Metal kings Iron Maiden have announced a series of stadium concerts and festival headliners starting in Dubai on March 9.
Following on from their sold-out arena tour last year, the group will be bringing their “A Matter Of Life And Death” tour back to Europe, as well as curating the first ever metal ‘festival’ to take place in India.
Playing in the spectacular grounds of India’s Bangalore’s Palace on March 17, they will be the first significant international band to play there.
Maiden’s 2006 album “A Matter Of Life And Death” reached no 2 in the Indain album charts, the highest position for any rock act, ever.
Maiden’s crew will be the first to bring in a full massive western style stage production – air freighting in almost 20 tons of backline equipment and their huge stage production for this one show.
Bruce Dickinson, Maiden’s front man says “to say that we are all really looking forward to going to Bangalore is something of an understatement. It’s very special to us to be able play to new fans in countries we’ve never been to before, and we hear the Indian fans are very loud and into their metal. It promises to be an absolutely amazing atmosphere playing outdoors in front of the palace.”
A spokesman for the promoters DNA Networks explained the significance of Maiden performing in India. He said: “As this is the first show ever in India to feature three other acts in addition to an international headliner, it will be our first ever festival of sorts and as such an historic occasion. As the setting is the beautiful open site in the palace grounds we thought the occasion should be marked with a special name so we are calling the event ‘EDD-FEST’. We are confident that Maiden and ‘EDD-FEST’ will encourage more Western bands in the future to join us and play here in India, something which would greatly please the huge number of rock fans in this country. The appearance on the bill of Britain’s Lauren Harris will also be the first time Indian fans will have seen a rock band fronted by a girl”
As previously reported, Iron Maiden will perform only one show in the UK this summer, they headline Download Festival in Donnington Park on June 10.
The dates confirmed so far are:
Dubai Desert Rock Festival, UAE (March 9)
Faliro Pavilion Arena, Athens, Greece (11)
Belgrade, Croatia (14)
Bangalore, Bangalore Palace, India (17)
Ostrava Banik Football Stadium, Czech Republic (June 6)
Sudweststadion, Germany (8)
Download Festival , Donington Park, England (10)
Heineken Jammin Festival, Venice, Italy (14)
Fields of Rock Festival, Zwolle, Holland (16)
MSV Stadium, Duisburg, Germany (17)
Olympic Stadium, Rome, Italy (20)
Graspop Festival, Dessel, Belgium (23)
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