World Piece Tour (1983)
In 1983, Maiden became a worldwide headline act. The World Piece Tour saw them headlining the US for the very first time in addition to other high profile gigs. It was a slightly shorter tour compared to Beast On the Road, as they only performed in Europe and the US. Still, it was a another step up for them featuring a brand new stage, a new Eddie, and a setlist that very heavily focused on the new album (7 songs!). Once again, the tour began shortly before the release of the album and Maiden showed confidence in their new material by performing 5 new songs right at the beginning, with only one brief break for Wrathchild. The setlist also included the usual suspects for early 80s Maiden, including Phantom Of the Opera, Sanctuary, and Hallowed Be Thy Name. A few staples would also be shelved for a pretty long time after this tour, namely Prowler and Drifter.
The tour was punctuated by their headline performance in Dortmund at the ZDF Rock/Pop Festival. The festival was a who’s who of Heavy Metal acts at the time, including Scorpions, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest (now opening for Maiden, Maiden were opening for them just a year earlier), Quiet Riot, and Def Leppard, among others. The festival was broadcasted for German TV and Maiden officially released their performance on The Early Days DVD, making it the only relic of the tour officially available. It’s a great performance and you can tell that the band is having a good time celebrating the end of another successful tour. Unfortunately, it’s not the greatest representation of the tour in terms of the setlist.. Being that it was part of a festival, they only played for an hour so you get an abridged version of the set. No Where Eagles Dare as an opener, instead you get Sanctuary. Also no To Tame a Land, which was only played on this tour. The TV broadcast also omitted three songs, most notably Iron Maiden, where the band “murdered” Eddie on stage. The German censors found this to be too violent and it was cut from the original broadcast. Disappointingly, the three songs weren’t restored for The Early Days DVD. However, the performance of Iron Maiden was included on the 12 Wasted Years tape, but we’ll get to that later. The other officially released document of the tour is a short TV special called ‘Ello Texas, which shows some performance clips and interview footage.
Luckily, there are some amazing bootlegs for this tour. 1983 is when we start to see a lot more video bootlegs, the best one is Montreal, although it’s still not particularly high quality, but it’s decent. As far as audio goes, there are some really good ones. The best of which is without a doubt Ipswich, and that’s the one I’ll be sharing today. Similar to Beast Over Hammersmith, Ipswich was recorded before the album was released, so the audience is hearing the Piece of Mind songs for the very first time. Again, it’s so surreal hearing them play The Trooper and nobody is singing or clapping along. Other than that historical significance, the main reason to check this out is Where Eagles Dare and To Tame a Land. Eagles wasn’t performed often after this and the only official release (from 1993) isn’t nearly as good as on this tour. To Tame a Land was never performed again after this tour, even though it was really exciting live. The sound quality is also excellent. It could almost pass as a soundboard, despite being an audience recording.
Montreal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmfeANYec9MIpswich:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9tkgg1rxqrlurkt/1983-05-08%20Live%20in%20Ipswich%20.zip?dl=0And that's the end of what Maiden considers their Early Days. While they had already dramatically advanced their music, it makes sense to lump the World Piece Tour with the early years because after this the band’s live show would more closely resemble what we expect from Maiden. The classic lineup was complete, the first headline tour was a success, and Maiden were on their way to even bigger things.
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