TFP-tour (almost) over - time for a summary about the tour & Maiden in 2023 (*spoiler anyway*)

Here are my thoughts on the tour

Caught Somewhere in Time. What an incredible opener. I couldn’t believe how good it sounded and the crowd were really into it. The sing along during the chorus was almost as loud as Aces High!

Stranger. I loved the placement of this song. It worked really well second in the set. This is probably the first time I danced at a Maiden gig. What a groove!

TWOTW. Lots of fun and I’m glad to see it again.

Days of Future Past. I didn’t like this song live. It wasn’t placed well, and Bruce really struggled.

Time Machine. This was ok. It’s my least favourite song off the album, and it’s constant changes don’t work live.

The Prisoner. I had a sneaky feeling this would be back. It went down really well and it was nice to to hear something different off Beats for a change.

Death of the Celts. I was supposed by this choice. I was convinced The Parchment be on the set list. It was good fun in the middle and the boys got a chance to show off.

Heaven Can Wait. I love this song and it was great to hear it again after 15 years!

Alexander the Great. You could tell who the hardcore fans and casual fans were during this song. We were belting out all the words and the others were sat down. I’ve said it before, but fair play to the lads for doing it. Screaming ‘Marching On!’ was a memory I won’t forget.

Fear and Iron Maiden. FOTD was quite emotional for me, as I kept thinking that I might not get the chance to see the boys again. The sing along during this song have known for as long as I can remember. It just hit me this time.

Hell on Earth. The emotions kept rolling during this one. My little girl loves this song (as do I), and I just took stock of the fact that everything in my life is owed to when I first heard this band. They inspired me to play music, I went on to study it at university, I met my wife on the same course and here I am now. A stunning masterpiece of a song and it was beautiful to hear it live.

Trooper and Wasted Years. A great way to finish.

Overall I thought the set list was mostly excellent. I still think it is hard to top the LOTB 18-19 show but this was very close.

The man I was sitting next to at the O2 was convinced it will be their last tour. I am still 50/50 on this. However if it is, I will let Theoden (once again) do the talking…

‘If this is to be our end, then I would have them make such an end, as to be worthy of remembrance’
 
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Caught: best opener for a Maiden show.
Stranger in a Strange Land: good, but definitely not one my highlights.
WOTW: it's already a classic, can't complain.
Days of Future Past: overlooked by many, but one of my favorite parts of the show.
Time Machine: 2nd highlight of the show (and before the tour I thought it was my least favorite song on the album)
The Prisoner: glad to see it back, at the shows I've attended they've also played it a bit faster and Dave was on fire during the solo.
Death of the Celts: it's okay, I think. I mean, it's very good, but it's not a song which you can sing along to when performed live.
Can I play with Madness: I would say "bah", but it works in that position.
Heaven Can Wait: I love the song and the fight with Eddie.
Alexander: not the biggest fan of the song. Works well live and it's great, but I wasn't among the ones who prayed to listen to this live.
Fear: usually my "rest" song, during this tour (at least at the shows I've been to) they played it so good I just had to partecipate.
Iron Maiden: Well, you know it.

Hell on Earth: my number one highlight of the show. I knew it would have worked live, but I wasn't prepared to this.
Trooper: my only complaint about the setlist. Would have preferred Number of the Beast or Hallowed all day.
Wasted Years: too slow, but what can you expect when it's the set closer. Not the biggest fan of the songs but I get it why they wanted to close the show with this.

Overall a really great setlist, even if stage production sucked, especially in comparison with the LOTB tour. Basically no pyro and explosions apart from specific parts, it should have been a lot more (like during Celts or Alexander). Maybe they will use them in their stadiums run next time. Because yeah, this isn't definitely the last tour and I'm pretty convinced it won't be the last leg of this tour in Europe.
 
On a purely selfish level I'd want them to not do a second leg next year, and just go straight into a new fresh European tour next year with a fresh setlist of purely rare and underplayed songs.

But I know of course that's not going to happen, I'm just aware that the sands of time are running low to see them again.
 
Starblind said:
I think 2-3 songs will change. Hallowed will return. Maybe Beast too. They might drop Celts or Time Machine.
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Huh? Why?

What would they drop to make room for those two? I doubt they'd do The Number of the Beast without it's usual pyro shenanigans at this point and I don't see where they'd put Hallowed either, especially since the set already has a handful of challenging songs for the singer (then again, pretty much all Maiden sets do).

Death of the Celts has some major show elements and significantly majestic backdrop and when compared to e.g The Parchment (which I still like as a song a bit more), it's structure is pretty nice for the singer. The Time Machine fits almost too well for the theme of the tour to be dropped, so...

Again, I might be wrong, but I just don't see that happening and therefore I'd be interested to hear if there's some reasoning behind those suggestions!

Cheers!
 
THESEVENTHMARINER said:
On a purely selfish level I'd want them to not do a second leg next year, and just go straight into a new fresh European tour next year with a fresh setlist of purely rare and underplayed songs.

But I know of course that's not going to happen, I'm just aware that the sands of time are running low to see them again.
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And thankfully that won't happen. The NA/SA fans want to see this show. too. I bet Australia, NZ, and Japan would love to see Maiden on their shores again as well. I feel bad for those fans.
 
Iron Lurker said:
And thankfully that won't happen. The NA/SA fans want to see this show. too. I bet Australia, NZ, and Japan would love to see Maiden on their shores again as well. I feel bad for those fans.
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I honestly get the feeling they might not ever get back down to the likes of Australia and NZ, the days of large scale world tours seem done.
It's also mega expensive to tour in those regions, Maiden always run a tight ship and it's probably not good profit wise either. There was a reason it took them 16 years to return and that was only made possible with Ed Force One. Without that i'm not so sure.

If they really wanted to prioritize making up the cancelled Legacy tour they could have easily by now, why not tag it on to last years tour? Why not start this years tour there like in the past? I can see them finishing there touring days going between Europe and America only.
 
Ironalice said:
I honestly get the feeling they might not ever get back down to the likes of Australia and NZ, the days of large scale world tours seem done.
It's also mega expensive to tour in those regions, Maiden always run a tight ship and it's probably not good profit wise either. There was a reason it took them 16 years to return and that was only made possible with Ed Force One. Without that i'm not so sure.

If they really wanted to prioritize making up the cancelled Legacy tour they could have easily by now, why not tag it on to last years tour? Why not start this years tour there like in the past? I can see them finishing there touring days going between Europe and America only.
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That could be the case, unfortunately. It's already expensive (and has increased since you-know-what) to tour anywhere with a production like Maiden's. I can only imagine the costs now for that part of the world.
 
Two things that I failed to mention in my long post were two little performance details from Stranger. Bruce’s moves at the beginning were almost identical to his moves from the video (the double clap!). Also Harry does the machine gun bass pose after ‘No brave new world!’. I loved seeing that.
 
Ascendingthethrone said:
Two things that I failed to mention in my long post were two little performance details from Stranger. Bruce’s moves at the beginning were almost identical to his moves from the video (the double clap!). Also Harry does the machine gun bass pose after ‘No brave new world!’. I loved seeing that.
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Yep! Bruce's nod to the music video is nice and Steve is still the most badass performer on earth.
 
Bar a few mistakes in the early shows on this tour I think the performances have been fantastic all round. It would be insanely criminal if we don’t let a proper live video recording from the band from this tour.

Of course I’m expecting a live album but video concert footage surely must be something I would expect a lot of fans would want.

If we do get a video concert then I really hope it’s one full concert and not in the same vein as flight 666 or book of souls live chapter. Even if the best footage they have from a concert is one where there’s a few mistakes, so what. It’s part of the live experience so don’t try and cobble together the best footage from different places for different songs.

Some of the stuff I’ve watched on YouTube has been pretty good and these gigs were recorded on mobile phones so surely the band could get one date with great quality footage. Fingers crossed.
 
matic22 said:
Or... One of the Canada dates. Would make sense. 2nd or 3rd show.
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I could see this, but honestly I think next year's more likely. More choices for shows and likely a better performance from Nicko. If he hadn't had his health scare and recovery period then they would've obviously put out something from this year, but knowing what's been going on I'm pretty positive any live video plans have been pushed to 2024.
 
Ruflux said:
I could see this, but honestly I think next year's more likely. More choices for shows and likely a better performance from Nicko. If he hadn't had his health scare and recovery period then they would've obviously put out something from this year, but knowing what's been going on I'm pretty positive any live video plans have been pushed to 2024.
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What video plans? Steve does not think there is a market for live video releases any more.
 
GhostofCain said:
What video plans? Steve does not think there is a market for live video releases any more.
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Yea I'm really struggling to see where people think that a video is on the way. They've shown next to 0 interest in video releases since 2011 and skipped a live video for possibly their most visually stunning stage show ever. Maybe it's because I haven't experienced it in person, but the current stage show hasn't struck me as nearly as impressive or filmable as the last tour or even the one before that, so I really have a hard time believing a video release is being planned.
 
Ruflux said:
The ones outlined in the tour announcement? Seriously, it was literally one of their stated motivations for the tour to begin with, to get the SiT material on video since they didn't do it back in the 80s.
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I mean, nothing in the tour announcement says that. It just says that they didn't do a Somewhere in Time retrospective tour because the retrospective tours they did were based on the live videos from the 80s and there wasn't a Somewhere in Time live video. The intention of the tour is to play the songs, but there's nothing about getting them on video.

From the release:
Steve Harris says,
“Following the release of our latest album, Senjutsu, we updated the current Legacy of the Beast Tour a little by opening the show with the first 3 songs from it, with the Japanese Palace stage set. As it doesn’t make a lot of sense to repeat this for a Senjutsu album tour, we thought about other options and we’ve decided to revisit Somewhere In Time as that tour didn’t feature in the various retrospective history tours we’ve played over the years. They were based on our 80’s concert videos and sadly we did not film that tour (blame the manager!!). We have had lots of requests from fans over the years for many tracks on it so we are now going to play them, plus of course a few others we know you will like! It will also be particularly satisfying to finally get to play some of the more epic tracks on Senjutsu, it's been a long wait! 2023 is going to be an exciting time and we’re really looking forward to seeing everyone again in the UK, Ireland and around Europe”.

Manager, Rod Smallwood adds,
“This combination of the two albums we feel is very exciting. We know fans want to hear those epic cuts on Senjutsu for the first time live and we think that by combining it with an iconic album like Somewhere In Time it will make for another really special tour for fans old and new! Of course, for a new album tour in Europe and the UK we will go back largely to the relative intimacy of arenas and we know fans will be very happy about that too!”
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