Live Review & Photo Gallery: Iron Maiden at Allstate Arena • Rosemont

Brassneck | October 26, 2024

Iron Maiden

Allstate Arena

October 24, 2024

Rosemont, IL

Live Review by Justice Petersen, photos by Edward Spinelli

On Thursday, British heavy metal legends Iron Maiden brought The Future Past World Tour to Rosemont’s Allstate Arena. This tour is a thrilling and satisfying spectacle for well-experienced Iron Maiden fans. Like the band’s Eddie Rips Up the World Tour or Somewhere Back in Time World Tour, this tour delivered a concept show that leaned heavily on a particular theme from the band’s artistry.

Focusing heavily on the band’s most recent album, 2021’s Senjutsu, as well as their 1986 record Somewhere in Time, Iron Maiden’s The Future Past World Tour is a chance for well-seasoned Maiden fans to travel not just throughout the band’s history, but through world history. While one should not go into this show expecting to hear the band’s greatest hits (i.e., “Run to the Hills” or “The Number of the Beast”), this show is nevertheless nothing short of a thrilling and cinematic spectacle that will serve to excite both casual and diehard Iron Maiden listeners.

Opening with “Caught Somewhere in Time” and “Stranger in a Strange Land,” Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson stormed onto the stage, embracing the screams of thousands and keeping the unbridled energy and charisma for the entirety of the set. The band was thrilled to come to Chicago once again, with Dickinson telling the crowd, “Not that we don’t like the rest of America, but Chicago is fucking special.”

With a set and concept show resembling something out of a Blade Runner or Mortal Kombat film, Iron Maiden has a stellar way of combining futuristic elements with historical themes and concepts. Numbers such as “Alexander the Great” and “Death of the Celts” were played, as well as tracks like “The Time Machine” and “Days of Future Past,” bringing together a show that further cemented how Iron Maiden is if nothing else, masters of storytelling.

Several onstage sets were used as Dickinson spent the evening racing around the stage and tossing his microphone stand into the air. The Old West was balanced with neon city streets, and historic battles from days of old were no sooner followed by Terminator-esque action. These onstage aesthetics were adorned with the iconic Eddie himself, who appeared as an Indiana Jones-type figure during “Stranger in a Strange Land” as well as a gun-wielding warrior and then a Samurai later in the night’s show. One of the evening’s many highlights may have been when Dickinson and Eddie battled in a pyrotechnic gunfight with one another, with sparks blazing and fans cheering on.

Iron Maiden brought out their more well-known songs toward the show’s end, ending the night with “Fear of the Dark” and “Iron Maiden.” Just when one thought the night was over, the band came back onstage to perform a thrilling encore, which included “Hell On Earth,” “The Trooper,” and “Wasted Years.”

It isn’t often that bands today are as thoughtful with their work regarding a flowing theme or concept within a live show or record. While this show isn’t necessarily designed for casual listeners, hard and faithful Iron Maiden fans will find that the band’s The Future Past World Tour is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see something from the band that is truly remarkable and satisfying in terms of putting together a unique concept and including more deep cuts. After all these years as a group, Iron Maiden maintains the same fury, vengeance, talent, and charisma that has carried them through and earned them the title of one of the most famous heavy metal groups in modern music history.