The group delivered a 15-song set over 2 hours in length, featuring vintage material and tunes from "The Book Of Souls." On the road since late February, the veteran metal outfit have played 72 shows in 36 countries across six continents to over 1.5 million fans.
"We decided to finish the tour at Wacken as it is the ideal way to end this magical tour playing to 80,000 core metal fans at this legendary Metal festival," says Iron Maiden manager Rod Smallwood. "Wacken has become such as international event with many thousands of fans from many other countries around the world joining and celebrating with the German fans so it is perfect for the final show of a memorable tour.
"Everywhere we've played the fans have been amazing and the reaction to the new songs and stage show has been phenomenal. The band has loved every minute on stage.
"So when Wacken and ARTE asked us to consider a live stream of our performance there we jumped at the chance to give our fans an end of tour gift. Streaming this final show live globally allows us to thank the many fans we played to so far, and, for those who couldn't get to see us this time round, a chance to see just how spectacular the live concert is and what they missed!" Watch the show here.
Part of a 32-song set, it was the Seattle band's first time playing the track in concert and they dedicated the occasion to one of its co-writers. "That was for Joe Perry," said frontman Eddie Vedder. "We're thinking about you."
Perry collapsed after he was seen stumbling off stage during a July 10 concert by The Hollywood Vampires in Coney Island, NY. According to source on the secene, the guitarist reportedly lost consciousness and apparently went into cardiac arrest, with police on the scene reviving him.
Following a hospital stay, Perry rejoined the supergroup - led by Alice Cooper and Johnny Depp - just 12 days later and played the final four dates of their summer tour.
The first Fenway Park show included several references to Boston Red Sox players, with the group dedicating "Faithfull" to David Ortiz, with Kevin Youkilis making a cameo appearance while former Red Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo sang and played guitar on "Black." Check out the video here.
Ian is a big fan of comic book culture and TV, having appeared in both The Walking Dead and Game Of Thrones as an extra. Ian says: "Going back to the 70s as a kid, the geekdom thing wasn't a part of heavy metal. Overall, the kids a little bit older than that me were listening to metal, the 16-year-olds when I was 13 that loved Zeppelin and Sabbath and Aerosmith, they weren't into geeky stuff at all.
"They were into smoking weed and doing drugs and drinking and listening to music. Me and my friends, we liked those bands too, but we liked Kiss as well - who all those older kids hated.
"Kiss was kind of like that bridge, like, 'These guys are like a horror movie and a comic book and they play rad music.' That was kind of my gateway drug to, 'Hey, this all works together.'" Read more here.
The Final Experiment comes in a 3LP hard-cover box in 180g blue-marble vinyl, alongside a bonus semi-acoustic LP. Actual Fantasy: Revisited comes in a 4LP hard-cover box in red-marble vinyl with the original version of the album included. Both include posters.
Lucassen says: "The reissues also include cards which will be signed by yours truly. It's funny, The Final Experiment card has all the rejections of the record companies on it. No one wanted to have Ayreon, but luckily it was released anyway." Watch the spoof and read more here.
Asked about the stereotype that says people into metal are not capable of intellectual thought, Taylor tells Spin: "I don't know who keeps perpetuating that stigma. I can probably send you links to eight different studies that show that higher intellectuals listen to heavy music when they study, find it stimulating, enjoy the challenge of listening to it."
One study that backs up Taylor's claim was carried out in 2008 by experts at Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University. The professor who led the study, Adrian North, told the Guardian: "The general public has held a stereotype of heavy metal fans being suicidally depressed and a danger to themselves and society in general. But they are quite delicate things."
Explaining that metal fans are similar to people who listen to classical music, North added: "We think the answer is that both types of music, classical and heavy metal, have something of the spiritual about them. They're very dramatic - a lot happens." Read more here.
Supported by the Nashville-based band Loving Mary, the Aerosmith frontman is currently on the road across North America playing shows in support of the project, which he co-produced he record in Nashville, TN with roots master T Bone Burnett, Dann Huff, Jaren Johnston and Marti Frederikson.
The intimate theatre shows see Tyler rework Aerosmith classics and tell stories behind some of the band's most beloved hits. "We're All Somebody From Somewhere" recently debuted atop the US country music charts.
The record entered Billboard's Top Country Albums chart at No. 1, while starting at No. 19 on the Billboard 200 with opening week sales of 18,000 equivalent album units. Watch the Tonight Show performance here.
Vocalist and guitarist Patterson Hood previously said of the follow-up to 2014's English Oceans: "Some people are trying to define what it is to be American. Definitions based on some outdated ideology of prejudice and fear.
"We are loudly proclaiming that those people don't speak for us. America is and always has been a land of immigrants and ideals. Ideals that we have often fallen short of achieving, but it's the striving that has given us whatever claims to greatness we have had.
"That's what America means to us and 'We're an American band." Watch the video here.
He tells Bloomberg Businessweek: "I go crazy, because if you want to open for a well-known band you have to pay - management makes you pay. Who is giving back?
"I did a Ringo tour once and had a local band at every gig open for us just to give them exposure. Nobody is helping anybody. For an artist starting off, there's no clubs for them to play in. The venues have gone down. It's very hard now. It's easier to become a celebrity on a TV show as a band for four months than work solidly.
"People think it just happened - we just woke up one morning and were Beatles. That's not true. We worked very hard with the venues and put in the time." Read more here.
The concept album presented three sections - "Yours", "Mine" and "The Truth" - and followed the 1990 breakthrough, "Extreme II: Pornograffitti (A Funked Up Fairy Tale)", which featured the hit singles "More Than Words" and "Hole Hearted."
The record's third side, "The Truth: Everything Under The Sun", is an epic three-song, 22-minute epic recorded with a 70-piece orchestra. "III Sides" peaked at No. 10 on the US Billboard 200 and went on to earn US Gold status for sales of more than 500,000 copies.
Extreme will launch a 5-date tour of Japan in Tokyo on September 29; they'll also perform in Sendai, Osaka and Nagoya. Ahead of the Japanese tour, Extreme will release "Pornograffitti Live 25: Metal Meltdown", on September 23. Read more here.
They say of the video: "Sometimes, in order to make things happen, all you need is a bunch of crazy ideas, mash 'em together, and wait for the results. This is basically how we started with our first video from the upcoming album.
"We were lucky to get some enthusiastic, creative, and hard-working people around to get it done. You can imagine that mixing miniature aircrafts, cows, pyrotechnics, and belly dancers with the band doesn't necessarily come together naturally. But it did. And we're happy about it." Check out the Maiden cover here.
Last week Townsend said the latest Devin Townsend Project album was his attempt to get over himself as a "controlling prog dude." He added: "I wrote 50 or 60 songs and kept sending them to everybody, the band, management and label. I asked them to tell me which ones they liked and so we'd start working on that. I narrowed it down to 10 or 11 songs, I took them to the band, and what I did, as opposed to directing every last detail, was start from the beginning, go through each riff and then discuss it.
"A dialogue opened up where everyone was contributing and talking about it, and in a way it moulded it into something where lyrically I could take that process and it became the theme of the album, ultimately." Read more and check out the new song here.
The album takes its inspiration from famous defensive 'last stand' battles. The follow-up to 2014's Heroes is due out on August 19 via Nuclear Blast. Bassist Par Sundstrom said of the Peter Sallai's cover art:
"We had the idea to make an image reflecting soldiers of different times representing the different historical battles we sing about on the new album. This only reveals a small part of the album topics though.
"We always have several ideas for albums to work with. Since there are countless different views and angles of war, we will unfortunately never run out of ideas. We felt that the last stand was something perfect for Sabaton. Heroes was a perfect theme and The Last Stand is right down our alley too. It was exciting to do the research." Watch the video here.
Drummer Isaac Holman tells DIY: "It's just the finishing touches now. It's about concentrating on artwork and tracklisting, things like that." Guitarist Laurie Vincent adds: "We did hand it over to our label and they were like, 'This is really heavy'. We don't think it's that heavy, but everyone who hears it has said it's punk. To me, it's like if you blended the first EP, the last album and added a bit of new stuff. It's got a bit for everyone."
Slaves add that while it isn't a concept album, they had a definite vision for the as-yet-untitled record. Vincent adds: "It's like the difference between accidentally having a baby and planning a baby. You know how some bands go away and say they're gonna get in the studio and see what happens? We were like, 'We're gonna make an album, and it's gonna be like this.' It wasn't a concept album as much as a planned pregnancy." Read more here.
He recently recalled the religious epiphany he had before undergoing life-changing heart surgery last year, which later inspired his decision to be baptized.
And as he and his bandmates prepare for the launch of their fourth album Cold World on September 9, Carlile tells the new episode of Metal Hammer: In Residence On Spotify that he's doing well - although he sometimes has to scale back his live performances.
He says: "Getting to play a rock show every night opening for Marilyn Manson and Slipknot is pretty therapeutic. We're on the road and I've just got to take care of my body by eating well and making sure I get enough sleep.
"The whole time we were in the studio I was doing physiotherapy and really getting my body ready to get back on the road. So far, so good. We've had a couple of scary moments and sometimes I've got to remember to tone it back a little bit - my body's not as strong as my spirit but it's great being able to go up there and give 110%.
"I wake up every day and it's rough but it makes it all worthwhile getting to do what we do." Read more here.
He tells NPR: "We think of ourselves as arrangers of these songs. Thom will write half a song and we'll develop it, then the big pressure is, 'How do you put this song across and not ruin it?'
"Part of the problem is, Thom will sit at the piano and play a song like Pyramid Song and we're going to record it and how do we not make it worse, how do we make it better than him just playing it by himself, which is already usually quite great.
"But there's no individual interest in what we play on the record, it's about servicing the song. It's not really about, 'Can I do my guitar part now? We're arrangers, really.'" Read more here.
TMZ reported that the country-pop couple hired celebrity wedding planner Jerri Woolworth to help them orchestrate their wedding. Woolworth did not comment.
Although Shelton didn't mention anything about proposing or a wedding when he appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers last night (August 4), he did talk about how gaga his lady made him feel. In fact, he's still blown away that she's dating him in the first place. "I still can't believe it," he said about Stefani. "I thought she must have, like, some vision problems' Maybe she needs help, I don't know" (via US Weekly). Read more here.
This is a tough one for me. "Broken Man" came from a place of guilt and anger. My wife and I were going through a particularly tough period because she had been polyamorous until our engagement. We became fully monogamous after our marriage and we were having a very tough time with it. Despite the monogamy I was still super jealous and angry, and she was unhappy and very much missed her old life. I could see how incredibly unhappy she was, and on top of that I was dealing with a mysterious ankle injury that lasted many months. This was all while I was very isolated in Philadelphia away from my New York work and social circle. It just made me very depressed and honestly suicidal. All the songs on the ANIMALS EP came from that place, but "Broken Man" in particular was birthed out of those impulses. I just kept thinking about what life would be like for her and others if I disappeared. It became an obsession. It's something I don't wish upon anybody.
The song's production actually started at Acme Hall Studios in Brooklyn. I recorded a solo acoustic version of "Broken Man" along with another song from ANIMALS called "The Man In The Silver Vest". I intended to release the two songs together but eventually decided to do a full band arrangement of "Broken Man". My great friend Zach Jones came down to my Russell Street Recording studio and put down some drums and then I went back and redid the acoustic guitars. Mike Chiavaro did bass remotely at home, which is something I find amazing because the technology has just come so far for this kind of efficiency to be possible. Dave Moose Sherman came by to add some keyboard strings that gave it a Neutral Milk Hotel vibe and I had Billy Libby play the lead guitar break in the bridge. I'm so happy with everyone's additions.
Hopefully the song will connect with people that are feeling depressed in their relationships. Maybe it'll convince someone who's having suicidal impulses that they ultimately have a choice to not kill themselves. I certainly needed a reminder this wasn't just about me, but also the people that love and care about me.
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself here and learn more about the album right here!
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