It sure is a great album. This Maiden England tour has gone on a bit long.
I can think of $everal rea$on$ why, you know what I'm $aying?
I think it's a bit of a shame that they got to tour like that with the setlist they are playing. Phenomenal tracks, for sure, and they are playing them with tremendous quality, but the albums that they've made ever since Bruce and Adrian came back were acclaimed to be top-notch stuff, especially Brave New World, so Maiden still has a lot to offer in terms of new quality stuff. Too bad, the general audience does not see it like that, at times.
To be fair, when Maiden tours for their new albums, they have the tendency to go overboard with supporting their newer stuff. They played the
entire damn album on the AMOLAD tour, and the North American leg of the Final Frontier Tour was almost entirely post-reunion stuff (in spite of the fact that the album hadn't even been released yet at the time they were touring). It seems like the new Maiden model is
1. Record
2. Tour for a year or two supporting new record; focus on newer stuff
3. Do a history tour for as long as the public will allow
You can see why they'd stick with this formula: Maiden fans are obviously eating these history tours up. (My dad and I saw two shows on the Maiden England tour. No regrets; they were some of the best shows I've ever been to.) Having said that, I wonder if they're going to keep up the pattern (assuming, of course that the band stays active, which might not be the case given their age). I'm not sure Maiden fans are aching for a history tour based on the Fear of the Dark tour. Where do you go from here?