SYDNEY, Asutralia (EMI Australia/ www.ironmaiden.com) -
Iron Maiden have confirmed headline appearances at the Reading and Leeds on August 28 / 26 The festivals are part of the 'Eddie Rips Up
Europe - Summer 2005 Tour' which has already had tremendous on-sale reactions with tickets for their massive show in Gothenburg's Ullevi Stadim on 9th July recently selling out all 53,500 in just 2� hours - the second fastest sell-out ever in Sweden's biggest venue after
Bruce Springsteen ! Tickets for their show at Helsinki's Hartwell
Arena on July 6 and 7 went the same way with 22,000 tickets selling out in a day.
Comments singer Bruce Dickinson, 'We've always had great support there before but this is stepping up another level entirely. This tour will be one of the biggest we have ever done in terms in the number of fans we are playing to and if the reaction continues like this every show will be a truly momentous occasion.
'Following the great reception received by our DVD ' The Early Days', which chronicled the Maiden story over the first four albums, we decided to give the fans a special treat on this Tour by playing materiel almost exclusively from these albums, including a lot of songs that fans have been asking us to play for years along with fan favourites like Number of the Beast, Run to the Hills, Hallowed be thy Name, Wrathchild and The Trooper. And it will be a lot of fun for us playing stuff we haven't played for years!! We don't know if anyone has done anything like this before but we think it's something the fans will really appreciate.
'In keeping with this we have put together a massive show where the stage sets, production and backdrops will recreate aspects of the shows we toured around those albums – Iron Maiden, Killers, Number of the Beast and Piece of Mind. Except bigger – much bigger!! And naturally Eddie will appear as special guest in various appropriate guises!!
'We are all very excited to be going back to Reading which we headlined way back in 1982 on the Number of the Beast Tour. We intend to have a fantastic time and we're sure the fans will too'
These shows tie in with the earlier release of the hugely acclaimed DVD 'The History Of Iron Maiden part 1: The Early Days'.
It is recommended that fans visit www.ironmaiden.com for the most up to date news, updates and information on when and where tickets are made available to avoid any disappointment.
