Eddie Rips Up the World Tour/The Early Days Tour (2005)
Following the newly established pattern of a “greatest hits” tour before a new album, Maiden returned to the road to promote the newly released Early Days DVD. The tour had two names: sometimes it was advertised as The Early Days tour and sometimes it was advertised as Eddie Rips Up the World tour (usually accompanied by Piece of Mind era imagery). Naming aside, the tour promotion made it obvious that Maiden would be focusing on their history again. To that end, The Early Days Tour marked the first of three “history” tours, a term used by both fans and the band. The “history” tours focused on a specific era of the band’s history and coincided with the release of a vintage DVD, which in this case was The Early Days. Where the other two history tours were focused on specific eras from the 80s, The Early Days Tour was focused more on the general period of 1980 to 1983. The stage set was very similar to Give Me Ed Til I’m Dead, with a collage of different Eddies and symbolism from the band in the early 80’s. The on stage Eddies were both based on Piece of Mind, with a walk on Eddie in a straight jacket and a second big Eddie. The second Eddie featured a slightly different design to the Give Me Ed Eddie, but it was essentially the same concept and had similar movements.
The most vital aspect of the early 80s theme was, of course, the setlist. Where the Ed Huntour and Give Me Ed Til I’m Dead tours were career spanning setlists, The Early Days setlist focused exclusively on the band’s first four albums. This allowed for both the usual hits to be played in addition to some serious deep cuts. Other frequently played songs from after the period could also be replaced with lesser played tunes. The most notable omittance was without a doubt Fear of the Dark, which had been played on every Maiden tour since its release and was probably the closest thing to a setlist staple since Hallowed Be Thy Name. It’s hard to say that the song was missed, however, as the setlist featured a nice mix of the usual classics, fan favorites, and unexpected rarities. It was also a well balanced setlist, with near equal representation from every album. While there were some deviations in the setlist that I’ll get to later, the typical setlist contained 17 songs with 6 from the debut, 4 from Killers, 3 from Number of the Beast, and 4 from Piece of Mind.
Among the usual classics were Iron Maiden, The Trooper, and the three songs from Number of the Beast. Other songs which had previously been played on recent Greatest Hits tours but were not exactly common either included Revelations, Die With Your Boots On, and Phantom of the Opera. Most of the deep cuts actually came from the Di’Anno era, which also heavily dominated the setlist. Bruce mentioned at most of the shows that many of these songs would probably never be played live again, which has turned out to be true 12 years later. Unlike the typical Maiden style of opening with something familiar before going obscure, the deep cuts and surprises actually came immediately, which was refreshing. The band opened with a smattering of Di’Anno era deep cuts. The opener, Murders in the Rue Morgue was a perfect opener that was also unexpected. The last time it had been played was with Blaze in the band on the Virtual XI tour, although it was only played at a few shows. Before that, it had been played on the World Slavery tour where, again, it was only played at select shows. Its last appearance as a regular song was, ironically, when it opened shows on the Beast Over Hammersmith tour. Its return on the Early Days tour was a welcome one. Following this was Another Life, a track that also hadn’t been played since 1982. Finally, Prowler, which was a common closer in the early 80’s and was last played on the Real Live tour in 1993. Two other rarities that were last played on that particular tour were Where Eagles Dare and Remember Tomorrow. The last deep cut was Drifter, which returned to its usual slot as an encore tune after a 20 year absence. Charlotte the Harlot was also played at a few gigs, which was actually the first time the song had ever been played with Bruce in the band, but was unfortunately dropped for Wrathchild after a few shows. None of these songs have been played since.
With a setlist that had enough hits and rarities to make casuals and hardcore fans gush, Maiden spent a lot of time on the festival circuit. The tour was not extensive, lasting just over 3 months and taking place exclusively in Europe and North America. The European leg of the tour was a mix of festival appearances and standalone headline gigs. The standard for Maiden summer tours at this point. Once again, their appearance at Rock Am Ring was broadcast live and now exists as some of the only professionally shot footage of the tour. Their performance in Gothenburg, Sweden, was also filmed and is probably the most popular bootleg of the tour. Unfortunately, it’s best way to experience the tour as the band has never released any live videos from it officially. Some audio was released in the form of b-sides, however.
Rock Am Ring:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km9sVEgG55sGothenburg:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR0nodWBaIoFollowing the European run, the band hit North America. This time, however, they would not be headlining the majority of the tour. Most of the North American leg was as a special guest on Ozzy Osbourne’s Ozzfest tour, opening for (or co headlining with) Black Sabbath. At these shows, the band played a slightly abbreviated set, although only three songs had to be dropped (a more unintentional nod to the 80s when Maiden always played abbreviated sets in North America). The band did play some headlining shows outside of Ozzfest with a full setlist, however. Unfortunately, the Ozzfest tour became very infamous due to the feud between Bruce and Sharon Osbourne. Sharon accused Bruce of taking cheap shots at Ozzy on stage and in interviews (Bruce’s rants made a grand return on this tour and one of the main topics was reality TV) while Maiden claimed that Sharon had messed with their P.A. at several shows. There was also a t shirt being sold that seemed to be a jab at Maiden. The conflict came to a head at the final stop of the tour when Sharon sent members of Ozzy’s family and crew out into the audience to throw eggs at the band while they played. Later on, the PA was tampered with and there were several long moments where the band had no sound at all. After the performance, Sharon Osbourne came on stage and called Bruce a prick. She was met with booes. The controversial episode, nicknamed “Eggfest” was captured on film and marked an unfortunate end to an otherwise great tour.
Eggfest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqbfTgFzUf8Luckily, the tour didn’t end with the Eggfest incident. After the Ozzfest tour ended, the band returned to their native UK for a few festivals, including Reading, an early 80s favorite. Appropriately, the tour ended with a performance at the Hammersmith Odeon (now renamed to the Hammersmith Apollo) that also served as another charity event for Clive Burr. As usual with Clive Aid events, Burr joined the band on stage at the end. It was the perfect way and perfect location to end the tour that primarily focused on the time when Clive was still in the band.
The tour overall was a great success and continued to prove that Maiden would be sticking around for a long time. The setlist was very well received among fans and is still arguably one of the best sets they’ve played since the reunion. It would also be the last time that a “greatest hits” tour would be on such a small scale, as they were clearly quite popular and successful. However, while most bands at this stage in their career would choose to continue the nostalgia tours, the next step for Maiden was naturally a new album. But more on that later.
Anthology (2006)
The last Bruce Dickinson solo release that will be covered in this series, as well as the last item related to his solo career released until this year with the vinyl reissues, Anthology is a collection of archival footage similar to The Early Days. Also like The Early Days, much of the content in the DVD has been discussed already but is worth going over again. The collection, spread across three discs, is a catch-all of the videos recorded and released during Bruce’s solo career, with some unreleased footage for good measure.
The first concert is from Bruce’s short Tattooed Millionaire club tour, which was released on VHS as Dive! Dive! Live! The second comes from the Skunkworks tour, originally released in Japan only as Skunkworks Live. The final concert is screen feed footage from Scream For Me Brazil. It’s an incomplete performance, but the best chance at hearing Bruce’s solo career at its peak. All three performances show Bruce at very different stages in his career and, consequently, feature entirely different setlists, musicians, and moods.
The bonus features are also of interest. There’s a Tyranny of Souls EPK, which is a 45 minute interview with Bruce Dickinson. The focus is on Tyranny of Souls, but there’s also information about other aspects of his solo career and his history with Roy Z. Then there’s Biceps of Steel, which was a short film that was meant to show in front of a film called Breaking Glass in theaters. The film is essentially two music videos for the songs Hard Times and Vice Versa. The live footage is taken from the Rainbow Theater, where Maiden (with Paul Di’Anno) would record a live video the same year. Finally, the collection contains all of Bruce’s music videos, complete with a short explanation on how each video was made from Bruce himself.
Unlike The Early Days, Anthology pretty much covers everything from Bruce’s solo career. While it would’ve been nice to have footage from the Balls to Picasso and Accident of Birth eras, in addition to something from the Air Raid tour, there likely isn’t much available and it’s hard to complain when there’s already so much material here. It’s a must for any fan of Bruce’s solo work.
And with that, Bruce’s solo career comes to a close, at least as of 2017. While Bruce intended to continue doing solo work in tandem with Maiden, this clearly became less feasible as Maiden began to tour more actively. Anthology punctuates his solo career nicely. Additionally, his solo albums were re-released around this time complete with bonus CDs containing leftover tracks, demos, and alternate versions. In October of this year, the albums were also reissued on vinyl as part of the Soloworks collection. The collection included Tyranny of Souls, which had never been released on vinyl before. The release of this collection, as well as Bruce’s autobiography, seems to have sparked some new interest in his solo work. It’s also known that Bruce has been working on a solo album called If Eternity Should Fail. It sounds like he intends on finishing it in the future, although it’s hard to say when.