Iron Maiden and Megadeth played to a sold-out crowd at Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow

Iron Maiden and Megadeth played to a sold-out crowd at Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, Virginia on September 11, bringing together two bands that helped define very different corners of heavy metal history.

Megadeth hit the stage first and calling them an opening act feels a little ridiculous given the résumé involved. Founded by Dave Mustaine after his departure from Metallica in 1983, Megadeth became one of the defining bands of American thrash metal and one of the genre’s so-called “Big Four.” Mustaine took the speed and aggression of early thrash and pushed it in a more technical direction, building a catalog that includes records like “Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying?”, “Rust in Peace” and “Countdown to Extinction.“ More than four decades later, his influence on metal guitar playing is impossible to miss and it was on full display.

The current version of the band features Mustaine alongside guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari, bassist James LoMenzo and drummer Dirk Verbeuren, and they wasted very little time getting to the point. Megadeth opened with “Tipping Point” before ripping directly into “Hangar 18.”

Mustaine and Mäntysaari trading guitar parts on “Hangar 18” was incredible. There’s so much technical precision baked into that song that it could easily feel clinical live, but it didn’t. The two guitarists pushed it back and forth across the stage, the solos coming one after another without losing any of the aggression that made the song great in the first place. Mäntysaari, in particular, was impressive all night. He plays with an ease that almost hides how difficult this stuff actually is.

Mustaine still commands the stage and there was never any question that he is the center of Megadeth’s universe. This is his band, built around his songs, his guitar playing and that unmistakable voice and everything on stage orbits around him. He moved across the stage throughout the set, wielding his signature Flying V with more than 40 years of history behind everything he played. The set leaned heavily into the material most people came to hear, including “Sweating Bullets,” “Tornado of Souls,” “Symphony of Destruction,” “Peace Sells” and “Holy Wars… The Punishment Due.”

But the biggest surprise of their set came midway through when Megadeth played Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning” for the first time on this tour. There’s obviously a mountain of history attached to Mustaine and Metallica, but this was more than some random cover choice. Mustaine was one of the writers of the song, and hearing him play it live all these years later added another layer to something that already carries plenty of history.

There are legendary bands that survive long enough to become victory-lap acts. The songs are still great, everybody is happy to hear them and the crowd fills in the gaps when the band no longer quite has the horsepower it once did.

Iron Maiden is not that band.

The Run For Your Lives tour celebrates 50 years of Maiden by focusing heavily on the stretch of albums that built their reputation as one of the premier metal bands. On paper, it could easily turn into a nostalgia show aimed at people who remember buying these records when they first came out. Instead, the whole thing felt alive, immediate and full of energy.

Bruce Dickinson still owns a stage and that may be the simplest way to explain the show. Dickinson moved constantly, worked every corner of a huge stage and had the crowd in the palm of his hand almost immediately. Even from midway through the seating area, there was a connection between him and the audience that felt sharp and direct for a venue that size.

He doesn’t just sing the songs; he acts them out. He points into the crowd, climbs onto monitors, runs across the stage and swings the enormous microphone stand around like it is part weapon and part theatrical prop. At other points he simply plants himself at the front of the stage and lets that unmistakable voice do the work, which is the combination that makes him one of the all-time best frontmen. Dickinson hasn’t lost his fastball, either. His voice is still powerful, able to reach the high notes and, more importantly, sustain them the way fans expect to hear them. There are singers who can still hit the notes and performers who can still work a room and Dickinson is still doing both.

And for all of the intensity, one of the things that stood out most was how much fun the show was. Despite the intensity of their songs and their performance, Maiden never treats any of this like some solemn heavy metal ritual. Dickinson talked and joked with the crowd between songs and the guys on stage looked like they were having a blast. The show was loud, heavy and theatrical, but there was a looseness and joy underneath all of it. Of the many things heavy metal can be about, one of the things is fun and Iron Maiden has never forgotten that.

But the rest of Iron Maiden wasn’t exactly standing around, either. Steve Harris remains a monster bass player, stalking the front of the stage with his bass, crouching onto the monitors, aiming it directly into the crowd like a machine gun and attacking the songs with the same physicality that has defined him for decades. Dave Murray, Adrian Smith and Janick Gers kept the stage in almost constant motion, with guitars crossing, players trading positions and the band frequently changing up places across the stage and never staying in the same spot.

This wasn’t a band coasting on its name or asking the crowd to do the heavy lifting. These are songs that have been played thousands of times by musicians who have been doing this for decades, but almost nothing about the performance felt routine. On this night, you didn’t just get to say you saw Iron Maiden. You saw Iron Maiden.

Then, there was the production.

The video wall constantly changed the world behind the band. One moment Dickinson was standing in front of a dark Paris skyline with the Eiffel Tower glowing behind him under an almost apocalyptic red sky. Later the entire stage shifted into darker, grimier environments built around Eddie, Maiden’s longtime mascot, looming over the band.

And halfway through the third song, “Killers,” Eddie came lumbering out from the side of the stage with a giant sickle, chasing band members around and swinging it at anyone who got too close. It was completely over the top, which was obviously the point, and the crowd ate it up. From there, bursts of pyrotechnics, constantly changing visuals and other production elements continued to accentuate the songs throughout the night.

The production never felt like something that was simply happening behind the musicians. It was built into the performance. The lighting, animated environments, set pieces and enormous imagery gave different sections of the show their own identity. At times it felt more like watching a piece of theater with a heavy metal band running loose inside it than a conventional concert.

The crowd fed off every bit of it. There were older fans who have clearly been doing this for decades, people wearing shirts from the band’s old tours and younger fans experiencing Maiden for the first time. They sang back choruses all night, especially loudly during “Wrathchild” and “2 Minutes to Midnight,” and there was a sense throughout the set that almost everyone in the building knew exactly where every song was going.

By the time the set moved through “The Number of the Beast,” “Powerslave,” “2 Minutes to Midnight,” “Run to the Hills,” “The Trooper” and “Hallowed Be Thy Name,” Jiffy Lube Live felt less like a crowd watching a band and more like one enormous choir.

“Fear of the Dark” may have captured that better than anything. The opening melody barely needed the band because thousands of people were already singing it, and Maiden knew exactly how to use that energy.

The encore of “Aces High,” “Fear of the Dark” and “Wasted Years” was a testament to just how ridiculously deep the Iron Maiden catalog is. After more than two hours, they could still come back out with three songs that hit as hard as anything they had played all night.

And maybe that was the biggest takeaway from the show; Megadeth and Iron Maiden are important because of what they accomplished decades ago. They helped build thrash metal, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and much of the vocabulary that heavy music still uses today.

But neither band felt like a history lesson Friday night. They didn’t need nostalgia to carry them. Megadeth was still precise and vicious and Iron Maiden was still massive and alive. They weren’t impressive for bands this far into their careers. They were impressive, period.

Iron Maiden Setlist

– Murders in the Rue Morgue

– Wrathchild

– Killers

– Phantom of the Opera

– The Number of the Beast

– Infinite Dreams

– Powerslave

– 2 Minutes to Midnight

– Rime of the Ancient Mariner

– Run to the Hills

– Seventh Son of a Seventh Son

– The Trooper

– Hallowed Be Thy Name

– Iron Maiden

Encore

– Aces High

– Fear of the Dark

– Wasted Years

Photos By Andrew Markowitz of Capitol Press Box