Maiden's Flight 666 Is About Fans

Filmmakers Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen have already created two favourites among the banger populace with Metal: A Headbanger's Journey and Global Metal. With Iron Maiden: Flight 666, they've managed to produce yet another great documentary that not only gives fans a more intimate look at the normally reclusive band, but also provides spectacular live clips of some of Maiden's classics performed all over the world.

Iron Maiden released Powerslave in 1984. It was a record that capped a string of no less than three classic metal albums and spawned one of the biggest tours ever: the World Slavery Tour. The band played 193 shows during the 331-day tour, including the historic Rock In Rio 1985 performance and a four-day stint at London, England's Hammersmith Odeon and four gigs in Long Beach, Calif. that were immortalized on the Live After Death album and DVD.

The band have changed in the last 20 years. Their hair is a little thinner, their pants are a little looser and the lads are a little older. But the view from the stage is the one thing that hasn't changed. The crowds are still large, loud, passionate and surprisingly as young as they were back in 1984, and those fans are the true stars of Iron Maiden: Flight 666.

That's not to take anything away from the band's hard work. After all, the film was shot during 2008's Somewhere Back In Time tour that encompassed 23 shows in 11 countries in five continents in six weeks.

The film crew followed the band as they figured out the only way they could pull off a tour of that magnitude was with their own plane. So they got "Ed Force One," a modified Boeing 757 bearing the band's iconic mascot Eddie on the fin, to fly the band, 70 crew members and 12 tons of equipment more than 70,000 kilometres. Ed was captained by Maiden singer and professional pilot Bruce Dickinson.

The film kicks off with a performance of "Aces High" in Mumbai, India, where a performance by a band like Maiden is a once-in-a-lifetime event for fans. One Costa Rican supporter is shown doing his best Dickinson impression as he belts out the words to "Children Of The Damned" in Spanish. A mob greeted the band at the airport with a deafening rendition of "Run To The Hills" in Bogota, Colombia.

North American arena audiences weren't as intense as their international counterparts, but it was cool to see Metallica's Lars Ulrich, Tom Morello, Anthrax's Scott Ian, Slayer's Kerry King, World Wrestling Entertainment grappler Chris Jericho and members of Heaven & Hell (Black Sabbath) — all with childish, shit-eating grins on their faces — backstage after a gig in Los Angeles. Though I'll admit there's a little hometown bias in this, the performance of "Hallowed Be Thy Name" during the band's Toronto stop is a definite movie highlight.

The relationship captured between the five members of Maiden and their millions of fans is more important than the concert footage. Manufactured international mega-pop stars constantly fail at trying to connect with fans through an endless string of magazine covers and soft drink commercials.

Flight 666 shows how Iron Maiden's uncompromising dedication to their audience truly make them a band of the people. Legions of fans from all over the globe still tweak to the phrase "up the irons" because of that commitment, and that's why why Flight 666 is a success.