A Matter of the Beast vs. Future Past - Which was your favourite?

Favourite tour?

  • A Matter of the Beast Summer Tour 2007

    Votes: 4 11.1%

  • The Future Past World Tour 2023-2024

    Votes: 32 88.9%
  • Total voters
    36
07-SMS:A1L

07-SMS:A1L

Educated Fool
Maiden touring two albums at the same time has been done twice. A Matter of the Beast Summer Tour celebrated the 25th anniversary of The Number of the Beast. The concept was pretty exciting, they planned to perform five songs from that album and five from their latest album A Matter of Life and Death. In the end, only four tracks from Beast made it into the setlist, but Children of the Damned was a highlight, making its proper return to the stage for the first time since 1987 (and for three shows in 2002). The Future Past World Tour blended Somewhere in Time with the storytelling of Senjutsu. It featured tracks that hadn’t been played live in decades, alongside material from their latest album. The stage production was absolutely next-level, visually stunning and immersive.

So, which tour stood out more to you? The one that paired A Matter of Life and Death with The Number of the Beast, or the one that fused Senjutsu with Somewhere in Time?
 
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For me, A Matter of the Beast Summer Tour 2007 was a disappointment at the time. I was expecting five songs off NOTB. But over time, the setlist has grown to be one of my absolute favourites.
 
Definitely the Future Past for me. I got to see three songs from SiT that I had never seen before, of which one of them was never played before. And also 4 new songs from Senjutsu. The 07 leg seemed like what the 06 leg would have been if they did not decide to play the entire album. Adding Children of the Damned to the set was a great idea and made me regret skipping the 07 leg. But luckily they played it again on the Book of Souls tour.
 
The Future Past by a million milestones. Beast Matter in 2007 was a huge letdown imho. Four songs from TNOTB, but three of them are kinda "always there" songs (Hills, Hallowed, Beast). And the fourth...: COTD sounded awful, Bruce can't handle it anymore for a long time yet. No The Prisoner? No 22 Acacia Avenue? But instead The Trooper and Fear Of The Dark?
 
Future Past and it's not even close. I love both albums, stage themes, songs and the debut of Alexander were perfect.

The 2007 tour was uninspired. They should have played one more TNOTB song (or the full album) with a probably more interesting mix of (''rare'') cuts. You can't top the 2006 approach, but this was probably the most uninteresting leg of an album tour - since the 90's. Even 2011 was a tiny bit more ''interesting''. I missed songs like Pilgrim, Longest Day and Lord.

If you think about it, all 4 amazing albums included are special in their own way (like SSOASS):

TNOTB - one of Maiden's most iconic ones.
SIT - one of their most unique ones.
AMOLAD - one of their best new albums.
SJ - a new album which they thought of playing entirely live!
 
AMOLAD is my second favorite album, but the "A Matter of the Beast" concept was half baked. It felt like an inferior setlist to the 2006 one, with the usual TNOTB classics + Children Of The Damned.

TFP on the other hand is one of the coolest setlists we ever got. 5 Senjutsu songs, 5 SIT songs (including a live premiere!) and the rest included multiple deep cuts as well.

There's simply no comparison to be had here.
 
Vaenyr said:
AMOLAD is my second favorite album, but the "A Matter of the Beast" concept was half baked. It felt like an inferior setlist to the 2006 one, with the usual TNOTB classics + Children Of The Damned.

TFP on the other hand is one of the coolest setlists we ever got. 5 Senjutsu songs, 5 SIT songs (including a live premiere!) and the rest included multiple deep cuts as well.

There's simply no comparison to be had here.
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Agreed, even though the band's performance that I witnessed in Bilbao in 2007 was significantly better than what I saw in London in 2023. Bruce, in particular, was incredible.

The A Matter of the Beast tour concept was not even half baked! We should not forget that Rod announced the band was going to play five songs off The Number of the Beast on the tour and they ended up playing just 4, with Children of the Damned being the only novelty (apart from the 2002 Clive Burr MS Trust shows, it had not been played since 1987).
 
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GhostofCain said:
Agreed, even though the band's performance that I witnessed in Bilbao in 2007 was significantly better than what I saw in London in 2023. Bruce, in particular, was incredible.
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Yeah, in 2007 he was still in his vocal peak, the band were younger and played a bit faster. I mean, musicians playing at this kind of level are musical athletes. They will wind down a bit with age, and we'll have to adjust our expecations accordingly. Nobody will expect the retired Wayne Gretzky or Peter Forsberg to go out in NHL and being untouchable at their age, even though they are probably still very capable players.
 
Vaenyr said:
AMOLAD is my second favorite album, but the "A Matter of the Beast" concept was half baked.
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It did make sense to rejig the setlist and include some classics for the Download gig, but as the concept was a bit half-baked I wonder if was supposed to be more of an "apology" to those morons who complained about AMOLAD being played in its entirety.
 
Though I never saw A Matter of the Beast, I voted for The Future Past Tour.

As far as The Future Past goes, there is so much I can say about the combined albums being my favourites in each respective era - Somewhere in Time of the 80s albums and Senjutsu in the post Brave New World albums. I'll say nothing and I'll settle for performing a chef's kiss gesture instead.
 
A Matter of the Beast pissed me off by changing from the original 06 leg of the tour with the complete AMOLAD played live to half of TNOTB which I could definitely live without, but still, the more AMOLAD, the merrier and Bruce was still at his best, vocal-wise. On TFP he was really straining (and so was Nicko), so even without my Reunion+AMOLAD bias, I'd still pick AMOTB. Also, it was my first Maiden concert there, so it's quite easy for me.
 
GhostofCain said:
Agreed, even though the band's performance that I witnessed in Bilbao in 2007 was significantly better than what I saw in London in 2023. Bruce, in particular, was incredible.

The A Matter of the Beast tour concept was not even half baked! We should not forget that Rod announced the band was going to play five songs off The Number of the Beast on the tour and they ended up playing just 4, with Children of the Damned being the only novelty (apart from the 2002 Clive Burr MS Trust shows, it had not been played since 1987).
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Oh yeah, no arguments about the performances. In a perfect world I'd have the 2007 band play the 2023 setlist, but my time machine isn't quite there yet. Have I ever told you about my time machine? :P :D
 
JudasMyGuide said:
A Matter of the Beast pissed me off by changing from the original 06 leg of the tour with the complete AMOLAD played live to half of TNOTB which I could definitely live without, but still, the more AMOLAD, the merrier and Bruce was still at his best, vocal-wise. On TFP he was really straining (and so was Nicko), so even without my Reunion+AMOLAD bias, I'd still pick AMOTB. Also, it was my first Maiden concert there, so it's quite easy for me.
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I found the A Matter of the Beast tour quite underwhelming. A Matter of Life and Death is, by far, my favourite reunion album (top 5 Maiden album if you ask me) and the 2006 tour is among the best Maiden shows I have ever seen. On the other hand, the lack of effort put into the 2007 tour was quite disappointing, playing a shorter set (less than 100 minutes, Bruce's rants included) and not even honouring what they said they were going to do!
 
I think the Future Past Tour was better, I liked the balanced setlist (5 songs from SIT and 5 from Sentjustu), the themes, the stage design, Alexander the Great debut, everything was very nice, I saw that tour live, the show I attended was one of Nicko's last shows, the experience was very nice.

I never saw AMOTB and the setlist is quite meh, that's why I vote for TFPT, I think the 2006 leg was better, AMOLAD is the best post-reunion era album for me and playing the entire album nice was a great idea, fucking hell still don't know why are there some morons that complain about the whole album being played, but AMOTB was basically 4 TNOTB songs + 5 from AMOLAD and other stuff, very poor in my opinion. They played the same 3 classics from TNOTB + COTD and the old trusty ones (Trooper and FOTD), they could have played 5 songs from TNOTB or play other 3 songs from NOTB (example: Acacia, COTD and Prisoner). They could also play others from AMOLAD, would have been nice to see things like Longest Day, Out of the Shadows, Lord of Light and Legacy.
 
Poto said:
Bruce even called Wrathchild a surprise on stage at Download 07.
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Sometimes it feels like Maiden members think they are a super mainstream, casual band. As if everybody knows TNOTB, RTTH, Trooper and FOTD, and nobody knows anything else. They don't realize that in general, nobody knows this songs, because metal is still a niche, but people who come and see them know and want much more than this.
 
jeanpoleon said:
Sometimes it feels like Maiden members think they are a super mainstream, casual band.
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I'd actually argue that they are, at least in some areas - at least over here in Sweden. It's almost folk music over here.

Semi-relevant thing I also heard from @michaellegge 's podcast that came to mind is how South America still turned up in arenas for Iron Maiden, chanted and singing along the song even in the Blaze Bayley era
 
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