RUN FOR YOUR LIVES 2025 Tour Thread *SPOILERS INSIDE*

Helmuth Von Moltke said:
Aces Low. Fuck my old boots.

I'm currently re-reading old FC magazines, got to the 2014 issues (fun to re-read them over a decade later). Made me nostalgic for the Maiden England tour which was also songs from the first 7 albums + FOTD by the way!!! And then I found this absolute gem that I hadn't ever watched.

First song after the WW1 dogfight is Aces High in the encore. Just wow, night and day difference:

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The 2014 performances of Aces are actually rather good. Also, what a great sound for the Sonisphere videos. Nicko is on fire! I would like a full release of this show, despite this tour being my least favorite (the current one plays a role too), which is wild to say because of the set.
 
Vaenyr said:
This is genuinely, unironically fucking awesome.

This might be one of my favorite versions of Aces High. I've said it plenty of times, but there are barely any live versions of that song that I actually enjoy (even in the 80s it didn't work as a live song for me). Here, due to being sick, Bruce made the smart choice of altering the vocal lines, sing more with his lower and mid range, and sing altered harmonies for the chorus. And it sounds fucking fantastic.

Seriously, the way he sings the second half of the verses sounds like something he'd do on his solo albums in the 90s. I'd take this version of Aces High over any that I've heard in the last 15 years. Y'all gotta remember: just because it's not identical to the studio version doesn't mean it's bad. Use your ears, this sounds far more musical than Bruce straining to hell and barking to even hope to reach the notes for the second half of the verses (as he normally does when not sick).
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Olympic levels of mental gymnastics on display here, bravo.
 
BludBrutha said:
Exactly. It’s just common sense.and it’s maddening because they have so many great songs they could easily put in, ones he could easily sing. It’s not like Ace’s High was a hit single or anything, they don’t have to play it.

Tailgunner
No Rest for the Wicked
Bring Your Daughter

All would work. Then they’re doing one song off every album like they intimated.

Or do Wasting Love if they don’t care about that. Or Still Life. Or Infinite Fucking Dreams which everyone wants.
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Yes, for me they should play more 90’s songs, Be Quick would be nice to open the encore, they could also add a NPFTD song somewhere on the setlist. And change Clairvoyant for Infinite Fucking Dreams, every single maiden fan wants it !!!
 
Yup, the Aces High Graspop 2025 has been scrubbed from the internet.

The only maiden tour I haven't seen since I became a fan was 2022 Legacy. Out of curiosity I searched for an Aces High version from then and found Graspop 2022: yes, Bruce was finding a few workarounds in the chorus but he still sounded OK 3 years ago.

In 2014 he was nailing Aces High, and 2008 was naturally awesome, so its strange to witness the sad and entirely unnecessary decline of Aces High over the years.
 
riff said:
Olympic levels of mental gymnastics on display here, bravo.
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Care to elaborate? As Ghost said:

GhostofCain said:
To be fair, @Vaenyr is quite possible the forum member who likes Bruce’s increasingly straining high register the least.
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I genuinely dislike how he sounds on the second half of the verses in Aces High. Any live version. The WST versions were atrocious (recently went through all known bootlegs). The 99 and 2008/9 versions are a bit better thanks to his more mature voice, but he's still straining like hell. From 2013 onwards it became worse and worse.

So, yeah, I will definitely prefer vocal melodies in his strongest registers with alterations that sound like the way he sings on his solo records. That's musical and shows more dignity than trying to sing lines he couldn't even pull off in his 20s.

Blaze would've sounded a thousand times better if he sang altered lines in his range, rather than punching above his weight. This is essentially the same exact situation. No one would ever say this is mental gymnastics, but once someone dares to explain why Bruce sounds better in his comfortable range it suddenly is?

Go ahead and explain why you think that performance was bad, instead of ridiculing opinions you disagree with. What exactly do you dislike, except the fact that the melodies are different to the album?

Edit: For the record, I don't mind disagreement. It's all subjective. But someone explaining their reasoning is a lot more interesting to me than just going "that's olympic level mental gymnastics", which is needlessly dismissive imo.
 
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I think that is different because he didn't always have the same setlist solo anyway. It is not so much admitting that he can't do it like he would with Maiden. I think Bruce just is no type to do that.

Hopefully this time he at least has a doctor who doesn't give him antibiotics for viruses.
 
DorotheaMe said:
I think that is different because he didn't always have the same setlist solo anyway. It is not so much admitting that he can't do it like he would with Maiden. I think Bruce just is no type to do that.

Hopefully this time he at least has a doctor who doesn't give him antibiotics for viruses.
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Do you have a good recommendation for him how to get his illness off quickly? Maybe some steroid injections in his throat area might help him keep his voice in shape during touring. Maybe he is doing that from time to time.
 
Vaenyr said:
Straining like hell to reach the notes? No, thank you. I genuinely prefer the alterations in the "sick" version. But I'm also one of the few Aces High haters who believes the song to be fundamentally unsingable in a live setting.
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Yes, please. Straining is one defining characteristic of Bruce as a singer, pushing himself. Sadly, age has now taken its toll. :(

The 2008 versions of the song were great as far as I am concerned and he was good in 2018 too (I wasn’t that much of a fan of the versions of the song I saw live in 2013 and 2014, when it was the first encore). Singing wise, he was probably at his best on Aces High in 1999.

That being said, I find the song quite overrated and would have preferred nearly any other song from the golden era instead.

I still wonder what was Bruce thinking when he decided to sing it on this tour again. A case of the emperor’s new clothes?
 
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