and was far more than a performance—it was a timeless celebration of a 50-year legacy. The flawless execution of massive epics like “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” alongside the shocking historic revival of “Infinite Dreams” solidified this opening night as an instant legend in Maiden folklore. If you are planning to catch the tour on its upcoming European dates, check the official Iron Maiden Tour Page for ticket updates – this is a historic run you cannot afford to miss.
