Rumours of an Iron Maiden show in Dublin this summer hit the auld interweb around this time yesterday sending the Ireland’s Maiden fans into what must have been an agonizing frenzy, until promoters MCD officially announced the show this morning. Maiden will use the date at The O2, Dublin on Friday 30th July to open the European leg of their Final Frontier (cue the Star Trek jokes) World Tour, which thus far includes no other indoor shows (although there are some on the US leg).

The unique (so far) attraction of seeing Maiden in the more intimate indoor surroundings of The O2 would suggest that Irish fans may have to compete with fans of the band from around Europe for tickets. It is already expected that Maiden will also run a Bruce Air Flight for Fan Club members. Add to that the fact that “special guests” on the night will be the also enormous Heaven & Hell, the Ronnie James Dio era Black Sabbath line-up. Thus, I predict paying on the door will not be an option for this one….

Tickets priced at between €59.80 and €65.70 (hefty enough) go on sale exclusively to Iron Maiden Fan Club members on Tuesday 13th April at 9am, O2 mobile phone customers on Wednesday 14th and to everyone else (if any are left) via the usual suspects on Friday 16th of April.

Old news for some, but as it’s not the kind of thing that happens every day, I thought it worthy of a mention. Yes, in yet another completely unexpected and pretty major turn up for the books, Cork’s metal faithful have found themselves with another one of thrash metal’s big four coming to Leeside. In the biggest Irish heavy metal news shocker (since the last one), Megadeth will play Cork this summer.

Just like Slayer in 2007, Dave and Co will hit the Marquee on June 14th. Tickets will set you back €39.50 and are available right now from the usual suspects.

Here’s hoping Aiken Promotions are enlightened enough to give this show the one support band that it’s completely crying out for - Gama Bomb. Do it!

Always great live, well at least since they got their act together again following their little Nu Metal/Hip Hop sojourn, Machine Head return to Ireland to play Dublin’s Olympia on 28th of February and Belfast’s St George’s Market on March 1st 2010.

While not officially announced yet it’s looking like a four band package with Hatebreed, Bleeding Through and All Shall Perish accompanying them.

With Hatebreed, a headline act in their own right, both shows could very well sell out and pretty quickly too. Keep an eye on MCD’s website and Ticketmaster for the official announcement.

Oh and wear either shorts or baggy pants!

The sad news of the untimely death of Paul ‘Skinny’ Kelly, bass player in Dublin based Death Metal/Hardcore outfit Coldwar, broke during the week. Hugely respected in both the metal and hardcore scenes and widely acknowledged as one of the nicest guys you could meet his shocking passing has drawn a flood of tributes on the band’s Myspace Page where his bandmates have also left the following tribute.

“Skinny passed away on tuesday. We are all in shock one of the nicest people you would ever meet. It was always a pleasure to be in a band with skinny .He put his bollox into music,
cheers skinny we had a blast, love yeah.”

I had the pleasure of dealing with Skinny when Coldwar played at D.O.D.’s night of Merry Darkness in the Voodoo Lounge in 2006 and like many others found him to be such a nice guy.

His funeral takes place at 2pm tomorrow at Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.

After an almost completely crap summer the Irish weather is once again threatening to ruin the fun of Ireland’s long suffering gig goers. This time however, bizarrely it’s the threat of sunshine that that will be weighing heavy on the minds of the organisers of Ireland’s newest all day metal affair, Dublin Doom Day, running tomorrow in Dublin.

Not only will the forecast September sunshine lessen the appeal of heading along to the show’s new venue Fibber Magees on Dublin’s Parnell St during the hours of daylight, but for a Doom metal gig, the Indian Summer feel will hardly add to the atmosphere.

None the less, for those willing to brave the elements, here is the running order:

The Lamp of Thoth 00.15-01.30
Saturnus 22.35-23.50
Esoteric 21:00-22.15
Graveyard Dirt 19.30-20.30
The Prophecy 17.35-18.25
Wreck of the Hesperus 16.45-17.20
Council of Tanith 15.55-16.30
On Pain of Death 15.05-15.40
Dwell in Sun 14.15-14.50

Paddy Metal’s picks are Esoteric, Graveyard Dirt and Wreck of the Hesperus. Expect a packed beer garden too!

Managing to get to grips with my turbulent lifestyle again. I’ve a little bit more time in my day at the moment so I’m going to be back blogging again in the coming days. I’ve also set-up a Twitter page for Paddy Metal so that if I can’t find the time to put it in more than 140 characters, you can still ready about it.

More to come.

It won’t be quite like this. But….

ps. I’m still working on getting this back up and running on a regular basis. Thanks ror your patience.

Sweet Mother of Devine Jebus! MCD have added Doro Pesch to the line-up for Saxon’s Irish shows in April. This may be the single biggest piece of metal news I’ll blog about this year.

Well not really, but to explain; if you were a teenage guy and into metal in the 80s or early 90s, Doro Pesch and Lita Ford were the kind of erm… artists that turned your head without singing a single note. Long before the likes of Cristina Scabbia and Angela Gossow began strutting their loveliness through the minds of countless pubescent metal heads across the globe, Doro and Lita were blazing a sexy trail for women in metal.

While many a mother may have worried about why their son’s walls were adorned with posters of a sweaty and topless Axl Rose or David Lee Roth more again were blessing themselves at the sight of a typical Pesch or Ford photo shoot. While both rocked, that really didn’t matter because how they looked and how they dressed was what most of their fans were looking at. They were heavy metal’s ultimate hot chicks.

Just to prove however that they did rock, check out Doro doing her stuff with her old band Warlock.

Metallica will play an open air show at Fairyhouse Racecourse in Co. Meath on Saturday, August 1st 2009.

The band have listed the date on their website although at the time of writing this, there doesn’t seem to be any confirmation on the websites of either of the two big promoters MCD and Aiken.

This gig has of course been rumored for some time, as has the possibility of Slipknot also being on the bill. Its likely however that whoever ends up joining them on the day will be drawn from the pool of acts playing the Sonishpere Festival in the UK on the same weekend. Machine Head would be nice…..

More news on this to come.

Going to see this tonight!