RUN FOR YOUR LIVES 2025 Tour Thread *SPOILERS INSIDE*

Look, I was there in 1983 when "Piece Of Mind" dropped following the mega-popular and successful "The Number Of The Beast." As were some of you. I can tell you that thankfully social media did not exist at that time because the very same whining and unfounded criticisms being levied at Simon Dawson today were being hurled at Nicko as well. To this day, and I know it's difficult to believe for some of you because you've only known Nicko McBrain as the drummer for Iron Maiden...there are many long-time fans who will die on the hill that Maiden's first three albums destroy anything they've released since and that Nick couldn't carry Clive's stick bag on his best day. That's just the way it is when bands replace members, especially when they're as beloved as is Nicko.

For me as a musician (guitar) and a long-time Maiden fan, what I was first listening for was his fit within the band itself. Do the songs sound like themselves? Do any members appear to be struggling playing along with him? How closely he followed Nick's signature licks really wasn't a concern because Nicko himself not only deviated from Clive's licks, he himself never played the same song exactly the same way twice, including his own! Maiden's live arrangements have always deviated from the recordings whether in terms of tempos, breaks within the songs or solos, all understandably because they are the essence of a live band and need to keep things interesting for themselves. Simon has thus far done a PHENOMENAL job. Learning a song by yourself is one thing. Making it feel organic with groove and sound musical and not mechanical is another. Then stepping into a chair that's been established and held down for fifty years by not one but two legends before you while not shitting a brick before huge audiences of critical fans who've paid big money to see the best show they've ever seen...most non-musicians have NO idea what a challenge that is. I don't know them but I'm certain that Rod and Steve especially are thanking their lucky stars to have had Simon already in the family and to not have had to go through the tedium of global auditions. They had a world tour booked with dates to fulfill, and they found the guy that the band, most importantly, were comfortable playing with most of all.

I'm really not lashing out at anyone here; someone mentioned that miserable Cap'n Harris rant and it just pissed me off. They sounded and looked so fucking miserable like their Christmas was ruined because "he doesn't play Nicko's parts exactly like Nicko did." Or "Bruce said they didn't want a Nicko clone; why not..?!? Why not get someone who plays like him?" Insufferable weirdos...yet they plan to attend MORE shows in the US after chasing the band to Europe. No names but I know a lot of professional touring musicians in bands we've all heard of and trust me, these are the kinds of "fans" that bands wish would stay the hell home.

I also know one of Simon's mates from back home; its a small town where everyone knows each other and the music community is tight. And reportedly, he is the nicest guy in the world who's paid his dues and is now living every punter's dream. Literally couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
 
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Smither said:

It's one of the most famoust Maiden YT channels nowadays.
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Please excuse the rant- but YT / Vlogging… this is what criticism is these days?

No disrespect intended to those folks that enjoys this type of thing, but I can’t imagine spending the time to listen to this ‘personality’ yap on and on, just inane babble.
It’s not just this fella- it’s the entire (for the most part) culture of media it seems, games / movies… any type of content.

Just sort of astonishes me tbh, there are so many great works of art out there, wonderfully crafted and written criticism and let’s not forget touching grass! That’s an option too.

Back on topic- so glad to see them doing somewhat ‘better’ with Aces Somewhere Below the Waist. I agree with what someone said a few pages ago, they should have retired the song after the great Spitfire from the last tour. Let that be the image we are left with. Now without a compelling visual, we have only left with Bruce’s tortured struggle.
 
Iron Lurker said:
Personally I can't wait to see this show next year. I love the setlist (even though no Infinite Dreams) and I like that they've tried to do something big and bold with the screens. They've been dragged for having basically the same stage set up for years. I think with LOTB they've taken the prop thing as far as it can go without it being a logistic nightmare. Remember how long it took to break down that Japanese pagoda? The band is still playing great, IMO. I think it's unfair to hold them to standards of 40, 20, 10, or even 5 years ago. They are all pushing 70 now. Simon has stepped in and is doing just fine. I still think most of the criticism is "he's not Nicko".
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Spot on, my thoughts before and even more so after seeing the show.
 
As for the Ai criticisms...I don't know that that is the source for the video backdrops used on this tour. I work professionally as an illustrator (comics, storyboards, children's books) and am more than a little vested in this technology and how it's affecting my field. In most of the animations from the shows I've viewed (and I've watched the entire show now several times since Budapest), there are numerous callbacks and references to Maiden's history as well as the songs themselves embedded throughout. Ai doesn't work like that at this point. I'm not saying that there isn't digital manipulation of images, but that's different than simply datascraping an image of, say, an ocean and some ships and making it look cohesive as a backdrop to "Rime." The waves crashing to form an Eddie that consumes the ship...that's all specific to that song and not something that someone could just create from previously created images. There would be more obvious differences in color palette, resolution and timing...I could be wrong and if it comes out that I am, I will own it fully. But I don't think that the backdrops are Ai generated. I WILL say that the screens used for "Phantom" and "TNOTB" could have been better executed but that may have been due to budget and not creative theft.

TL/DR; It would probably have cost the band more to manipulate Ai-derived images than to have created the images from the ground up.
 
btx109 said:
As for the Ai criticisms...I don't know that that is the source for the video backdrops used on this tour. I work professionally as an illustrator (comics, storyboards, children's books) and am more than a little vested in this technology and how it's affecting my field. In most of the animations from the shows I've viewed (and I've watched the entire show now several times since Budapest), there are numerous callbacks and references to Maiden's history as well as the songs themselves embedded throughout. Ai doesn't work like that at this point. I'm not saying that there isn't digital manipulation of images, but that's different than simply datascraping an image of, say, an ocean and some ships and making it look cohesive as a backdrop to "Rime." The waves crashing to form an Eddie that consumes the ship...that's all specific to that song and not something that someone could just create from previously created images. There would be more obvious differences in color palette, resolution and timing...I could be wrong and if it comes out that I am, I will own it fully. But I don't think that the backdrops are Ai generated. I WILL say that the screens used for "Phantom" and "TNOTB" could have been better executed but that may have been due to budget and not creative theft.

TL/DR; It would probably have cost the band more to manipulate Ai-derived images than to have created the images from the ground up.
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Refreshing to hear the point of view from someone who would be "in the know".
 
btx109 said:
The waves crashing to form an Eddie that consumes the ship...that's all specific to that song and not something that someone could just create from previously created images. There would be more obvious differences in color palette, resolution and timing...
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I wanna say that I agree with most of your points and appreciate your perspective, but want to comment on this part in particular. Given the capabilities of AI generation tools currently, I wouldn't say it would be particularly difficult to create various images as a baseline and to then have illustrators/3d artists create the "connecting tissue" and the animations to go from one image to the next. I believe most songs use the work of real artists, but there are a few shots in Rime where I'm convinced AI generated images were used. Obviously there was a ton of work put into the animations of Rime as well, just because there might be AI images doesn't mean the rest was easy or quick.

Having said all that, a little bit of solace is that Maiden so far seem to only have used AI for a couple of background animations for their concerts. They aren't even selling that footage. Other bands out there use AI to create album covers or merchandise. Maiden, thankfully, still seem to value the hard work of real artists and we've gotten some brilliant designs in the last couple of years. Both the posters for TFP and RFYL are some of my favorites, and the country exclusive event shirts so far have been really strong as well. If Rime was them experimenting with new technology and that's the extent of that, I'd be alright with it.
 
As for the stage show and screens:

I love what I've seen so far and I'm really happy with the scale of it all. I haven't seen it in person yet (still a couple of weeks to go!), but from the videos it looks awesome. The sheer verticality of the new stage makes it seem imposing and huge. In my opinion this feels much more modern, fresh and befitting for a band of Maiden's status, without sacrificing all of the theatrical elements we've grown to love.

Even the big Eddie during Iron Maiden. I was a tiny bit disappointed when I saw that it was a CGI animation, but once I got over that I could appreciate it for what it is. A bloody phenomenal and fierce design for Eddie, with movement we'd never be able to get with inflatables or animatronics. Just compare it to the last time we had the POM Eddie as the big one. There's a world of difference.

Kinda weird choice that they went with POM, to be honest, but it redeemed the previous attempts at it, so I'm more than fine with it.
 
Vaenyr said:
I wanna say that I agree with most of your points and appreciate your perspective, but want to comment on this part in particular. Given the capabilities of AI generation tools currently, I wouldn't say it would be particularly difficult to create various images as a baseline and to then have illustrators/3d artists create the "connecting tissue" and the animations to go from one image to the next. I believe most songs use the work of real artists, but there are a few shots in Rime where I'm convinced AI generated images were used. Obviously there was a ton of work put into the animations of Rime as well, just because there might be AI images doesn't mean the rest was easy or quick.

Having said all that, a little bit of solace is that Maiden so far seem to only have used AI for a couple of background animations for their concerts. They aren't even selling that footage. Other bands out there use AI to create album covers or merchandise. Maiden, thankfully, still seem to value the hard work of real artists and we've gotten some brilliant designs in the last couple of years. Both the posters for TFP and RFYL are some of my favorites, and the country exclusive event shirts so far have been really strong as well. If Rime was them experimenting with new technology and that's the extent of that, I'd be alright with it.
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Could be. I'm really curious to get the facts from whomever behind the scenes would know re the production of the images.
 
Vaenyr said:
Kinda weird choice that they went with POM, to be honest, but it redeemed the previous attempts at it, so I'm more than fine with it.
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I think they chose POM Eddie because of the album cover's background. That's what's on the screen. The other Eddies, we have their album covers-related stuff on the screen, without the SIT world if we have to be specific. The first 7 covers are all classics anyway - and I guess the band considers POM Eddie one of the most iconic.
 
Vaenyr said:
As for the stage show and screens:

I love what I've seen so far and I'm really happy with the scale of it all. I haven't seen it in person yet (still a couple of weeks to go!), but from the videos it looks awesome. The sheer verticality of the new stage makes it seem imposing and huge. In my opinion this feels much more modern, fresh and befitting for a band of Maiden's status, without sacrificing all of the theatrical elements we've grown to love.

Even the big Eddie during Iron Maiden. I was a tiny bit disappointed when I saw that it was a CGI animation, but once I got over that I could appreciate it for what it is. A bloody phenomenal and fierce design for Eddie, with movement we'd never be able to get with inflatables or animatronics. Just compare it to the last time we had the POM Eddie as the big one. There's a world of difference.

Kinda weird choice that they went with POM, to be honest, but it redeemed the previous attempts at it, so I'm more than fine with it.
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I think this is one of the reasons why management fought so hard against video uploads. From what I can tell, the entire production is intended to be immersive between the rear screen itself, the extended smaller screens onstage taking the place of what was drapery, and the massive light rig. It's difficult to capture the scope of all of that from an audience phone clip and to experience the full effect.

I was one of the ones who LOVED the courageous choice to perform "AMOLAD" in its entirety; I enjoy different shit, especially when I've seen a band numerous times. I'm certain I'll dig this show in person as well.
 
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Starblind said:
I like CapnHarris' channel but there are many things I don't agree on this long review. And there are some wrong info's too. I just wrote it under the video but: She claims that Bruce said sth like "you havent seen yet" at the end of the first gig and that mislead a lot of people. But actually Bruce said that in his first speech, like in the first 30 minutes or sth. At the end of it, he said sth like "if you missed stuff, you can try to catch them tomorrow". So nobody was mislead. We didn't wait for any setlist or show changes in the second gig.
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He said it before Iron Maiden also( or maybe after Iron Maiden). He probably thought Aces High is magnificent.
 
I like the Captain Harris channel. They are some folks that express their opinions, right or wrong. Exactly what we do here btw.
Their review was too negative, because she didn't like the AI stuff, which is acceptable. Then, some people are too attached to some band members. Honestly, I love Nicko also, but the band sounds tighter now imo. So, I've already accepted Simon as the new drummer. Some people need more time.
 
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