When did The Trooper become Maiden's de facto big hit?

srfc

srfc

Ancient Mariner
The Trooper was always a top 10 Maiden song, but never the very top, just compare how many times it's been dropped to Hallowed, TNOTB or Fear of the Dark.

But it's now the "go to" Maiden song. When and why did this happen?
 
The time frame would be about right, but I'm not sure the beer did anything to push it to the forefront.

It's got the gallop and the harmonies, perhaps the most obvious Maiden trademarks, but Run to the Hills had the gallops first and was historically the bigger hit.
 
Wasn't it always? Or probably after the Reunion when Bruce started wearing the uniform live.

Run To The Hills has the same style and was more successful single, plus they didn't play Trooper in 1986, but by the 90's the song was also a live hit.

IIRC:

Trooper was not played on 3 tours (1986/1987, 2006, 2010)
Hallowed was not played on 3 tours (2012-2014, 2017, 2023/2024)
Number Of The Beast was not played on 2 tours (2006, 2023/2024)
Fear Of The Dark was not played on 1 tour (2005)
 

Kalata said:
Wasn't it always? Or probably after the Reunion when Bruce started wearing the uniform live.

Run To The Hills has the same style and was more successful single, plus they didn't play Trooper in 1986, but by the 90's the song was also a live hit.

IIRC:

Trooper was not played on 3 tours (1986/1987, 2006, 2010)
Hallowed was not played on 3 tours (2012-2014, 2017, 2023/2024)
Number Of The Beast was not played on 2 tours (2006, 2023/2024)
Fear Of The Dark was not played on 1 tour (2005)
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Re: Wasn't it always?

It was always up there, but it wasn't the absolute number 1 until recently, I'd argue Run to the Hills was for the 80's and then Fear of the Dark.

re: tours it was dropped, it was also dropped on the leg of the SSOASS tour that they recorded Maiden England.
 
srfc said:
Re: Wasn't it always?

It was always up there, but it wasn't the absolute number 1 until recently, I'd argue Run to the Hills was for the 80's and then Fear of the Dark.

re: tours it was dropped, it was also dropped on the leg of the SSOASS tour that they recorded Maiden England.
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Oh yeah, the 1988 leg.

Idk, I guess there's a reason why Run To The Hills was always in the encores in the 80's (and after that), but the song is not a live staple since the mid-90's.
 
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The beer plus being such a live staple probably had a lot to do with it. RTTH is the only other contender but it’s important to remember that RTTH isn’t really that much of a live staple. It was retired through much of the 90s and if I’m not mistaken the only album tour where it was on the setlist from beginning of tour to end of tour was Dance of Death. Trooper on the other hand has been played on most tours since the 90s and often survives even when they lean more into the new material.
 
Mosh said:
The beer plus being such a live staple probably had a lot to do with it. RTTH is the only other contender but it’s important to remember that RTTH isn’t really that much of a live staple. It was retired through much of the 90s and if I’m not mistaken the only album tour where it was on the setlist from beginning of tour to end of tour was Dance of Death. Trooper on the other hand has been played on most tours since the 90s and often survives even when they lean more into the new material.
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Correct.

Run to the Hills was THE classic, but disappeared from the setlist once Blaze became the lead singer (I wonder why…). It was back as the final encore on the Ed Hunter tour and then was not played on most dates on the Brave New World tour, although ended up being the last encore in their biggest ever gig.

Since then, it was played on the GMETID tour, the Dance of Death tour, the Early Days tour, the A Matter of the Beast tour (omitted on the album tour, as was The Trooper), the Somewhere Back in Time tour, the Maiden England tour and the Legacy of the Beast tour.

It is a very difficult song for Bruce to sing and I guess that determines when it gets played and where in the set, but I personally think it is vastly superior to the beer song.
 
I don't mean the bands perception of it.

This thread was prompted by someone posting The Hu's cover of it, basically, The Trooper is the song you'll see bands covering and people who may not be maiden fans name dropping it, people posting covers of themselves playing it on youtube etc.
 
Growing up, I was always the big Maiden fan amongst my mates. When I joined a new band, they wanted to cover a Maiden song and they all wanted to do the Trooper. It was the song that everyone knew. This was in 2006.

I think the artwork, the riff, first line and chorus are all iconic. Now the beer adds to that. I seem to remember that it was played lots on Kerrang and Scuzz back in the day as well. I saw it more than any other Maiden song.

I would argue that around 1999-2004, Run to the Hills was more of an anthem. This was due to the reunion and the re-release of the single. The Rock in Rio performance is iconic as well.
 
GhostofCain said:
It is a very difficult song for Bruce to sing and I guess that determines when it gets played and where in the set, but I personally think it is vastly superior to the beer song.
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Yeesh. If it was a tough song for Bruce to nail in his heyday, I'm waiting with clenched buttcheeks to see how he does it on the Run For Your Lives Tour. :ahhh:
 
It started when it was part of the Carmageddon II soundtrack. Then it became popular on P2P networks, and they put more into the performance by doing the flag waving and uniform. Many people got into Maiden at the same time, so slowly it became a favorite for many fans. And as it pops up as their most popular song, it is the first song people who are curious who Maiden are, and it gets even more popular
 
I'm not sure it is. The average person would probably name or recognise FOTD first out if all Maiden songs. More 80s minded people would know NOTB or RTTH better.

Is Trooper maybe more of a favourite for original fans
 
Brigantium said:
I'm not sure it is. The average person would probably name or recognise FOTD first out if all Maiden songs. More 80s minded people would know NOTB or RTTH better.
Is Trooper maybe more of a favourite for original fans
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It's between Trooper and Fear, methinks.
 
Sth2112 said:
It started when it was part of the Carmageddon II soundtrack. Then it became popular on P2P networks, and they put more into the performance by doing the flag waving and uniform. Many people got into Maiden at the same time, so slowly it became a favorite for many fans. And as it pops up as their most popular song, it is the first song people who are curious who Maiden are, and it gets even more popular
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That game is how I first heard Maiden.
 
The pivot from RTTH to TT in terms of popularity happened sometime in the late 00s when Bruce started wearing the redcoat and waving the butchers apron on stage. That became an iconic image. Then the beer launched. Then loads of bands and musicians started doing covers on YouTube.

Current streaming numbers.
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Personally I don't think Trooper beer had much to do with it, I think it's more likely the beer was named after The Trooper to boost the beer's popularity.

Talking of video games, The Trooper was also in Guitar Hero II in the mid-2000s. Quite a bit after Carmageddon II, but those games were massively popular and would've helped give it another boost.
 
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