Iron Maiden To Play Twickenham Stadium in UK

Iron Maiden will be playing their first ever stadium show in the UK at the Twickenham Rugby Stadium in London on Saturday 5th July 2008 as part of their Somewhere Back In Time World Tour 2008. Despite headlining major UK festivals like Reading and Donington many times and selling out stadiums around the World, the band have never before elected to play a stadium in the UK and intend to make this first time a very special occasion.

The 50,000 capacity celebrated home of English Rugby will be transformed into a Maiden mecca with fans travelling in from all parts of the country and further afield for this one and only UK show of 2008.

To tie in with forthcoming 2008 release on DVD of the classic ‘LIVE AFTER DEATH' concert video (full details available on www.ironmaiden.com) this tour, aptly entitled the ‘SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME – WORLD TOUR 08", will revisit the band's history by focusing almost entirely on the 80's in both choice of songs played and the stage set, which will be based around the legendary Egyptian Production of the 1984-85 ‘Powerslave Tour'. This will arguably be the most elaborate and spectacular show the band have ever presented, and will include some key elements of their Somewhere In Time tour of 1986/7, such as the Cyborg Eddie.

This will be a spectacular return to UK shores for both Iron Maiden and their fans. Maiden have consistently performed headline stadium shows outside the UK and "Maiden Mania" is currently gripping the world as tickets sales of the 2008 World tour fly out of the box offices in Australia, India, Japan, North and South America and now Europe with many shows selling out within only a few hours.

In Scandinavia this week the band sold out 3 stadium shows in Sweden and Finland with all 123,500 tickets purchased in a mad rush within two and a half hours of going on sale.

Steve Harris "It could be a bit of an understatement to say how excited we all are to be playing this show next summer. We've got hell of a tour planned visiting old and new fans all over the world but as always it's great to get home and play here in London especially at such a prestigious stadium as Twickenham. Fans who travel out to Europe for our stadium shows there have for a while been asking us to play one here as the audience in a stadium is much closer to the band than at a big festival and can see so much better. As some people will know I am a big football fan but have heard much about what a great stadium Twickenham is from our rugby mad manager!! So l'm definitely looking forward to savouring that atmosphere We played a couple of nights at Earls Court just before Christmas at the end of our last album tour and you always get such a great feeling playing at home with all your friends and family there. It's going to a fantastic occasion.

It's also tremendous to be able to use the profile of the ‘Live After Death' DVD to do what is effectively an 80's show. It will be enormous fun and changing the approach to the songs we play tour by tour keeps it fresh and interesting for both the band and the fans alike. l think ‘Powerslave' was an incredible show with the Egyptian theme and I'm looking forward to seeing it all again myself."

A full supporting bill for Twickenham will be announced shortly.

The ‘SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME' World Tour is in three sections, the travel for the first being by very unique means with the group customising a Boeing 757 aircraft, which will carry the band, their crew and over 12 tons of equipment from city to city. This first section of the tour opens in Mumbai India on Feb 1st, continuing through Australia and Japan before arriving in Los Angeles. The entourage then fly to Mexico then onto Maiden's first ever visits to Costa Rica and Columbia, then on to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Puerto Rica and New York, before finishing in Toronto, Canada, on March 16th. Over the 45 day period on this leg alone the band is anticipated to play to well over 400,000 fans in 21 cities in 10 countries, flying close to 50,000 miles in this refitted 757 which will be flown largely by vocalist and Astraeus Airline Captain Bruce Dickinson.

Comments Bruce Dickinson, "Looking at the list of places we would like to play we have always had problems joining up the dots. But without having sea containers all over the place slowing down the whole touring process and by having our own plane it has made it far easier to tour distant places like Australia for the first time in15 years. We have already had a great reaction from fans there, where the arenas in Melbourne and Sydney sold out in less than half an hour respectively!"

The second leg of the tour will be in mid-May to mid -June in North America while the final third leg takes place in July and August in stadiums and major festivals around Europe. In total the band are expected to play to well in excess of one and a half million fans during the whole tour.

Tickets go on sale to the public 9.00am on Friday 30th of November, but members of the Iron Maiden fan club will get special and exclusive first access to purchase tickets from 9.00am on Wednesday 28th November. Go to www.ironmaiden.com for further information.

To allow Iron Maiden fans in the UK to get right up close to the band, The Iron Maiden fan club are running a special draw for members whereby 60 winners and a friend at each show will be given first access to the venue and be first to the stage barrier. Full details can be found on www.ironmaiden.com.

Confirmed dates so far for the

SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME World Tour 08

Are as follows -

February

Fri 1st Mumbai, India Bandra Kurla Complex

Mon 4th Perth, Australia Burswood Dome

Wed 6th Melbourne, Australia Rod Laver Arena

Thu 7th Melbourne, Australia Rod Laver Arena

Sat 9th Sydney, Australia Acer Arena

Sun 10th Sydney, Australia Acer Arena

Tue 12th Brisbane, Australia Entertainment Centre

Fri 15th Yokohama, Japan Pacifico Yokohama

Sat 16th Tokyo, Japan Messe

Tue 19th Los Angeles, USA The Forum

Thu 21st Guadalajara, Mexico Auditoria Telmex

Fri 22nd Monterrey, Mexico Arena Monterrey

Sun 24th Mexico City, Mexico Sports Palace

Tue 26th San Jose, Costa Rica Saprisa Stadium

Thu 28th Bogota, Columbia Simon Bolivar Park

March

Sun 2nd Sao Paulo, Brazil Palmeiras Stadium

Wed 5th Porto Allegre, Brazil Gigantinho

Fri 7th Buenos Aires, Argentina Ferrofcarril Oeste Stadium

Sun 9th Santiago, Chile Pista Atletica

Wed 12th Puerto Rico San Juan Coliseo

Fri 14th New Jersey, USA IZOD ARENA

Sun 16th Toronto, Canada Air Canada Centre

July

Tue 1st Paris, France Omnisport De Bercy Arena

Sat 5th London, England Twickenham Stadium

Wed 16th Stockholm, Sweden Stockholm Stadium

Fri 18th Helsinki, Finland Helsinki Olympic Stadium

Sat 19th Tampere, Finland Ratina Stadium

Tue 22nd Trondheim, Norway Lerkendalstadium

Thu 24th Oslo, Norway Valle Hovin

Sat 26th Gothenburg, Sweden Ullevi Stadium

Sun 27th Horsens, Denmark Horsens Gods Bane Pladsen

August

Sat 1-3rd Wacken, Germany Wacken Open Air Festival

Twickenham Show on Sale Friday 30th November 2007

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Twickenham Ticket prices: £37.50 to £50.00 London (plus booking fees).

Tickets available from 0870 400 0688 and www.LiveNation.co.uk