Iron Maiden at San Siro: what really happened? – Rockon.it

Article by Giulio Taminelli | Photo by Mathias Marchioni

From Wednesday 17 June Iron Maiden are officially the first metal band to have played as headliners at the San Siro stadium. As a good reporter I was present at the event and, as a good «Maiden» fan, I also had a lot of fun. Once I returned home and found myself in front of the page where I should have written the piece, I realized that perhaps this event, due to its scope and also some of the controversies it created, needed to be told with a clear mind and a few hours after the event, in order to be able to give an objective point of view outside of the classic “top or flop” alignments that are uselessly filling the internet. What follows will therefore be the reportage of an event, but structured in such a way as to also be a small in-depth analysis of some of the central themes that are being chased by fans and detractors of the English band led by Steve Harris.

I thought it was grass growing, but instead it was bells: The acoustics of San Siro and the Trivium performance

The cross and delight of every reviewer of live concerts is the acoustics. Fundamental detail in every reportage to give substance to otherwise sparse articles and, for some reason, much more often the subject of criticism than praise. Maiden's San Siro was a worthy example of this and, in particular, the opening performance of Trivium was the subject of criticism for being difficult to listen to from the stands. Net of the performance of the band of Matt Heafy and his associates, who brought an hour of very dynamic and entertaining show but continued to forget that they had produced music even after 2017, their performance was actually difficult to listen to in some parts of the stadium. To understand why, however, carrying out the greatest of heresies for lovers of “heavy metal”, I will bother one of the most popular Italian pop bands of recent years: Pinguini Tattici Nucleari. During the press conference before their San Siro, they themselves admitted that they had adapted the set list of the performance, preferring songs with a broader scope to avoid annoying reverberations (source: on that occasion I was the one who asked the question which gave rise to this answer). The sounds of Trivium, very full and violent with technical passages, do not adapt at all to similar events. For Iron Maiden, however, the situation is different, since their metal is much more melodic and rhythmic, therefore less inclined to suffer distortions caused by the structure of San Siro.

In short, did Trivium play well?
Yes.
Were they the right band for this type of concert?
Probably not
Did Iron Maiden feel good?
Not like in a sports hall, but the result was more than decent
Could we have had better acoustics?
Not at San Siro

Schrödinger's San Siro: full and empty at the same time. Who (and what) did Maiden play for?

There are those who say they have never seen San Siro so full and who instead swear they had to avoid rolling hay balls carried by the wind. Data in hand, the followers of Vergine di Ferro present at the show were forty-five thousand, more metalheads\metalheads less. To put it bluntly, for the venue in question it's not much. Looking at the average number of tickets sold for other events, to obtain a good result at the Meazza you would need to reach at least fifty-five thousand – sixty thousand attendances. However, another fact must be considered, namely that this was the best result ever for Iron Maiden in Italy, even surpassing last year's concert in Padua. For this crowd of fans, the English band brought a setlist in which each track was taken directly from one of the first nine albums of the discography, going from the Di'Anno era to the first Dickinson era (who broke away from the band for a few years after the release of Fear of the Dark). Compared to «The Future Past Tour» which promoted the new album Senjutsu and at the same time celebrated Somewhere in time from 1986, obviously the proposed setlist seemed more similar to the «Greatest Hits» that all kids have done at least once in their lives by taking their favorite songs and putting them on cassette\cd\playlist. However, considering the age of the band and the audience's desire to sing a few classics (which was done without sparing the vocal cords), I would say that the choice was more than right.

Is forty-five thousand people a lot or a few?
Few for San Siro, many for Iron Maiden
Was the lineup innovative?
no and he didn't want to be
Was the lineup fun?
It was perhaps the most fun setlist ever for this band

Apologia for the transience of the human being: Iron Maiden are old

It's biology. Sooner or later we all get old.
Wednesday's show was actually run by a group of gentlemen of retirement age and the fans knew it full well. However, it must be said, in all honesty, that the only flaws due to age and various ailments were the lack of Nicko McBrain on drums, also because it's been almost two years since he decided not to perform live anymore due to serious health problems that affected him during the last tour, and Dickinson's voice which no longer reaches the high note of Aces High even when praying (but honestly not even the fans have ever managed to get that note, so “welcome to the club, Bruce”). Honestly, I didn't find them insurmountable problems given that Simon Dawson did a more than excellent job on the skins and that in any case Bruce Dickinson spent the concert running and interacting with the audience, musicians, the various Eddies who occupied the stage and even the LEDwall. In particular, I would like to focus on the latter, because the use of LEDwalls to tell stories and have enormous monsters interacting with the public is almost a trademark of Bring Me The Horizon, a decidedly younger band and cornerstone of an entire branch of modern metal. The fact that Iron have exploited similar devices for their show means that, old or not, they know how to embrace new things without necessarily wanting to live with the dictates of the “old school”, something very rare in bands with half a century of activity behind them.

Are Iron Maiden old?
Yes
Did this affect the concert?
Little and on secondary aspects
They know how to be modern despite their age
Yes

In conclusion, was it worth it to see Iron Maiden at San Siro?

As a fan and a reporter the answer is yes. The Iron Maiden concert at San Siro is destined to remain in the fans' memories for a very long time. This does not mean that it was an unmissable concert or an event of national importance. Simply a great band wanted to play great music for their fans by taking a location large enough to fit as many people as possible.

Is this a good ending to an article?
Absolutely not
Has the piece managed to shed some light on the chaos of information that is circulating online?
I hope so

IRON MAIDEN, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES TOUR – SAN SIRO 17 JUNE 2026
LADDER:

1. MURDERS IN RUE MORGUE
2. WRATHCHILD
3. KILLERS
4. PHANTOM
5. NUMBER OF THE BEAST
6. INFINITE DREAMS (new addition)
7. POWERSLAVE
8. 2 MINS TO MIDNIGHT
9. MARINER
10. RUN TO THE HILLS
11. SEVENTH SON
12. TROOPER
13. HALLOWED
14. IRON MAIDEN
15. ACES HIGH
16. FEAR OF THE DARK
17. WASTED YEARS

TRIVIUM (OPENING IRON MAIDEN) – SAN SIRO 17 JUNE 2026
LADDER:

PULL HARDER
STRIFE
SIN
DOWN
WORLD GOES COLD
LIGHT TO FLIES
HEART FROM YOUR HATE CAPSIZE/ IN WAVES