Iron Maiden with special guest Alice Cooper

Yesterday, as I mentioned previously, was the Iron Maiden concert in Tinley Park, Illinois. They are currently on their North American tour, titled "Maiden England". For the tour they brought along special guest Alice Cooper to open for them. I found this pair to be quite fitting as they are both very theatrical and can be pretty dark at times.

I made the two and a half hour drive from my house to Tinley Park's First Midwest Bank Amphitheater. I had never before been to this particular venue, and I was pretty nervous due to the extreme heatwave conquering the Midwest and most of the country. However, it started to cool down by the time Alice Cooper came on stage and once Iron Maiden began playing, the sun had completely set. This fortunate darkness provided some additional cool air to the audience members and those on stage. Despite this, I cannot imagine how hot the performers of both bands must have been. All members of the bands were suited in long sleeves and jeans and had larger than life costume changes for certain songs. There were fireworks that went off frequently, only adding to the heat on stage. Alice Cooper even have quite a bit of pyrotechnics, equipped with gloves that threw flames. They were good sports about the heat, though, and Bruce Dickinson (the lead singer of Iron Maiden) even referenced it a few times. I stayed cool in my lawn seats and was not too crowded by other audience members. Hopefully everyone was safe and cool!

Overall, both acts put on great shows and performed many of their hit songs. It was a great concert and I am glad I got to see both of these bands. They were two bands I had wanted to see for quite a while and I am thrilled to finally mark it off of my concert bucket list, so to speak.