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.

As had been widely rumored (well on the interweb anyhow) since news of a Scottish date broke last week, KISS are finally coming back to give Ireland one more go.

Messrs Stanley and Simmons may have sold an estimated 80 million albums worldwide, but when they last announced they’d be showing up here back in 1996, the Irish public made it very clear that they’d all be, well, anywhere else really and the gig was cancelled amid rumours of pretty horrendous ticket sales.

But that was then, this is now and in the meantime KISS have been busy. Busy making records? Not really, well they’ve made two and the new one’s quite good infact, but more specifically they’ve been busy selling the band to just about anyone who looks sideways at it. There’s been sell-out world tours, corporate entertainment performances, a Hollywood movie, a wrestling tie-up, casket shaped box sets, the Winter Olympics, an appearance on That 70’s show, a performance and album with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, a Coffee Shop, comics, a performance at the Australian Grand Prix, the Gene Simmons Family Jewels and Channel 4’s Rock School reality TV series and now a Guitar Hero pack too.

All of this, you might think will have done wonders for the Band’s popularity and maybe it has, but I suspect that it’s a case of everywhere but Ireland. I’m sure people are looking at AC/DC’s success in Ireland this year as a sign that even without radio play and media support good old fashioned hard rock and heavy metal will still sell concert tickets here. But let’s face it, AC/DC are in a very different league, having sold at least double what KISS has done and having that all important legacy of a very big fanbase here from the 70’s and 80s.

While the internet, downloading and the kind of smart promotion mentioned above have definitely changed the way today’s kids consume the music their parent’s used to listen to, I really wouldn’t be relying on them to find their way to The O2 next May. The Celtic Tiger’s cubs may have grown up watching Gene Simmons on reality TV, some of them may even have been over to Download in 2008, but with unemployment now even higher than it was in 1996 many of them could be hard pressed to even come up with the ticket price, let alone what to Rock all Night and Party Every Day…..

KISS play Dublin on Friday, May 7th 2010 at The O2. Tickets On Sale This Friday 27th November 9.00am. From Euro 49.20 including booking fee, from Ticketmaster and usual outlets.

Ads have hit Irish newspapers this morning with details of another big metal show coming to Dublin’s O2 this year. Def Leppard, Whitesnake and Journey will play the new venue on Friday 12th June in what looks like a warm-up for the UK’s Download festival.

In the past, Irish promoters have done well in scoring shows by metal acts in the area to play big UK festivals like Download and Reading. This has previously resulted in open-air gigs for bands like Iron Maiden, Metallica and Guns n Roses. This year’s Download headliners are however a smaller draw and show in the lower cost confines of The O2 probably suits just fine.

Interestingly Tesla are also included in the newspaper ads for this show but there is no mention of them on the MCD website.

In case they are feeling left out, here’s Tesla in some YouTube action:

Some cringeworthy footage from the Priest gig on The O2 website

Gama Bomb play Galway!!!

Nadja in Dublin in March!!!

I missed this last week but The Irish Times did a review of Judas Priest’s Dublin Show

Via MetalSucks: Suffocation to make video game

D.O.D. has been claiming that Laois is the heavy metal capital of Ireland for ages now but suddenly the locals are concerned

Long before Mass Extinction’s Dublin Bay Area Thrash Metal there was Killer Watt. Check it out!

Judas Priest were fantastic last night. It was my third time seeing them and I have to admit my first stone cold sober. The past two times I wasn’t entirely with it shall we say but did fail somewhat to feel the vibe from them. In fact I recall several conversations with people where I’ve been quite critical of Halford’s on stage presence.

Tonight however they were truly great. Halford’s vocals and movement on stage certainly isn’t what it was, but the show was a real throw back to kind of thing one might have seen from them in their 80s heyday – well not quite but as close as you’ll get form them these days. They had it all with the exception of solos really, a big drum-riser, Halford riding onto the stage on a motorbike, dueling guitars, wardrobe changes, KK Downing in leather and of course some of the greatest metal songs ever written. The highlights for me were ‘Electric Eye’, ‘Painkiller’ and the entire encore which was made up of ‘Hell Bent For Leather’, ‘The Green Manalishi’ and the song I still have in my head ‘You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’.

First time in the new O2. Seems ok, although not completely fantastic. The sound was a bit of a let down, however I understand that the venue has no actual PA and the bands bring everything with them. Given that and the fact that it was the first night of the tour I guess it could be down to teething problems, but certainly more of an issue for band and crew more than the venue from what I can gather.

I’m hoping for The Green Manalishi to make my night!

The final Shrapnel of the year.

Here are some of my recent sightings.

I was waiting for MCD to officially announce this but they still haven’t. So given that its on-sale via Ticketmaster and listed on the Saxon website it might be a good time to reference it here. Yes - Saxon play Dublin (again) on April 26th, 2009.

Jonny’s Top Ten Albums of 2008. Not that I’d be in agreement….

Jonny’s also had a quick word with Ian ‘Speedo’ Wilson of reactivated Belfast outfit Sweet Savage.

Not metal but…… there are some photos of the Coldplay and Kings of Leon gigs in The O2 popping up on the old interweb that might be of interest for anyone that wants to see what the new venue looks like during a gig.

Via Una Rocks: Anarchy in the UK (and Oireland as well if we weren’t careful!)

Something to do in Dublin on Friday night. Thanks to Objection for a nice little round-up on Irish Doom.

MetalSucks has posted this rather interesting guide to Heavy Metal band names.

And finally, some footage from this year’s Cork Winterfest has found its way onto YouTube. Check out Morphosis doing their thing in the clip below.

Woo-Hoo!!! – I got my AC/DC Punchestown tickets sorted this morning. It looks like as of 13:30 today it still hadn’t sold out, although apparently it’s been on the radio that 60,000 tickets have already been shifted.

I’d imagine that by the end of the day all 70,000 will be gone. Not quite as fast as the speed at which the O2 sold-out, or some of their other outdoor shows around Europe, but impressive none the less. 10 years ago there wouldn’t have been a chance of AC/DC pulling a crowd like that in Ireland. Check out the clip below from their December 2, show in Oakland, California.

I heard Ian Dempsey on Today FM discussing this report on his show this morning.

Not metal but Jim Carroll has an interesting post on MCD v Prince which is currently in the courts. It gives some interesting insights into how artists are booked, dates scheduled etc

Justin Hawkins gets a hard time on Belfast Metalheads Reunited

Looks like Dave Mustaine is ready to give metalcore a hand killing real metal (I’ll come back to this)

Plenty of rumors doing the rounds (no pun intended) of two Irish Metallica shows in 2009. The band themselves of course mentioned it when they played Marlay Park this summer i.e. that they’d be back in Ireland doing an indoor show in 2009. Now it seems that dates in both the Odyssey Arena, Belfast and The O2, Dublin have been lined-up between May and July.

Metallica’s indoor trek will be with an ‘In the Round’ stage set-up (with the stage in the centre of the arena and the crowd surrounding) as they’ve done before. The band played a rehearsal on Friday night (October 17) at the Cow Palace, San Francisco, California. Photographer Alan Ralph’s account (with photos) was reported on Blabbermouth.

No official statement from the promoter yet or on how quickly it sold out but the consensus seems to be mere minutes. I was set up on three computers and a phone from early morning and was lucky enough to get two seating tickets. Lots of people (true fans) have been left out in the cold however (literally) as many people that queued at Ticketmaster outlets didn’t get tickets. It seems you needed to be in the first ten to fifteen to have made it before the sell-out. Jim Carroll has more.