HISTORY OF IRON MAIDEN: BACK TO THE TOP III (1999 - 2007)

 1999–2007: Back to the top

The very first historical DVD was piloted by the reissue of the single "The Number of the Beast", which reached number 3 on the UK bestseller charts. The film reached the top of charts in twenty countries, once again bringing the musicians a number of gold and platinum records.
In 2005, the group embarked on the first of several subsequent "historical" tours, during which both the repertoire and the setting of the concerts referred to the era presented on the DVD with archives.
During the "Eddie Rips Up the World Tour", the musicians performed songs exclusively from their first four studio albums, and the 48-date tour included stadium, festival and sports arena performances. Almost 60,000 tickets to the Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg were sold within 90 minutes, the concert was broadcast via satellite links to 60 million viewers.

Iron Maiden also performed for the Polish audience at the Silesian Stadium in Chorzów as the star of the Mystic Festival. The English played for 150,000 people at the German Rock am Ring / Rock im Park, 125,000 fans, including the Reading and Leeds Festivals in England, Graspop Metal Meeting, Gods of Metal, and also went on a significant tour to strengthen the group's position in the USA as a co-headliner of the largest music festival in North America - Ozzfest, together with Black Sabbath. Audiences in North America ranged from 25,000 to approximately 50,000 people, while during the last concert in San Bernardino, there was an incident initiated by Ozzy Osbourne's wife, Sharon. The musicians were pelted with eggs and insults, and their electricity was turned off several times. 

The audience, sensing that these actions were not accidental, supported Iron Maiden until the end of the performance, and the media strongly sided with Steve Harris' band.
The provocation aimed at discrediting the band consequently made it credible in the eyes of American fans, and the band was included in the "Hollywood RockWalk" located on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.
For the second time, the musicians gave a charity concert for The Clive Burr MS Trust Fund, this time at London's Hammersmith Apollo. 48 concerts attracted approximately 1.8 million people.
The success of the first historical tour in the band's history made Iron Maiden's status transformation into a stadium band level.

At the end of the year they also began working on their next album, titled A Matter of Life and Death. The fourteenth studio album was released in the fall of 2006, both the cover illustration and the themes of the song lyrics touched on the interconnections between religion and war at various stages of human development. The music turned out to be darker and more difficult to listen to than the previous few albums, but the new studio proposal was a commercial and artistic success. A Matter of Life and Death debuted at the top of bestsellers in 13 countries around the world (also in Poland), in Great Britain and many other countries it reached the TOP 5 charts, and in the USA it was in the TOP 10 of the Billboard 200. The album brought the group further gold and platinum records and many awards and nominations (Bandit Award, Metal Hammer Award, Rock Hard Award and Classic Rock Roll of Honor Awards).

The album was led by the singles "The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg" and "Different World", which gained considerable popularity (Top 10 in England, Europe and the USA). From September 2006, Iron Maiden embarked on the "A Matter of Life and Death World Tour 2006/07", playing sold-out shows in large arenas in Asia, North America and Europe. Instead of many evergreens, the musicians decided to present the album's content in its entirety, referring to the tradition of great art legends rock of 70s.

In Sweden 60,000 tickets for four indoor concerts were sold in 45 minutes, and it was no different in the case of the UK tour (nine concerts for 120,000 people). The second part of the tour took place in 2007 and was associated with the celebration of the quarter-century of the release of the group's most popular album, The Number of the Beast. In connection with the above-mentioned anniversary, a number of concerts were organized under the aegis of the author's festival "The Beast Fest '07", taking place in selected countries in Asia and Europe. The band performed at stadiums in Bulgaria (40,000 fans), the Czech Republic, Serbia, Slovenia, Germany and Italy (Olympic Stadium in Rome). Once again, the European audience could watch the group as headliners of large festivals, including: Graspop Metal Meeting, Fields of Rock, Heineken Jamming Festival where 130,000 people appeared, finally Iron Maiden performed (for the fourth time in his career) at Donington Park headlining the Download Festival 2007 in front of almost 80,000 fans.

Iron Maiden's concerts in India and the United Arab Emirates were met with great interest - in front of 50,000 people, respectively at the Bangalore Palace Grounds in Mumbai and as the headliner of the Dubai Desert Rock Festival for 25,000 people. The tour promoting the album ended on June 24, 2007 with a performance at London's Brixton Academy, the proceeds of which went to The Clive Burr MS Trust for the third and last time. The former Iron Maiden drummer's condition was already very serious and, unfortunately, it did not change until his death in 2013. The "A Matter of Life and Death World Tour" eventually included 62 concerts in 26 countries and attracted approximately 1.7 million people. In August 2007, Iron Maiden and their management worked on another concert project, which was to turn out to be the most ambitious logistical undertaking in their career.