"Jump in the cockpit and start up the engines / Remove all the wheel blocks there's no time to waste!" British metal icons Iron Maiden completed a 36-country tour in support of 2015's The Book of Souls earlier this year and with a few months to rest, they'll be hitting the road for another round of dates in the spring of 2017!

The trek will launch from Antwerp, Belgium on April 22, marking the band's first appearance in the city since they last stopped over in 1981 while on the Killers tour back when Paul Di'Anno was still the lead singer. The 16-date run will take them to arenas in Germany, the U.K., Ireland and Scotland, finishing up in London on May 27 with hard rock vets Shinedown serving as support each night. See a full list of dates below (the poster at the top only lists the U.K. dates).

“As it’s been so long since our last full U.K. arena tour, we really wanted to get to our fans in as many cities as possible," began bassist and founder Steve Harris. "We’re really looking forward to it, especially visiting places we haven’t been to for a very long time like Leeds where we haven’t played since 2005 and Liverpool where we haven’t played since 1990. The whole band is really enjoying this tour and although we love playing festivals and stadiums, it is terrific to return to the intimacy and atmosphere of arenas. The songs from The Book Of Souls album and the new Maya-themed Eddies and stage sets have gone down really well and fan reaction has been amazing. And of course we know our fans appreciate us playing a lot of the older songs too, which we will continue to do.”

Much like Maiden has in the past, the band will be implementing a paperless ticketing system on this jaunt in an effort to combat scalpers and other nefarious reselling tactics. Longtime manager Rod Smallwood explained:

“We do not want our fans being ripped off either by counterfeit tickets or through costly mark-ups on so called secondary ticketing websites. These problems now affect the UK more than any other country outside of the U.S.A. We believe the most successful way to prevent this is by implementing Paperless ticketing. This proved highly successful in reducing piracy at our previous London shows in 2013 and on our North American tours since 2010. This is a simple procedure and goes a long way to minimizing the resale of tickets and reducing fraud by requiring the original cardholder purchaser to be present at entry.

We have been working with our UK promoter Live Nation and Ticketmaster to ensure that we can operate a Paperless ticketing system, in full or in part, at all the UK venues we’ll play in 2017. We are also instigating a number of additional measures which we believe will directly help our fans to access tickets in the fairest, safest way and at the intended price.”

Some of the measures being taken to put this plan into action include real-time monitoring of Iron Maiden Fan Club pre-sales, a limit of four tickets per person, invalidating tickets that appear on secondary sites and that the cardholder be present with photo ID at the desired show.

The Book of Souls was Iron Maiden's first double album, featuring the epic, 19-minute Bruce Dickinson-penned closer, "Empire of the Clouds.' The record dominated charts worldwide and topped Loudwire's Best Metal Albums of 2015 list.

Iron Maiden 2017 Tour Dates

4/22 - Antwerp, Belgium @ Sportpaleis
4/24 - Oberhausen, Germany @ König-Pilsener-Arena
4/28 - Frankfurt, Germany @ Festhalle
5/02 - Hamburg, Germany @ Barclaycard Arena
5/04 - Nottingham, U.K. @ Motorpoint Arena
5/06 - Dublin, Ireland @ 3arena
5/08 - Manchester, U.K. @ Arena
5/10 - Sheffield, U.K. @ Arena
5/11 - Leeds, U.K. @ First Direct Arena
5/14 - Newcastle, U.K. @ Metro Radio Arena
5/16 - Glasgow, Scotland @ SSE Hydro Arena
5/17 - Aberdeen, Scotland @ AECC GE Oil & Gas Arena
5/20 - Liverpool, U.K. @ Echo Arena
5/21 - Birmingham, U.K. @ Barclaycard Arena
5/24 - Cardiff, Wales @ Motorpoint Arena
5/27 - London, U.K. @ O2 Arena

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