IRON MAIDEN ANNOUNCE HUGE ARENA TOUR

Iron Maiden are to play a HUGE UK arena tour in 2011.

The band will play ten arenas around the country in the summer, kicking off with a show in Glasgow on 20 July.

Here’s the shows:

JULY 
Wed 20 Glasgow SECC
Thu 21 Aberdeen AECC P&J Arena
Sat 23 Newcastle Metro Radio Arena
Sun 24 Sheffield Motorpoint Arena
Wed 27 Nottingham Trent FM Arena
Thu 28 Manchester MEN Arena
Sun 31 Birmingham NIA

AUGUST 
Mon 1 Cardiff CIA Arena
Wed 3 Belfast Odyssey
Fri 5 London O2 Arena

Steve Harris comments; "Everything in the Maiden camp has been so full on these last five years or so that we haven't travelled around the UK to play for our home fans for almost that long.  These fans  supported us by coming to Twickenham Stadium, Reading and Leeds Festivals, Download and more recently Sonisphere so we thought we should get off our backsides and do the travelling this time and get round the country to see them all. We very much look forward to playing all four home countries and a couple of places we haven’t been for a very long time, Aberdeen and Belfast! And playing the O2 gets us as close to the East End of London where Maiden started off than we have been for many a year, probably since the Ruskin Arms! All in all l think this is going to be a very special series of shows and a wonderful way to end this whole world tour.

"We intend to take the full stadium show into the UK arenas and fit everything we possibly can into each venue. The set list will be different to this year’s tour. Of course we will play more songs from the new album and some other recent material, but we intend to include a healthy dose of older fan favourites too for those who haven’t seen us before, plus a spectacular light show and stage set, not forgetting, of  course, ...Eddie!”

The UK shows will be the culmination of The Final Frontier World Tour, which began in June 2010 with a hugely successful 25 date tour throughout North America, followed by selected European stadium and festival shows, including Knebworth Sonisphere in the UK. As recently announced, early next year Ed Force One will fly the band, crew and equipment 50,000 miles around the World visiting thirteen countries before the band take a short break prior to the extensive European Tour (more announcements soon) of which the UK is the final leg.

Tickets for the shows are on general sale on Saturday 20 November at 9am