The Iron Maiden Thread v. The Merge of Souls

[El Barto]

For many of us, they already did the post-2k tour when DT opened. I can't see them doing that again (though I really loved it). If there's an interim tour between now and another album it'll be a greatest hits covering everything. Then there's always the increasingly likely farewell tour.

[cramx3]

For many of us, they already did the post-2k tour when DT opened. I can't see them doing that again (though I really loved it). If there's an interim tour between now and another album it'll be a greatest hits covering everything. Then there's always the increasingly likely farewell tour.

I kind of feel like those two tours will be one of the same.  Im guessing they won't do another tour (besides more of the current tour) unless it's for a new album or farewell tour (greatest hits).  While some of us would enjoy a 90s tour, I don't think the band really cares for that and given they hit up all the rest of the historical tours worthy of doing and their age, I just feel like it won't happen.   I would really hope to be wrong though, I would love to see them time and time again on tour, but I feel that isn't realistic.

[Mosh]

I don't see them doing an official farewell tour. I expect it to be a similar situation to Rush where it becomes obvious as the tour progresses that this is going to be the last, when they realize they can't physically do it anymore.

My prediction is that they'll do another album and tour, then a greatest hits tour that will probably be the last. The current tour could very well be their last large scale excursion though.

[MirrorMask]

I missed the almost-all-reunion tour and I still regret it! I would have loved a full on set based on the most recent material, last tour's setlist was very good but I'm a bit sad that only Blood Brothers represented the reunion albums.

About the future, I assume nothing will happen in 2017 aside from the short european tour (but never say never concerning other markets), and maybe 2018 will bring us another album; they all seem very intent on doing another one, and there really ain't nothing else going on since the history tours are over, so I can't see them doing a "just because" tour without any kind of theme or anticipation for a forthcoming new album.

[jjrock88]

Still hopeful that they will release an official live album from this past tour.  I never got to see them this time around, so the live album will have to do.

[cramx3]

About the future, I assume nothing will happen in 2017 aside from the short european tour (but never say never concerning other markets), and maybe 2018 will bring us another album; they all seem very intent on doing another one, and there really ain't nothing else going on since the history tours are over, so I can't see them doing a "just because" tour without any kind of theme or anticipation for a forthcoming new album.

Yea, I could see them doing another run of the same show in different markets such as a summer tour next year of the US hitting their normal amphitheaters they would do during the summer here and since they already hit up the summer festival circuits in Europe, the rest of the US is prime for them come next year if they are up to it.

[Mosh]

The press release says no more European dates for 2017, which implies they'll do stuff on other continents. I take that to mean they'll do an extensive shed tour in the US in June and July.

As far as a new album goes, I expect a similar timeline to the Dance of Death period. They might do a summer tour prior to the new album release that will act as a small scale greatest hits tour. I doubt they'll do anything at the level of Maiden England again.

[TAC]

The press release says no more European dates for 2017, which implies they'll do stuff on other continents. I take that to mean they'll do an extensive shed tour in the US in June and July.

I hope you're right.

[Mosh]

Here in Denver the crowds have been growing every time they come back. I assume it's the same across the country, would be very odd if they only did 10 North American shows this tour.

[El Barto]

A Summer shed tour will almost certainly be greatest hits rather than BoS. They'll play a couple of songs from it, but certainly not six. Maiden pretty much summed up their gameplan around DoD and stuck with it. Limited US album tours and larger tours featuring the MTV hits.

[TAC]

A Summer shed tour will almost certainly be greatest hits rather than BoS. They'll play a couple of songs from it, but certainly not six. Maiden pretty much summed up their gameplan around DoD and stuck with it. Limited US album tours and larger tours featuring the MTV hits.

Someone needs to clue Bruce in on this. He's been denying it since the mid 80's.

[El Barto]

MTV certainly helped them out in the early 80's. At the same time their popularity has exploded in the 2000s, without any help from radio or MTV.

[NoseofNicko]

I would pay a lot to see them play Alexander the Great.

[TAC]

MTV certainly helped them out in the early 80's. At the same time their popularity has exploded in the 2000s, without any help from radio or MTV.

What they have done in the 2000's is nothing short of amazing.

[bosk1]

I would pay a lot to see them play Alexander the Great.

[cramx3]

MTV certainly helped them out in the early 80's. At the same time their popularity has exploded in the 2000s, without any help from radio or MTV.

What they have done in the 2000's is nothing short of amazing.

Im a fan from the 2000s.  The radio hits of the 80s were not the reason why.  I believe it was Fear of the Dark live at RiR that got me hooked.  It was on Edward the Great, greatest hits album.  I liked IM but hearing that blew me away.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

I would pay a lot to see them play Alexander the Great.

1000 times this but minus the payment.

[TAC]

MTV certainly helped them out in the early 80's. At the same time their popularity has exploded in the 2000s, without any help from radio or MTV.

What they have done in the 2000's is nothing short of amazing.

Im a fan from the 2000s.  The radio hits of the 80s were not the reason why.  I believe it was Fear of the Dark live at RiR that got me hooked.  It was on Edward the Great, greatest hits album.  I liked IM but hearing that blew me away.

I think that's awesome!

[Phoenix87x]

Spent the day listening to TFF. I really love Where the wild wind blows

[bosk1]

Where were you when we needed people with good taste in the Maiden survivor? 

[TAC]

Spent the day listening to TFF. I really love Where the wild wind blows

Such an awesome album.

[bosk1]

Where were you when we needed people with good taste in the Maiden survivor? 

[TAC]

Such an awesome album.

[Mosh]

TFF is great.

[425]

Starblind tho. But yeah as I've said before TFF is my favorite Maiden album. Not a bad track on there, especially among the epics.

Also, Maiden survivor plug: we just started consolations! If you're a Maiden fan and you don't check Polls and Survivors that often, be sure to take a look over there at the polls I try to post everyday but often fail to post that frequently.

[The King in Crimson]

Starblind tho. But yeah as I've said before TFF is my favorite Maiden album. Not a bad track on there, especially among the epics.

Not a fan of The Alchemist and The Man Who Would Be King is an utterly pedestrian and boring "epic" but the rest of the album is very good. Totally doesn't deserve to be as frequently maligned as it is. Isle of Avalon, Starblind, and When the Wild Wind Blows are great songs.

[MirrorMask]

The Final Frontier so far has been the only album "ignored" after its release.

Maiden has so many unwritten rules about their setlists that one can almost guess they are, actually, written: Always play 5-6 songs off new album, always close the main set with Iron Maiden, always have three encore songs, always keep 2 songs off the previous album in the next tour and then scale back to one (when the albums were few in the '80s they were always managing to do that.), and probably many more.

They never really had the "Screw the previous album 'cause it doesn't matter anymore" attitude, even when Bruce was back, in the Ed Hunter reunion tour they kept 2 songs off the previous album, Virtual XI, namely Futureal and The Clansman, then keeping only the latter in the BNW tour.

Same "fate" for BNW, the summer Gimme the 'Ed 'til I'm dead tour featured two songs off it (Title track and The Wicker Man) and then only one (title track) in the Dance of Death tour.

After DoD, things got a bit weird with all the special tours: first there was the Early days tour, so only the first 4 albums were picked.
Then it was time to play A Matter of Life and Death in its entirety,and with only 5 songs left in the set, they obviously favored the classics so no more BNW / DOD songs.

Then it was once again a history tour, and finally for the first leg of the Final Frontier tour it was reunion galore, with the set almost entirely based on the 2000's albums.

Then Maiden England, and when it was finally time of a "normal" tour for a new album... The Final Frontier was just gone from the setlist.

So far it's the only time it happened and we'll have to see if future setlists will bring back at least a song (after all Dance of Death was ignored until 2010), or if The Final Frontier will go down in Maiden's history as the only album whose songs were only played in the dedicated tour.

[TAC]

Yeah, Mask, Maiden setlists can be head scratchers, though you made a great post. Sometimes it seems like they don't put any thought into it.

[fadetoblackdude7]

The whole 'if a song isn't played on its own tour, it'll never get played' rule is probably the dumbest thing I've ever heard. So many songs go to waste because of it, like Alexander the Great.

[MirrorMask]

The whole 'if a song isn't played on its own tour, it'll never get played' rule is probably the dumbest thing I've ever heard. So many songs go to waste because of it, like Alexander the Great.

Yeah, that's another unwritten-maybe-written rule, it has never ever happened in Maiden's history... and probably it never will.

About Alex the Great... I think that everyone is fixated on that song because it was never played live. To Tame a Land is an equally good epic of the '80s, but it was played in the Piece of Mind tour so people are ok with it...if it was never played everyone would be wondering why such a good song was left out like if it was a Quest for Fire or a Sun and Steel.

[TAC]

I never understood why they repeated Rime on the 86-87 tour and didn't play ATG.

[Mosh]

Lately I've been thinking that a lot of these unwritten rules are more coincidental than anything else. I think it's more likely that they just forget about the unplayed songs and create future setlists based on what worked on the last tours. I wouldn't be surprised if they do a never before played live song at some point. It also seems like they want to play Empire of the Clouds but only in the right setting (with an orchestra for a one off).

As for The Final Frontier, they could've fit something in there but it was probably for the best that it was all classics besides the new songs (and I qualify Blood Brothers as a classic at this point). On the BNW tour, their discography was still small enough that they could do a real career spanning setlist. Four reunion era albums later with a lot of longer songs and there is less room for everything.
At the same time, in recent interviews I've gotten the impression that some members, Adrian in particular, weren't very happy with how TFF turned out. Even comparing interviews promoting TFF compared to those promoting TBOS show a difference in attitude.

[MirrorMask]

Maiden have always been very dedicated to the new material and, while as you correctly said that the longer the discography grows, the more difficult it becomes to make a carrer spanning setlist, I wouldn't want them to go for the "Songs from the latest album 'cause that's the latest excuse for touring and then all classics". So many bands have their latter albums all but forgotten whenever a new one comes out, medium size bands and also big ones - look at Metallica for example, when I saw them in 2001 it was everything up until the Black Album and then ONE song after that, All Nightmare Long, and I wouldn't be surprised if this would be the approach for the new album tour, with Load, Reload, that thing with the bad sound and Death Magnetic all but ignored.

As for a possible orchestra show, I wouldn't mind Maiden to do one, but I hope they do it the right way, picking songs fitting for an orchestra, who cares if it's gonna be heavily inclined on the reunion era. The last thing I need to hear is 2 Minutes to Midnight played exactly as it is, but with violins doubling the guitars.

[Mosh]

Yea, there are only a handful of songs that would really work with the orchestra. Many of the orchestrations on the albums are lame and in most cases detracts from a song rather than adding to it.

I hope the history tours are truly done. They hit all the major periods. If they continue to do tours that aren't for an album, I hope it's more in the vein of Ed Huntour or Give Me Ed where they just play a bit of everything. One song from each reunion era album, 5 80s songs, and then FOTD/RTTH/Iron Maiden/Hallowed/NOTB/Trooper.

[Nick]

Iron Maiden continue The Book of Souls World Tour with a return to North America for an extensive run of shows in the summer.

JUN 03 BRISTOW, VA JIFFY LUBE LIVE
JUN 04 PHILADELPHIA, PA WELLS FARGO CENTER
JUN 07 NEWARK, NJ PRUDENTIAL CENTER
JUN 09 CHARLOTTE, NC PNC MUSIC PAVILION
JUN 11 TAMPA, FL AMALIE ARENA
JUN 13 NASHVILLE, TN BRIDGESTONE ARENA
JUN 15 CHICAGO, IL HOLLYWOOD CASINO AMPHITHEATER

JUN 16 MINNEAPOLIS, MN XCEL ENERGY CENTER
JUN 19 OKLAHOMA CITY, OK CHESAPEAKE ARENA
JUN 21 HOUSTON, TX TOYOTA CENTER
JUN 23 DALLAS, TX AMERICAN AIRLINES CENTER

JUN 24 SAN ANTONIO, TX AT&T CENTER
JUN 27 ALBUQUERQUE, NM ISLETA AMPHITHEATER
JUN 28 PHOENIX, AZ TALKING STICK RESORT ARENA

JUL 01 SAN BERNARDINO, CA SAN MANUEL AMPHITHEATER*

JUL 03 LAS VEGAS, NV T-MOBILE ARENA
JUL 05 OAKLAND, CA ORACLE ARENA
JUL 07 SALT LAKE CITY, UT USANA AMPHITHEATER
JUL 09 LINCOLN, NE PINNACLE BANK ARENA
JUL 11 KANSAS CITY, MO SPRINT CENTER
JUL 12 ST LOUIS, MO HOLLYWOOD CASINO AMPHITHEATER

JUL 15 TORONTO, CANADA BUDWEISER STAGE
JUL 16 QUEBEC CITY, CANADA VIDEOTRON CENTRE
JUL 19 MANSFIELD, MA XFINITY CENTER
JUL 21 BROOKLYN, NY BARCLAYS CENTER

Tickets on-sale from Friday 27th January.

Fan Club pre-sale starts Tuesday 24th January.

Special guests on all the shows will be Ghost

Full details can be found at www.ironmaiden.com