I went to see Iron Maiden in Helsinki on 16th June 2025. Them Irons recently started their "run for your lives" european tour. It was my 2nd time seeing the band, even that I've been listening to them since I was about 10-11 years old, ever since "powerslave" came out ... which means yes, quite a long time. Pretty much 40+ years. But that's all side story to what I'm going to write here.
First the positive matters. Extremely positive, actually: The band is in top shape, and Bruce's vocals are downright amazing - and nothing else is worse. I don't have anything "bad" to comment about their new drummer guy Simon either. The man does his job and does it good, might even give some new energy / edge to the band in a way - I'm saying this of course with all the respect to Nicko, but serious health issues do affect to how people can do their jobs / tasks / hobbies, you know. Nicko did a truly amazing career with IM and left huge boots to be filled. Simon is filling them in his own style pretty nicely if you ask me. And it's actually interesting that Simon's kit is very minimal and that you can actually see the guy at his work bashing them drums.
The whole show, it was pure gold really. And hey, I'm not an Iron Maiden fanatic - for me their last gem of an album overall was "somewhere in time" and everything since that has been "some selected tune or few awesome, rest of the album neutral to me" league or something in that vein. Still, it's a band with amazing and respectable career, no doubt about that. And yeah, the whole show was - like stated - pure gold. The band played like a dream, they had amazing sound, no sound problems whatsoever, the band was on fire, Bruce sang like he'd never had any health problems. Just freakin' impressive. And on top of all that - the visuals of the show were truly magnificent, too. Massive digital backdrop with videos / animations which gave extra bonus effect to the tunes (for example "rime of the ancient mariner" ... just WOW!) ... Eddie adventuring on stage, of course, too - all in all, I'd say it was 10+ show. Nothing to complain.
Let's throw few pictures here before continuing ...
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| Stadium was packed literally (50K ppl estimate) |
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| The visuals (digital backdrop) were effective |
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| The band is in top shape, no doubt about that |
Well, I didn't take that many pictures (8 pics overall only) mainly because I was so concentrated following the show. What I did do, was shooting just some videos of band performing. Just some selected tunes, like "killers", "iron maiden" and "powerslave". I edited a video of those clips and uploaded it to Youtube as I usually do when I go to some gig / shoot some live video stuff. My video clip was online some 2-3 hours until ... BANG! I got a copyright strike from the band's music company. Not the usual copyright notification (which comes from pretty much all music stuff you upload to youtube if video contains music made by others) which is just artist/company telling that this is copyrighted material, but that it's ok for artist/company that you have this video here - you can't monetize the video and all the potential income goes of course to band/company. That's all perfectly fine to me and totally cool. Of course. I have that happening all the time with the tribute video clips and/or live music clips I upload to youtube.
But in Iron Maiden's case it was serious copyright strike, not just notification: The IM video went down instantly and I was ordered to delete it from youtube, and I got threatened with legal actions if I don't delete the video. Of course I deleted the video. But it wasn't just that; it also meant that I got official warning at Youtube for this IM copyright strike, and it lasts 90 days - if I get another copyright strike & warning like this one, my youtube channel would disappear instantly for good. And you can bet that's not what I want, with music being a passionate hobby to me. I would lose all my own music projects' videos, all the live videos I've shot, all the tribute videos I've done, etc.
Quite paradoxical case all in all; like said, that Iron Maiden show was downright fantastic in all possible ways. People / fans want to capture something of it, to remember it by - people want to share etc. I can say this episode gave me quite a bad aftertaste of the otherwise amazing event. On top of this copyright incident, just some hour or two after I deleted that June 16th 2025 Iron Maiden video (and I also deleted my May 29th 2018 Iron Maiden gig video, just in case) Iron Maiden fanclub mails me that in case you want to buy tour shirts and stuff, come to our shop. Awww yea, sure, no thanks after the way you treat your fans who just wanna capture legendary band in action. Well, actually I did buy band shirt after the show after short consideration, cost me 50 euros (50 euros for T-shirt, ouch! That's certainly the most expensive band T-shirt I've ever bought) ... I think that price is like the real number of the beast. Wonder why it wasn't straight 66 euros ...
Afterthoughts: Yes, anyone can guess the most obvious reasons with this copyright strike thing and IM company hunting fans who shot videos in IM show (I can see constantly new liveclips appearing to youtube, then disappearing within 24 hours) ... most probably it all boils down to money as usual. Or then it's that they don't want people see phone videos shot at IM gigs but "people going to shows to see the shows with their own eyes" (which is all worth it, yes) ... but it's back to the money thing again. I personally can watch tens and tens of bootleg clips and then go to concert - it takes nothing away from me. I don't believe it would be like ... some IM fan watches these bootleg videos and then decides that "oh well, I've seen it all now, I won't go there". Show me even one Iron Maiden fan who would act like this. You won't find any. If you are a fan of some band, you will go to their shows, period. And you will want to watch lots of bootlegs of band(s) you are fan of. Period.
The world really keeps turning. Rewind some 20+ years ... in the early 2000s, remember Metallica and Napster, Metallica's so called war against mp3s, etc? I have to say that I seriously respect Metallica for the way they've chosen to deal with these things these days. You know; people can shoot videos as much as they want at their shows and upload them to youtube, nothing gets removed, no one gets hunted & threatened, and the band themselves is releasing awesome live video moments from their shows on a daily basis. I went to see Metallica for 1st ever time in 2024 (even that I've followed them too ever since their debut album) and yes I shot some live clips, and yes I uploaded them to youtube - and they are still there with no threats from the band to remove them or else .... and yeah, this is the way to go. If you had asked me 20+ years ago, I wouldn't have believed there would still be day in the future where I can say I respect Metallica in so many ways - and I don't just mean musically (who would had believed there's nothing but the end in sight after StAnger?) but especially in how they deal with these things, they no longer hunt their fans and they accept the world has changed. These days everyone walks with videocam in their pockets (well, practically a personal computer in their pockets) and people want to save audiovisual memoirs and share them. That's how it is. You shouldn't be punished for that. You are making personal memoir of (sometimes even a special) event, other people can enjoy your audiovisual memoirs too if you choose to put them online - and it's also free marketing for the artists themselves. Punishment for marketing the band, spreading the word through audiovisual memoirs ... such a shame, really.
I have to say and I can't emphasize this enough; I was truly surprised and it felt genuinely sad to get a serious copyright strike from a legendary band like Iron Maiden at youtube. At first I couldn't believe it. And yeah, it did take a lot of joy of the experience away, too. It gave foul taste for the thing. Being accused and threatened; like I would be making money from selected live clips shot at their show? What a joke! I've never made a penny out ot youtube and it's not my intention either, as it's simply always been about passion for music. The IM show was awesome, and I don't see anything bad in fans sharing their videos and pics from the concerts.
Personally I most often shoot few video clips at gigs I go to - and I always do it in a way that would be as little annoying to other people as possible. Also the fact is that it doesn't stop me myself from enjoying the show, really - as I've been doing that stuff (photography hobbyist since early to mid 1980s) with cameras long time. Meaning that I don't have to watch my phone when I'm filming, but I can pretty much follow the band and film at the same time, rather comfortably, without looking the phone screen. Sometimes if I've been at gig of band whose fan I'm big time, I might capture their whole gig - like for example I've captured two times Godflesh's full gig (and I've watched my own bootlegs several times afterwards just to experience it again). Same with for example Incantion. I might have wanted to capture much more Iron Maiden few days ago - but I also respected the band's wish to "keep the phones in your pockets" and so I just chose few tunes to be captured. (and still I ended up being punished, yay) ...
Why do I bother shooting live clips then? Back when I was a kid / teenager living in far north Finland in the middle of nowhere, I could hardly ever get into any music events as everything was so freakin' far away. You can bet it felt frustrating. So ... as soon as I found the world of bootlegs, VHS / video bootlegs of gigs late 1980s and watching bootlegs of gigs I wanted to go (but couldn't) ... the bootlegs gave me a lot. The vibe of seeing early death metal bands on VHS, even that the quality was most often truly horrible and audio such that you could hardly recognize tunes ... still, it meant a lot. I can't emphasize how magical it was in some cases, really. Some bands didn't even come to Finland back in those days, and the more extreme metal bands - the more rare it was (for example Suffocation bootleg clips from 1990/91 were like treasure back in those days). So, if I can give even a bit of the same vibes to some other people who for some reason can't get to see the bands - it feels good. And personally I still enjoy a lot watching other people's bootleg videos shot at different bands' gigs. I don't think I'm an exception. If music is a passion for you, that's how it goes. Music is everywhere with you.
<sarcasm> I hope I won't be threatened by Iron Maiden's company for putting few pictures here into this blog post from Iron Maiden show 16th June 2025 in Helsinki, Finland. As sharing few live video clips from an amazing show from fan's perspective is such an offence to them. Up the irons ... gets whole new meaning here. </sarcasm>
