Barbara
Streisand’s entrance is a bit more subdued, but elicits an epic response. The entire arena is on its feet, as she rises from the center of the stage on a hydraulic lift to thunderous applause. Somehow, they’ve forgotten about their selfish children, their bladder control issues, and the $750 they just paid for floor seats. Now, there is only Barbara.

But both shows are not without their low points.

Maiden
During the Maiden show, frontman Bruce Dickinson utters those toxic words that could’ve brought down the Beatles on a reunion tour. “If you haven’t noticed,” Dickinson says, “we’ll be playing our new album for you start to finish.” As fanatical as the crowd is, people still start to sit, hoping that sooner or later there will be a word or guitar riff they can sing along to.

Barbara
The lull in Barbara’s set comes, of course, during her extended riff on the country’s current political climate. Disguised as a dialogue between her and Steve Bridges, a George W. Bush impersonator, all of the scripted yuks fall flat and the audience seems to pay attention out of courtesy. The one major applause break comes when Barbara asks the “President” how he expects us to afford our prescription drugs.

Maiden
The closest thing to a political element at the Iron Maiden show is an Eddy-piloted tank that rises from the stage threatening the audience with a fiery gun barrel. If there is any symbolism here, which I hope there isn’t, I doubt this is the crowd to trust with the duty of image analysis. As Eddy walks across the stage a few moments later on stilts, I breathe a sigh of relief.

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Both acts do a good job of breaking the fourth wall and pandering to their audience between songs. Dickinson needs only scream the city’s name to get his desired response, however, while Streisand sits down and tells us, with the aid of a teleprompter, of her culinary journey throughout Boston. She claims she dined at Legal Seafood’s and the Omni Parker House, although part of me thinks she spent this afternoon like she does any other: resting in her golden sarcophagus filled with James Brolin’s tears.

Maiden
As the Maiden show comes to a close, after a mini-set of classics like “Fear of the Dark” and “Two Minutes to Midnight,” the crowd begins to slowly funnel out of the arena to a peculiar soundtrack of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” I walk past a merch table, which threatens to pull me into a quicksand of $35 T-shirts and remastered copies of CD’s I already own. Only a few more feet to the door, and I can return to civilization again — where people cut their hair and read books that aren’t exclusively novelizations of Halo.

Streisand
My purgatorial stay in the TD Banknorth Garden is amplified by my interminable exit. After the inevitable encore of “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” I make straight for the stairs, knowing if I hesitate, I’ll never escape the stench of witch hazel. Unfortunately, I’ve got too far to travel from my balcony seat, and soon find myself at a standstill. It is the merch table that once again causes the problem — thousands of people clamor for souvenirs of a possible final tour. The crowd feels impenetrable but I make it out alive. I pass a drummer on the street who really picked the wrong night to hawk his phat bucket beats.