The Iron Maiden Thread v. The Merge of Souls

[Mosh]

Strongly agreed. They really moved full steam ahead as in terms of the show as if there were no changes. The usual setlist staples (at the time) stayed the same, songs stayed in the original key, etc. Reaching back into the Di'Anno era or just taking a broader look at the catalog to see if any unplayed or rarely played songs would fit Blaze's voice better rather than leaning on the staples that featured pretty soaring vocal parts could have helped. Also, like Van Halen with Gary Cherone, they should have toured before the first album.

One positive for the Blaze years setlists is that they leaned heavily on the new albums. Lots of songs from X Factor and Virtual got played and healthy amount of X Factor songs remained in the set during the Virtual tour. Good contrast to now where a new album is done after the initial touring.

[Dream Team]

  First time checking on this thread since TS blew it up and the first thing I see mentioned is Blaze  . I think I'll listen to Live After Death now and remember when I was 18.

[TAC]

I agree with both Mask and Mosh, but at the end of the day, it wasn't going to work out anyway.

[pg1067]

First time checking on this thread since TS blew it up and the first thing I see mentioned is Blaze  . I think I'll listen to Live After Death now and remember when I was 18.

Twisted Sister blew up the Iron Maiden thread?

[Zantera]

I know Blaze generally is considered the weakest of their 3 frontmen and I would agree even if I like him (which some people just doesn't). For me, The X Factor might not be a top Maiden album but I love the dark atmosphere and it's highly underrated. A different direction for them but one that really worked well with Blaze's voice. I think unfortunately the reaction to X Factor was them doing more of a 'back-to-basics' Maiden album with Virtual XI and I think that's where you really start to miss Bruce. When you do something slightly different that works with Blaze's voice, you can listen to that and think "Hey this is something different and interesting" but when you're doing an album that feels more like classic Maiden, it's hard to not listen to it without missing Bruce.

We can discuss Blaze's different vocal range all day but my biggest takeaway from hearing some Blaze-led concerts over the years is that the band really weren't doing him any favors. Some songs were sped up and tuned differently and it wasn't to help Blaze because if anything it feels like it made his job even harder. I do agree with people saying they should have picked different songs and he could have really elevated some other songs instead. However you don't solve that sort of issue by just ignoring popular songs completely. If you're a band like Maiden it will be a big problem in the long run if your singer just can't sing some of your classics the way you play them live.