RUN FOR YOUR LIVES 2025 Tour Thread *SPOILERS INSIDE*

Vaenyr said:
Simon is a fucking beast! Listen to the "rock n roll" endings for songs like Iron Maiden, he went crazy. I'll have to listen to some videos but I could swear he used double bass pedals for those parts.
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Yeah, for Wasted Years too. Most likely double bass. He hits hard and still the cymbals are weak in the mix..?
Btw, I saw some comments on YouTube that some songs sound really slow and I'm not sure if Simon is to blame. They are playing the studio tempos, but that's not Fear Of The Dark's studio tempo, also songs like Wasted, Trooper, Hallowed and even Murders and 2 Minutes could be faster. It could be from Adrian and Bruce, but also from Simon's age and experience though. And to say for example, a slower tempo for the first part of Seventh Son is not a problem. Nicko speeding up the songs live was not cool for Steve, Bruce and Adrian, but it was for us. They are still bring the energy live, not quite like with Nicko, tbh, but Simon is great for his age for a drummer. So let's enjoy the present and the future.
Vaenyr said:
Bruce was great for the most part as well. Aces High was surprisingly passable!
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I think he intentionally doesn't push for the high notes to save his voice, but then don't play it. I don't think they'll drop it for the 2nd leg, he manages to work with it with lower vocals.
Vaenyr said:
The ground screens/walls surrounding the stage and changing with each song were a phenomenal addition. The scale of the stage was amazing as well.
I really like the screens, they work great for the most part. Though the visuals themselves seem pretty low quality for many of them. Often feels like watching a PS3 era game instead of something suitable for 2025. Many parts worked well, but many others felt like watching a screensaver looping over and over. Good first execution, but I'd like some more resources put into those in the future.
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The show is impressive, but they could have spent more money for sure (for the ground screens too). Like Manowar now. Let's see how they use the screens for the next tour, I doubt they'll drop them. I hope for no videos, just moving arts. That's the best.

I like big Eddie's explosion.
Vaenyr said:
Gonna catch some flak for this, but having Rime and SSOASS in the same set, relatively close to one another shows some serious pacing issues. Two songs with quiet middle sections that both go on for multiple minutes.
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It's not that different from the last tour's calm parts, but yeah it was surprise, and Bruce need them. Having all 80's epics (without Land and the SIT songs because of the previous tour) in one set IS special. Imagine BNW, DOD, Wild Wind, Book and Hell On Earth!
BludBrutha said:
Jesus. Why do they keep making constant mistakes like this every show? Even when Nicko was running on fumes the last couple of years I don’t remember seeing so many reports of blunders like this all the time.
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I really don't know. It's odd - and from all.
 
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Kalata said:
Btw, I saw some comments on YouTube that some songs sound really slow and I'm not sure if Simon is to blame. They are playing the studio tempos, but that's not Fear Of The Dark's studio tempo, also songs like Wasted and even Murders could be faster.
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Wasted Years is probably due to Adrian. We had seen on TFP how Adrian would start the song pretty slow and then it would speed up once the rest joins in. There were also a couple of instances of him getting frustrated and abandoning the main lead just before the solo due to tempo issues. Murders on the other hand has very fast vocal lines, so I think speeding that one up would end up causing unnecessary problems for Bruce. Personally I'm fine with the tempo for that one.

Kalata said:
The show is impressive, but they could have spent more money for sure (for the ground screens too). Like Manowar now. Let's see how they use the screens for the next tour, I doubt they'll drop them. I hope for no videos, just moving arts. That's the best.
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Yeah, I think this was an investment that will be used for any future tours. I don't see Maiden spending a ton of money on getting this setup with huge screens and the animations for a single tour.

Kalata said:
It's not that different from the last tour's calm parts, but yeah it was surprise, and Bruce need them. Having all 80's epics (without Land and the SIT songs because of the previous tour) in one set IS special. Imagine BNW, DOD, Wild Wind, Book and Hell On Earth!
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That would be a dream!
 
They’ve been on tour for what, six weeks? If Simon keeps screwing stuff up like that SS middle section they’ll just replace him for the next tour. He shouldn’t be making any mistakes by now. It’s not like they’re Springsteen and they’re doing a three hour set which is totally different every single night, it’s the same set in the same order every time!
 
Vaenyr said:
The Gelsenkirchen, Germany show. Here:

The quiet part starts at 4:25. The first two repetitions go well. The first is the one where the least is happening, the second has Bruce narrating the "today is born the seventh one" part.

From 6:28 starts the third repetition. Here is where the problems start. Listen to the drums, the bass drum in particular. There is one bass drum hit, then he skips one and after that he hits them in the off-beat part (as it should, the skipping was the first mistake). You can see Steve and Adrian turning around a few times to try and communicate with Simon through eyesight.

At 7:21 is when Adrian plays the wrong chord. He laughed about it (I was standing on his side of the stage and could see it) and in the video you can see how he bends over to laugh about it (and probably a tiny bit of embarassment :D ).

Around 7:47 starts the final part and you can hear how the various members have timing issues, with Adrian starting his distorted guitar a couple of seconds later than the rest. Finally around 9:02 this section is over and the transition is a bit rough as well. Once they caught themselves it was smooth sailing and the rest of the song was phenomenal. But for whatever reason they had quite a bit of trouble with this quiet section.
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IT seems like they extended it and yes at the end they have timing issued
 
Just a quick dose of positivity again from me on the tour. Just got back from our holiday in Spain where we took in the Madrid show. What a great show it was, best crowd i have been part of at a Maiden gig, singing everything from phantom onwards like maniacs and a fantastic sight once it got dark. The band and Bruce seemed in great form to my untrained ear and looked to really enjoying the atmosphere themselves to me.

The stadium was a great venue , well organised and a massive concourse full of Merch, food, bars with outdoor seating , Maiden songs playing both before and after the gig which really made for a massive Maiden party , the atmosphere really started on the Metro getting there to be honest. The dive bar was decent too although not particularly close to the stadium. I would have to say that , RTTH, Aces, Hallowed, Fear, WY were easily the most raucous songs and really gave me a buzz to be apart of in a venue that size and that loud with singing. I haven`t noticed Bruce bowing to the crowd normally at the end of a show but he did in Madrid which i took to mean he felt the power up on stage. The comment made earlier on here about the crowd having Chile vibes was bang on.

I sincerely hope i get to see them again at some point soon in anything like that form and he clearly said we`ll be back again at the end so hopefully so. Up the Irons :edmetal:
 
Belshazzar said:
Of course this is true for many bands, but Nicko had such an array of toms and cymbals, that without those options there the dynamics will be different. Being able to roll across those tiny toms or do a bottom end roll going to the floor tom just hits different, because the drums are a different pitch. The Trooper fill should sound different to the Powerslave fill, but they sound the same because Simon has the same range of pitch to play with.
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The dynamics you refer to are far more reliant upon the drummer's technique and less upon the equipment. Especially in a live environment.

A traditional drum kit is comprised of five pieces: the snare, the bass, two mounted toms and a floor tom. The cymbals used are a hi-hat, a ride and a crash. That's it. With such a set up Neil Peart affirmed that he could play every Rush song if necessary.

Nicko's kit contained eleven pieces: snare, bass, three custom-sized small toms, five mounted toms, one floor tom and various cymbals along with a gong. Simon's kit contains seven; snare, bass, three mounted toms, one elevated tom and one floor tom.

The snare and bass drums are arguably the most important parts of the kit. Each tom gives the drummer a different depth of sound, a different color if you will, based upon the respective sizes; the larger the drum, the deeper its voice. But those are more textural than outright sonic.

Put another way; Nick, Simon, Clive, et al add pieces to their kits based upon preference and tone; perhaps for specific songs, maybe for resonance or depth. They can make do with the traditional five-piece kit, that's all a drummer really needs. But it's a bit of flash, a bit of excess, a lot of professional preference. A beginner trying to play on such a kit won't get anything more out of a song because the song isn't notated for various drum sizes. In guitar terms, me playing "Paranoid" through a Mesa 2C+ running through a Bradshaw rig isn't going to sound any better than Tony Iommi playing it on his SG straight into a Laney head. But Steve Lukather might do something cool through it.

I don't know if any of that makes sense but bottom line, as much as one might believe the songs sound different because of the size of the kit, that's not it. Simon has one job and that's to play the set as dictated and give a good show and he's doing that in spades, IMO.
 
Fozzie said:
Just a quick dose of positivity again from me on the tour. Just got back from our holiday in Spain where we took in the Madrid show. What a great show it was, best crowd i have been part of at a Maiden gig, singing everything from phantom onwards like maniacs and a fantastic sight once it got dark. The band and Bruce seemed in great form to my untrained ear and looked to really enjoying the atmosphere themselves to me.

The stadium was a great venue , well organised and a massive concourse full of Merch, food, bars with outdoor seating , Maiden songs playing both before and after the gig which really made for a massive Maiden party , the atmosphere really started on the Metro getting there to be honest. The dive bar was decent too although not particularly close to the stadium. I would have to say that , RTTH, Aces, Hallowed, Fear, WY were easily the most raucous songs and really gave me a buzz to be apart of in a venue that size and that loud with singing. I haven`t noticed Bruce bowing to the crowd normally at the end of a show but he did in Madrid which i took to mean he felt the power up on stage. The comment made earlier on here about the crowd having Chile vibes was bang on.

I sincerely hope i get to see them again at some point soon in anything like that form and he clearly said we`ll be back again at the end so hopefully so. Up the Irons :edmetal:
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Sounds like you had a great time! Love the feeling of a Maiden party, nothing like that pre-show hype.
 
skogtastic said:
Sounds like you had a great time! Love the feeling of a Maiden party, nothing like that pre-show hype.
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We sure did and you are spot on, there really is nothing like the sight of thousands of people in the endless variants of Maiden shirts heading to the same place. The band might well not be perfect but for me they offer a unique live experience from start to finish.
 
BludBrutha said:
They’ve been on tour for what, six weeks? If Simon keeps screwing stuff up like that SS middle section they’ll just replace him for the next tour. He shouldn’t be making any mistakes by now. It’s not like they’re Springsteen and they’re doing a three hour set which is totally different every single night, it’s the same set in the same order every time!
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Nah, the other members are doing just as many mistakes, if not more. Need I remind you of Bruce's timing issues (which are still not resolved entirely!)?

I've mentioned this before, but many of the mistakes that get blamed on Simon this tour aren't valid. There were examples where he was the only one doing the correct thing, while Steve was fucking up. Simon was the one trying to salvage it and pull everything together.

I saw him live and I can tell you: Simon is a fucking beast and more than worthy of being Maiden's new drummer. I could go through bootlegs of the 80s and point out to various instances for each member where everyone of them screwed up, often in much more severe ways than what was heard in that video. Maiden were never the tightest band. We aren't talking about Dream Theater level musicality here. It's heavy metal; warts and all.
 
To be fair to them keeping track of that quiet section in SSOASS is a nightmare. Even on the record. There's so many interlocking parts, and I think the time signature is a bit weird. They should really take some time to work out and rehearse thst section as it's causing so many problems.
 
Trevoire said:
To be fair to them keeping track of that quiet section in SSOASS is a nightmare. Even on the record. There's so many interlocking parts, and I think the time signature is a bit weird. They should really take some time to work out and rehearse thst section as it's causing so many problems.
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Steve has a tendency to write stuff like that sometimes. Similar with the middle section in Sign Of The Cross, which is an absolute cluserfuck of time signatures lol
 
dickinson1978 said:
What happen to it! Sign of the cross is 10/10.
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That wasn't meant as something negative! And I'm not aware of any instances where they badly messed up that song.

I meant that the middle section, when only the bass and one clean guitar are playing, as well as the part right afterwards with the marching snare drum, have very complicated time signatures. Instead of being regular 4/4, like most of the song, the measures there keep changing almost randomly. It is very complicated to count and write down, but they manage to play it perfectly well. It was more of a compliment to Steve and his writing, than anything else.
 
Vaenyr said:
That wasn't meant as something negative! And I'm not aware of any instances where they badly messed up that song.

I meant that the middle section, when only the bass and one clean guitar are playing, as well as the part right afterwards with the marching snare drum, have very complicated time signatures. Instead of being regular 4/4, like most of the song, the measures there keep changing almost randomly. It is very complicated to count and write down, but they manage to play it perfectly well. It was more of a compliment to Steve and his writing, than anything else.
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It could be the best instrumental part since seventh son
 
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