Maiden's Song set success

M

Mysterio

Invader
I was listening to Eddie Trunk on you tube talking to the guys on the Classic Metal show.  He said that he was at an IM show during thier AMALOD tour.  He claims that the shows did not go over well because IM played too much new stuff.  He then went on to say that thier SBIT tour is a rouring success because they did old school songs.

So my question is it better for IM to keep old school IM songs in thier set list and limit the new song.  Or can they do more new stuff and cut down the old school songs?

Mysterio
 
Well, speaking as a Maiden fan from 'back in the day', I loved the AMOLAD tour.  The SBIT tour was great, cause I got to see some stuff I've never seen.  Maiden caught a bunch of flack from the media about the AMOLAD start to finish cd tour, but it was great for me, and I totally understood their idea behind it.  If they create another ablum like that, that is solid from start to finish, I'd have no problem with them playing it start to finish. 
 
I'm an oldie, and as Wasted155 said, it was so refreshing to see the AMOLAD set.

If Maiden just mostly play what they consider to be the classics (my lsit of classics would be quite different...The Duellists, Alexander The Great, Invaders, To Tame A Land etc.) then they will quickly become a caberet band. The new stuff keeps Maiden alive and relevant as a band to be reckoned with.

More 'classic' tours would be ok IMO, as long as the set was varied wildly (not just playing Wrathchild, Revelations etc.), and as long as the tours for new albums kept on coming in between.
 
It's not this or that. Maiden do both and I like that variation.

However, if they really do old song tours I rather see them perform songs which haven't been done in ages (for me personally that is at least 10 years ;) ). This last tour contained "only" 2 of such songs ("Rime" and "Moonchild") and the rest was done several times since H and Bruce came back to the band. It sounds crazy but in that aspect I found all other tours of the past more refreshing than the last one.
 
They'd better stop doing those nostalgia tours unless they play much more 'forgotten' songs. Otherwise I'd rather they concentrated on writing a new album to be released next year rather than in 2010.
 
Cosmiceddie said:
They'd better stop doing those nostalgia tours unless they play much more 'forgotten' songs. Otherwise I'd rather they concentrated on writing a new album to be released next year rather than in 2010.
Click to expand...

Agree totally about the 'forgotten' gems.
 
Cosmiceddie said:
They'd better stop doing those nostalgia tours unless they play much more 'forgotten' songs. Otherwise I'd rather they concentrated on writing a new album to be released next year rather than in 2010.
Click to expand...
Well, that won't happen. All tours must take in effect that there are for example, 25% hardcore fans and 75% casual fans that have heard Best of the Beast and a few other, well-known songs.

In order to attract those casual fans, they must play the standard songs that they have been playing for years and years, that the general audience is familiar with.

Yes, the AMOLAD tour was great for me, but I sincerely doubt that many casual fans were happy with it, getting to hear only FOTD, IM, 2MTM, TETMD and HBTN.

It's the same thing as with the elections - everyone is promising everything, but in the end you end up realizing that nothing has changed in a meaningful way.
 
gulranek said:
In order to attract those casual fans, they must play the standard songs that they have been playing for years and years, that the general audience is familiar with.
Click to expand...

Fair enough, but then they might be unaware of distracting their hardcore fans with playing the same old boring songs one might be fed up with meanwhile.
 
Welsh Phantom said:
If Maiden just mostly play what they consider to be the classics (my lsit of classics would be quite different...The Duellists, Alexander The Great, Invaders, To Tame A Land etc.) then they will quickly become a caberet band. The new stuff keeps Maiden alive and relevant as a band to be reckoned with.
Click to expand...

Woohoo!  I'm not the only one who likes Invaders! :ok:

I would have loved to see the AMOLAD tour.  I attended my first two Maiden gigs during the SBIT tour, and it was in some ways completely different from what I imagined.  The "classic" songs that I thought would be great live were a huge disappointment: Run to the Hills, The Number of the Beast, 2 Minutes to Midnight, The Trooper, Can I Play with Madness?, Iron Maiden...  Fear of the Dark was the only crowd favourite that was as good as I imagined.  But much better were the more epic, longer songs like Rime, Powerslave, Revelations (my respect for this increased tenfold).  The less played rockers like Aces High, The Clairvoyant, and Moonchild were also great.  The simple fact just seems to be that even though I hadn't seen the "hit songs" live, I had heard them just so many times that they didn't do much to me.  And for this reason I would always prefer Maiden to play their less played material (the better part of it, of course; I wouldn't want to hear Quest for Fire for example).  Usually that means the new songs.
 
gulranek said:
Well, that won't happen. All tours must take in effect that there are for example, 25% hardcore fans and 75% casual fans that have heard Best of the Beast and a few other, well-known songs.

In order to attract those casual fans, they must play the standard songs that they have been playing for years and years, that the general audience is familiar with.

Yes, the AMOLAD tour was great for me, but I sincerely doubt that many casual fans were happy with it, getting to hear only FOTD, IM, 2MTM, TETMD and HBTN.

It's the same thing as with the elections - everyone is promising everything, but in the end you end up realizing that nothing has changed in a meaningful way.
Click to expand...

I think, honestly, they don't really care if there are casual or hard core fans there.  These guys really can't need the money that badly.  They play what they want to play-- if they played what the fans wanted, we'd be seeing ATG or something like that.

I know that Bruce rants a lot, but his quote in Chicago (at AMOLAD) was something like "we've got a lot of shit about only playing the new album, but we all thought it was great.  And we would rather play to 5 or 6,000 of our good friends that appreciate our stuff, than to 20,000 that just want to live in the past"

I'd be willing to bet that if the next album is anywhere near as good as AMOLAD we may see something similar on that supporting tour.
 
Regarding Somewhere Back In Time, i have a feeling that things happened this way : with a highly successful album and tour, with the birthday gigs for Number Of The Beast, and with various rants about "having pyramids, robots, and singing about albatrosses next year", Maiden got a bit more attention in the general media and general music circuits. When they announced LAD stage props, their own Boeing 757, and all the fancy stuff, that attention just got bigger.

Prior to the India show, we didn't know the setlist. We only knew hints, but what was certain, didn't affect the setlist type...is it going to be real '80s gems or just the greatest hits? Songs that we didn't know made a difference. People thought that it's going to be '84-'88 setlist, but still they raided ticket shows.

For instance, their last time in Croatia (before this tour) was on Give Me Ed tour. GMETID tour was a greatest hits tour from the whole catalogue, yet they played on a simple football pitch in a small town near Zagreb. It even goes better, they were scheduled in Zagreb's indoor arena, which can house < 10.000 in concert. This time in Split, they played on the biggest football stadium in the country. Again, the stadium (like all other tour venues) was scheduled way, way before anyone knew what exactly are they going to play.

Suma sumarum, Maiden did consolidate and they did play songs which they enjoy and like, eg. Moonchild, Clairvoyant...that was good. However, Revelations, The Trooper, Run To The Hills, Number Of The Beast and Fear Of The Dark don't belong in the original description. IMHO they saw how much people they attracted all over the globe, and they decided to play well known songs outside the era of original premise, to satisfy the "general audience".

If those 5 songs were 5 extra songs from Somewhere In Time and Seventh Son Of The Seventh Son, the tour would have been what it was supposed to be. Those 5 were the variable (x). We knew they're going with 4 LAD songs from Powerslave, 2 elementary (IM and HBTN), and at least 5 basic, well known songs from SiT and SSOASS.

So that (x) was the choice between hardcore fans and general public. When they saw the response to the tour, they decided to go for general public. Which sucks, because history tours weren't concieved for general public, they were there for Maiden fans.
 
Zare,

"Which sucks, because history tours weren't concieved for general public, they were there for Maiden fans."

Where do I sign ? Perfect comment this one.

Unfortunately managers, record companies don't think like that. More is better. At least if one Nu-Metal/Emo Rock fan out in 100 people is converted to a true Maiden fan during this "general audience" tours we can say it's wasn't a worthless effort !

cheers
Marcus
 
It is me, or is it my perception that Im play a lot of Powerslave on thier tours.  Isn't 2mtm/AH/PS/ROTAM played all the time in some concept or another.  The same goes with CIPWMadness/RTTH/TNOTB.

Im not playing the above would be like Judas Priest not playing thier hits and ACDC/DLeppard etc.

Mysterio
 
I don't think Rime was played since the LAD tour (not 100% sure).  I don't think AH was played that much... TMTM is played more frequently.
 
Wasted155 said:
I don't think Rime was played since the LAD tour (not 100% sure).  I don't think AH was played that much... TMTM is played more frequently.
Click to expand...

Before this tour Rime was in the set from 1984-1987 (World Slavery Tour + Somewhere On Tour)
Aces High was played in 1999 (Ed Hunter Tour) and before that of course during the World Slavery Tour.

2 Minutes to Midnight: very often. On every tour since 1984 except for: Dance of Death World Tour (October 2003-February 2004) & The Early Days Tour (2005).

Powerslave: see Aces High

More info: click
 
Mysterio said:
It is me, or is it my perception that Im play a lot of Powerslave on thier tours.  Isn't 2mtm/AH/PS/ROTAM played all the time in some concept or another.  The same goes with CIPWMadness/RTTH/TNOTB.

Im not playing the above would be like Judas Priest not playing thier hits and ACDC/DLeppard etc.

Mysterio
Click to expand...

No, I'd say songs from Number of the Beast are played more often than other albums, but thats for obvious reasons.
 
I'm surprised that so many people wouldn't have wanted Revelations in the setlist.  That song was one of my best experiences (after Rime and Powerslave) at the gig.  Same goes for Fear of the Dark, though Revelations was more understandable to have in the set list.
 
Agree with Invader. Worked great live and had a long break from the setlists (yes, it has been quite regular since 2000, but before that people hadn't heard it in ages). I' rather see them drop other songs than Revelations. Otherwise I think there's been made a lot of good points in this thread. The general point of Zare's post about the SBIT setlist sums things up well.

If Maiden had just wanted to please long-time fans, they would've dropped out a few of the regular songs and included songs like Stranger in a Strange Land and Infinite Dreams. Songs that they have played a few times, but mostly ages ago, and that they know are popular among long-time fans. I think they "played it safe" with the actual setlist.
 
Playlist should consist:

some classic material: Fear of the dark, Run to the hills, Number of the beast, Hallowed + som of those: Wratchild, 2M2M, Can I play with madness
some new material
some never played songs - even the bad ones(like Quest for fire) - just to hear them live
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top