Somewhere Back In Time Tour (2008 - 09)
Following the usual pattern of 00’s Maiden, the tour following A Matter Of Life and Death would be focused on the band’s greatest hits. This time, however, the tour was being hyped up long before the AMOLAD cycle had ended. While on stage, Bruce would often make references to pyramids and ancient mariners to tease the upcoming tour. So the tour’s theme itself was no surprise, although there were other aspects of the tour that did come as a surprise. The tour was announced as a sequel to The Early Days and would also coincide with the release of Live After Death and Maiden England on DVD. A DVD was released just days after the tour began, but it only included Live After Death and content from the Powerslave era. Regardless, the focus remained on the entire 80’s era including Somewhere In Time and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. Every song on the setlist was from the 80s, with the exception of Fear of the Dark. A compilation was also released, Somewhere Back In Time, which featured most of the same songs that were played on the tour. The combination of the exclusively 80s setlist and World Slavery Tour stage show made for a perfect storm that would result in Maiden’s biggest tour to date. If all that wasn’t enough, the band were also going to be flying in the highly publicized Ed Force One, a Boeing 757 plane piloted by none other than Bruce Dickinson.
The groundwork for Ed Force One was actually laid back in the 90s when Bruce was embarking on his solo career. The schedule for the Skunkworks tour saw him jumping from location to location around the globe in short bursts, so it made sense to fly as opposed to a traditional bus tour. And since Bruce had recently obtained his pilot’s license, he was eager to fly the plane himself (Bruce had also flown himself to gigs toward the end of his first Maiden stint). That being said, Skunkworks was a small tour with a small crew. The idea of taking a crew and production of Maiden’s size on a single plane was going to be far more complicated and was something Bruce had in mind long before they were finally able to actually do it. A commercial plane was then converted to also carry large freight in addition to the passengers and it was redecorated with the band’s logo and, of course, Eddie. The plane brought a ton of publicity to a tour that already had a lot of buzz around it. Major news networks were holding interviews inside the plane and fans were making the trek to their local airports to view the spectacle for themselves.
The biggest benefit to using Ed Force One was that it was now economically feasible to play locations that the band were typically unable to. Places like Australia, where the band had only toured three times before, were now possibilities. There were also locations that the band hadn’t visited at all before and markets that they had briefly touched on but could now explore more thoroughly. The tour began in India before jumping down to Australia, then back up to Japan. They then made a stop in California before going into Mexico and South America followed by a full North American tour. From here, the tour was closer to the typical Maiden itinerary and concluded in Europe with a combination of festival appearances and headline performances at various stadiums.
As expected, the stage show was heavily based on the World Slavery Tour. Naturally this time it was a bit bigger, with additional props and a more elaborate lighting rig. There are many small differences between the two stage productions, but for most fans these details were hardly (if at all) noticeable. The stage did borrow elements from other tours, though. There was the continued use of drapes depicting various artwork to go with a particular song or album, which didn’t start until the 90s. On the original World Slavery Tour, drapes were used but as backdrops to the stage set. Most of the drapes on the Somewhere Back In Time tour still followed the Egyptian theme, but there was also imagery from other eras. One of the Egyptian themed drapes even featured the Somewhere in Time and Seventh Son Eddies. Speaking of Eddie, the 2008 tour featured just one Eddie (probably due to the more limited space that comes with putting everything on a plane): the Somewhere In Time cyborg Eddie. In 2009, when the band embarked on a more traditional tour, they also brought the large mummy Eddie from World Slavery.
Unlike the Early Days tour, the setlist for Somewhere Back In Time was pretty predictable with few real surprises. The original press release more or less gave away the entire setlist and all of the usual suspects were present. That’s not to say it wasn’t a special set, however. As expected, the four songs from Powerslave that appeared on Live After Death were present. Two Minutes To Midnight had been played on several recent tours, including the previous one, but the other three songs were true rarities. Aces High and Powerslave were last played in 1999 on the Ed Hunter tour, which was a very small scaled tour, and before that they hadn’t been played since the original World Slavery Tour. Rime of the Ancient Mariner hadn’t been played since 1986 and once again served as the centerpiece of the concert complete with costumes for Bruce and pyrotechnics.
From Somewhere In Time, both Wasted Years and Heaven Can Wait were played. Wasted Years was another song that was last played on the Ed Hunter tour and Heaven Can Wait was last played on the Gimme Ed tour. Since both tours were very limited, this was the first time a lot of fans got to see these songs performed by the current lineup. That being said, there are always complaints about a Maiden setlist and this time the selection of Somewhere In Time songs was the cause of the complaints. Heaven Can Wait was played frequently throughout the late 80s and 90s (it was one of the songs that was still performed with Blaze in the band) and Wasted Years was also played pretty frequently, making both songs predictable selections. With so much of the tour’s promotional material being based on Somewhere In Time, not to mention the name of the tour itself a reference to the album, there was a possibly misguided expectation among fans that there may have been more from the album. Some even speculated that Alexander the Great would finally be played live. They weren’t totally wrong: Bruce performed a few bars of the song in Greece on kazoo. The lack of deep cuts from Somewhere In Time more or less solidified that the album would likely never receive the renaissance from the band that many fans crave.
The only real surprise of the setlist actually came from Seventh Son of a Seventh Son with Moonchild kicking off the encore. Moonchild hadn’t been performed since 1988 on the Seventh Son tour. Additionally, they played it complete with the acoustic intro and synth guitar riff for the first time (in 1988 it was merely an intro tape). It was an unexpected addition and a new way to hear the song. The other two Seventh Son selections were once again the expected choices in Can I Play With Madness and The Clairvoyant, both songs that had already been played by this lineup and were present throughout much of the 90s.
The rest of the setlist was made up of the songs that usually appeared on “greatest hits” tours. The usual staples were played with no real surprises. Revelations returned once again, now becoming a staple for modern Maiden. Fear of the Dark’s inclusion was the cause of some slight controversy, as it wasn’t part of the era being showcased on the tour, but by now it had really become as much of a classic Maiden song as anything else on the set.
As was the case with the A Matter of Life and Death tour, Somewhere Back In Time continued into 2009 with an updated setlist and stage show. The tour returned to South America for a more extensive tour as well as countries which did not get to see Maiden often such as Serbia and New Zealand. Appropriately, the setlist was altered to be even more casual friendly. Five songs from the 2008 leg were replaced: Revelations, Heaven Can Wait, Can I Play With Madness, The Clairvoyant, and Moonchild. The new songs were Wrathchild, Phantom Of the Opera, Children of the Damned, The Evil That Men Do, and Sanctuary. In some ways, the new set was an improvement. Phantom Of the Opera is a fan favorite that is welcome in any set and, although it was brought back just a couple years earlier, Children of the Damned had rarely been performed in the locations that Maiden were visiting on this leg. On the other hand, Sanctuary and Wrathchild are not exactly songs that the fans clamor for.
The 2009 setlist was still solid though and is worth checking out. Perhaps the best bootleg from the entire Somewhere Back In Time tour comes from the 2009 leg: Santiago. As usual, the South American shows provide a great source for professionally recorded footage and this particular show is the best way to experience the 2009 setlist.
Santiago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1k1McAldj0Of course bootlegs from 2008 aren’t necessary because this tour was immortalized in an official release:
Flight 666 (2009)
For the 2008 portion of the tour, a documentary crew led by Canadian director Sam Dunn (Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, Global Metal, later on Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage) accompanied the band to document what was a monumental tour in many ways. A few weeks after the tour concluded, the documentary was released as a feature film to select theaters and also made appearances at various film festivals.
The documentary largely focuses on both the groundbreaking nature of Ed Force One and Maiden’s massive following. It depicts large crowds of fans swarming the band at airport, priests who deliver Maiden inspired sermons, other music icons fawning over the band at gigs, and fans who have turned Maiden shows into family events. The wide range of fans is also heavily touched upon in the documentary. Several members comment in the film that they notice the fans getting younger despite their heyday supposedly being 25 years ago. They use this fascination to explain the purpose of the tour: it was not meant to be a nostalgia trip for the older fans but an opportunity for younger fans to experience what they were not around to see the first time. There is additionally heavy emphasis on the South American and Australian portions of the tour, where the band has long been awaited by a rabid fan base.
Having a documentary crew follow the band around for an entire tour was also the sort of thing that isn’t typical of Maiden. Bruce and Nicko seem to be the only ones who are totally comfortable having a camera crew around, while the other members try to stay out of the spotlight. Steve and Adrian each mention multiple times on screen that they’re not used to it, with Adrian flat out stating that he was skeptical about the whole thing. Janick Gers is also hardly present and apparently did not interact with the crew at all until the end of the tour. The film also makes it apparent that the members are all pretty laid back and lead quiet lives off stage. There aren’t really any parties shown in the film and leisure time is spent sightseeing and playing relaxing sports such as golf and tennis. If anything, the largest personalities in the Maiden camp aren’t the band members at all, but the crew. For the hardcore fans who have watched other documentaries, this probably comes as no surprise, but the film highlights many of the characters who work on the Maiden crew. The film also does a good job of showing how involved a tour of this scale is. The actual performances are just brief moments within a much larger operation.
None of that is to say the band members are boring or disconnected though. There are plenty of great interviews and moments that reveal more of what they are like both as artists and regular people. There are some funny moments and you can tell that this lineup has built up a solid group chemistry over the years (by this point it was already the band’s longest surviving lineup). While it’s true that Janick and Steve don’t appear much in the doc (Adrian and Dave are surprisingly prominent) they still provide plenty of insight in the interviews and have their own moments.
Unsurprisingly, Flight 666 was a big hit among fans. It further rode the momentum of the tour and and provided fans a rare glimpse at the behind the scenes of Maiden. It was also critically acclaimed. It won the award for Best Music Documentary at SXSW and the Juno Award for Best Music DVD of the year.
Of course it wouldn’t be complete without a live recording. The Flight 666 Soundtrack album featured the entire setlist but with each song recorded in a different city. The video was then included as a bonus to the DVD. The live portion is a great addition and features some really solid performances. In some ways, the live disc captures the spirit of the band and their fans more than the film does (that’s not to say the film doesn’t do a good job with these things). While much of the setlist has some overlap with the recently reissued Live After Death, it’s refreshing to hear these songs performed by a different lineup. Also being the third live album from this lineup, there is still a surprising amount of songs that haven’t appeared yet. That being said, it’s also the first Maiden video release not to feature any songs that have never appeared on video before, so it may not be as essential to some.
Somewhere Back In Time was really one of the most exciting times in Maiden’s recent history. At this point it became obvious the band had entered into a second golden age. They had recently released an incredible album with A Matter of Life and Death and were now embarking on the biggest tour of their entire career, including the 80’s. A second wave of this magnitude was just unheard of and it’s a wave that they continue to ride 10 years later. The band received a ton of press and were getting mainstream attention that they typically didn’t receive. I remember feeling like Maiden was this well kept secret that you didn’t realize others were aware of until you attended a concert. Suddenly I could turn on cable news and see an interview with Bruce Dickinson aboard Ed Force One or I would go to school and not be the only one wearing a Maiden shirt. The tour was the second highest grossing of 2008 by a British artist, second only to The Police and several of the gigs (especially in South America) went on to be some of the largest of their careers.
For most bands, it would be hard to avoid the temptation of just doing 80s nostalgia tours for the rest of their careers. However, Maiden have always been about pushing forward and they weren’t about to abandon the exciting musical horizons they had explored with the past few albums. With this chapter of the band’s history coming to a close, it was time for Maiden to prove that 30 years into their recording careers they hadn’t yet run out of ideas.