Officialy, I'm on holidays for the last two days, but there was no way to start them, if I wouldn't attend the concert of IRON MAIDEN in Athens for their "Somewhere Back in Time" tour.

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The gates opened around 17:30 and plenty of people had already gathered, people of every age, from young lads of 12-13 years old, to guys and ladies of 50. We rushed in to get to our "seats" as fast as we could, picked up some beers and waited.The Terra Vibe Park is located about 45mins away from Athens and it's the perfect place for such concerts. This is where Iron Maiden had their concert in Greece back in 2005. About 1 hour before "kick-off" the place looked like this...





The concert started at 20:30 with Lauren Harris the daugther of Iron Maiden's bassist Steve Harris. She was quite good but obviously everyone was there for the big gig. She finished around 21"15 and the pause of 20 minutes before the very entrance of the Maidens was like a century for me... But suddenly...



This is the last picture I got. The Athens fans gave their best, so did Iron Maiden. The concert started with Aces High, followed by 2 Minutes to Midnight, Revelations, The Trooper, and Wasted Years, then I was lost between bouncing and singing my hearts off. It's very difficult to describe my feelings... The last thing I remember was Bruce saying "This is the best tour we ever had. We 're gonna perform some of our best songs from the 80's, some really old songs, so old, that some of them were even released before some of you weren't even born".

But I won't forget two things :

Firstly, my surprise when I heard the intro from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I simply couldn't believe it, since this song is almost 14 minutes long. No big deal for them, they will play it as best as they can I said, and yes they did. And secondly the biggest hype of the concert was during Fear of the Dark. The whole audience was singing the lyrics along with Bruce, in fact there were moments that the crowd surpassed Brucie's voice and everybody knows how powerful his voice is.

I believe that there will never be a tour like this. The lads performed around 15 songs, I can't remember the full list, but among them there were, Children of the Damned, Moonchild, Run to the hills, The Number of the beast, Powerslave, Heaven Can Wait, Iron Maiden and Hallowed be thy name. So many good old songs in just one concert by Iron Maiden and still those two hours passed like a river...I just wish this night would have never ended.

P.S. Tomorrow I'm leaving for my holidays and I will be back on late August.I leave you under the sounds of the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"...