Metal 2000/Brave New World Tour (2000)
If there was anything more heavily anticipated than Brave New World, it was the massive tour to follow. Unusually, the band were hyping up the Brave New World tour before the Ed Huntour had even ended. In interviews they made it clear that Ed Huntour was just a test run and that the next tour would be far more extensive with their biggest stage production ever. Just a couple weeks after the release of Brave New World, Maiden delivered with what was probably their biggest tour since the 80’s. In Europe, it was advertised as the Metal 2000 tour, hence the two names in the title.
The stage featured Maiden’s largest production since the 80’s. There was a large stage show with backdrops for a majority of the songs, pyro, stage props for Sign Of the Cross, and of course, Eddie. For the third time in a row, the Ed Hunter themed Eddie was used as a walk on. The big Eddie was a stunning Wicker Man design that housed Bruce and a variety of “maidens.” One aspect of this and other Maiden stages was that it looked immense in any venue, but they were able to fit it in stadiums and smaller amphitheaters.
As usual, the setlist put heavy emphasis on the latest album. However, this time it was fairly controversial. For hardcore fans who had followed Maiden their entire career, it was expected to hear a lot of new songs. For casual fans who were hoping for a nostalgia act, the amount of new material was a surprise. However, the band were very explicit in interviews that this would not be a nostalgia act and they intended to move forward. It was tradition to include 5 or more new songs and this was not going to change, especially considering how proud the band was of Brave New World. To prove how proud they were, the show opened with the first three songs off the album. Also included were Blood Brothers and Dream of Mirrors, the latter acting as the show’s epic centerpiece. Early on in the tour, they switched back and forth between The Fallen Angel and The Mercenary before eventually settling on The Mercenary. Later on in the tour, the label released Out of the Silent Planet as a single apparently in spite of resistance from the band. Since the song was going to be a single, they decided to add it to the setlist on the South American leg as part of the encore. The Fallen Angel was also brought back, resulting in 8 out of 10 songs from Brave New World being played at these gigs, more songs played than any album since Killers.
That’s not to say the show was without classics. In fact, the Brave New World tour probably had more variety than any tour since. Every studio album was represented except Somewhere In Time and No Prayer For the Dying. Most of the “classics” played were songs that were already played on the Ed Hunter tour. The one addition was actually, surprisingly, a track from the Blaze era: Sign Of the Cross. This was a great addition though and was a treat to hear with Bruce singing. In another controversial move, Maiden opted not to play Run To the Hills on most of the tour, although it was added for the South American leg. Regardless, it was hard to complain about such an expansive varied setlist. To this day, it is probably one of the band’s most well balanced setlists and the new songs are tastefully sprinkled in.
The tour saw Maiden returning to the large venues after a decade of decline. They kicked off with a run of mostly festivals in Europe with some stadium gigs in between. The band was already fulfilling their promise of returning in full force with this tour by playing to huge crowds in their home continent. Some of these gigs were also broadcast on TV, most notably an excerpt of their performance at the Dynamo Open Air festival in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, the European contained what was probably the largest roadblock of the tour in Germany. At the end of the gig, Janick fell off stage 10ft into the photographer pit. He was immediately knocked unconscious and received multiple injuries to his head and spine. Janick was told to take a week off which resulted in several shows being cancelled. Fortunately, Janick quickly recovered and the band were able to finish the European run.
After finishing Europe, Maiden returned to North America where they were slowly gaining back their popularity. This was meant to be a grand return to North America, which required an immense touring package. The support on this tour consisted of Queensryche and Halford. The latter is particular interesting because Rob Halford was following a path parallel to Bruce’s. He too had left his main band and had spent a few years floundering in fairly unsuccessful experimental projects before making a return to Metal with Resurrection, probably the 2nd most popular Metal album of 2000. The album was even produced by Roy Z and featured a duet with Bruce Dickinson: The One You Love To Hate. Around this time there was also talk of a project between Bruce, Rob, and Geoff Tate of Queensryche. Unfortunately, it never took off. Still, seeing the three groups sharing the stage (especially Maiden and Halford) helped cement the message that Metal was making a huge comeback.
The tour then made its way to Japan before a second trip to Europe (including a short UK run) to close out the year. After taking a month off for Christmas, the band quickly reconvened for a couple more UK shows and then the South American leg of the tour to coincide with a headline performance at Rock In Rio. As usual, several of these shows were broadcast live. The broadcasts of the Argentina and Chile shows are worth checking out for the extended setlists, unfortunately only Run To the Hills was added to the setlist in Rio.
Argentina:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob6yO5kMlOMChile:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If1TbLXN4uEWhich brings us to:
Rock In Rio (2001)
The last show of the Brave New World Tour was also the one that the band chose to immortalize the tour on film. This was the band’s second time headlining the legendary Rock In Rio festival, the first time being the largest crowd they ever played to. Since then, new limits were put in place to prevent the venue from overflowing again, so this time the crowd wasn’t quite as large. Despite that, it was still the band’s second largest performance ever and was the perfect way of documenting Maiden’s return.
The performance itself featured a highly energized band that was celebrating the end of a successful tour and were feeding off the large crowd. There were some technical glitches, a P.A. monitor broke down during the set and the cameras sometimes got in the way of the band (mostly Bruce) but none of that comes through in the recording. As expected from a South American crowd, the audience were with the band through every moment.
Rock In Rio was to be the band’s first live video since Raising Hell and their first live album since Live At Donington. Steve Harris was once again the producer and video editor, although that actually wasn’t the original intention. An outside company was hired to edit the video but Steve was unhappy with the early cuts and decided to do it himself anyway. For this reason, the release ended up being delayed until 2002. Steve’s editing choices are fairly controversial, with fast cuts that are sometimes hard to watch. Steve also altered the audio quite a bit. Some vocal sections were added in, most notably parts where Bruce prompts the audience to sing, because the crowd was out of time and out of tune. Because the show was officially broadcast on TV and heavily bootlegged, these edits were obvious to a lot of fans.
In the video, a lot of Bruce’s rants were also edited out, although most of them were left on the CD. Bruce’s rants were also a point of controversy in the early 00s, usually being filled with vulgarities and lacking the substance of his introductions in the 80’s. For that reason, many fans were grateful that Steve cut them from the DVD, while other fans were disappointed that the video was not a complete concert experience.
Rock In Rio was also the band’s first DVD, which meant there would be bonus features. With the format still being pretty new, the special features weren’t quite as expansive as what we’d get later. Still, there’s some interesting stuff. There’s the documentary “A Day In the Life” which follows the band’s activities on the day of the Rio concert, some short clips of what the band members do on their days off, and a photo gallery. It’s no Flight 666, but it’s fun footage, especially getting to see Bruce fence.
Controversy aside, Rock In Rio is highly regarded as one of their greatest live albums and videos and is usually mentioned in the same breath as Live After Death. If Brave New World is a modern classic, Rock In Rio is the modern classic live album. It’s a great entry point for the band and really lays to rest any doubt of the band’s relevance in the 21st century. It’s hard to think of a recording that better captures the band’s spirit.
Best of Bruce Dickinson (2001)
While the rest of the band took the rest of the year off, Bruce went back to focusing on his solo career as his label prepared to release a new compilation to ride the Maiden hype. Bruce went into the studio with Roy Z to record two brand new songs for the compilation: Broken and Silver Wings. These two songs only feature Bruce, Roy Z, and Dickie Fliszar on drums (from the Tattooed Millionaire touring band and Tears of a Dragon).These songs are somewhat demo quality, although Silver Wings in particular is highly regarded among fans.
To those who are unaware of this compilation, it may come as a surprise to learn that I definitely consider this required extra curricular listening. For those who are unfamiliar with Bruce’s solo work, this is a pretty good introduction to a fairly eclectic discography. Accident of Birth is probably still the best place to start, but if you’re into compilations this one is very well done. For those who have already heard all the albums, there are more than a few rarities that make this set worth it. Of course there are the songs that were written specifically for the compilation, but there are some other songs that are also available on the expanded editions of the solo albums. The original Bring Your Daughter To the Slaughter, which is on the 2CD version of Tattooed Millionaire but not the other remaster, the Man Of Sorrows demo with Janick on guitar, and the first song Bruce recorded: an odd tune called Dracula (Bruce talks about it in his book too). There are also some Accident of Birth outtakes: Wicker Man (great song that is completely unrelated to the Maiden song), Midnight Jam, and Acoustic Song. There’s also one of the few live performances of Jerusalem which was left off Scream For Me Brazil. Other songs are available on the remastered editions of the albums, but may be of interest to anyone who doesn’t have those. Finally, there’s a 13 minute track of Bruce giving the backstory to everything on CD 2. Some really interesting insights on there.
Clive Burr MS Trust Fund (2002)
Toward the end of 2001, Maiden learned that their former drummer Clive Burr was suffering from multiple sclerosis. The band responded by helping him set up the Clive Aid MS Trust Fund, releasing two singles for charity (two different renditions of Run To the Hills), and performing some UK charity gigs in early 2002. The band were technically still on hiatus at this point, so these were the only concerts performed that year and are pretty much an extension of the Brave New World tour. The stage show was the same and the setlist was mostly the same, except for one surprise. For the first time since 1986, the band performed Children of the Damned. At the end of each show, Clive was brought on stage in a mini reunion with the other members.
As if anyone needed more footage of Brave New World era Maiden, one of the shows was filmed for a live webcast (Maiden could be pretty forward thinking with this stuff). It’s worth watching for a rare rendition of Children of the Damned and the tribute to Clive at the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWLqZODdyL4Maiden continued to help Clive and run the charity over the next few years. He also made an appearance at one of their gigs in 2005. Sadly, he passed away in 2013 at age 56 after continuing to suffer from the disease.
Going to save Eddie’s Archive for later cause there’s a lot here already.