Setlist retirement poll

Should Maiden retire any of these from live shows?

  • Iron Maiden

    Votes: 20 23.3%

  • The Number of the Beast

    Votes: 13 15.1%

  • Hallowed Be Thy Name

    Votes: 6 7.0%

  • The Trooper

    Votes: 13 15.1%

  • Run to the Hills

    Votes: 12 14.0%

  • 2 Minutes to Midnight

    Votes: 18 20.9%

  • Sanctuary

    Votes: 38 44.2%

  • Wrathchild

    Votes: 40 46.5%

  • Fear of the Dark

    Votes: 23 26.7%

  • Running Free

    Votes: 30 34.9%

  • No — I wouldn’t want them to retire any of those

    Votes: 14 16.3%
  • Total voters
    86
I would retire the whole list just because I heard those songs so many times on different shows and recordings. I just would love to hear some deep cuts in place of fear of the dark or iron maiden. :)
 
Sanctuary and Running Free. They rarely fit with any setlist these days, they're thrown in there just because. I can live with Iron Maiden simply because it's their sort of signature tune.
 
Having caught Wrathchild live, I prefer it to most of the other early Maiden choices. I think the objection, though, was that it appears to be the fall-back song when they have a gap to fill, can't think what else to do, or are suddenly getting sued over something on their setlist.
 
On one hand, I'm tired of hearing the live version of any of these tracks over the last few decades...but it's different in person. Even though I've heard it a million times, I freely admit that I still scream like a 10 year old girl when the intro to NOTB starts.
 
We're all bored out of one song or another and I believe we probably saw Maiden more than once. This being said, it would be interesting to know is how many of "us" is there at the concert, that is, out of total attendance number how many people are there for the first time.

Now imagine yourself going to a concert for the first time and not hearing 4-5 of their most popular songs. I, for example, would be pretty disappointed if I went to see Rolling Stones and not hear them play Satisfaction, Sympathy for Devil, Jumping Jack Flash, Paint it Black and so on...

Now, image people seeing Maiden for the first time (who I believe are big majority at most of concerts) not hearing any of the songs listed here. It wouldn't be a full Maiden experience for them, would it?
 
With the whole song-retirement discussion, I tend to take the middle ground and to be fair, Maiden did that with TBOS set too, at least to some extent; there's also a big bunch of fans who're attending a Maiden gig for the first time, or just love hearing classics time after another. That's fine. But instead of playing every single one or 3/4 from the Trooper-RTTH-TNOTB-2MTM bunch, it'd be appreciated if it was like "only" two and then something equally golden, but a bit less obvious - as they pretty much did with Powerslave, COTD and WY during TBOS tour. Then again, all of the mentioned work very well in LOTB set and at least there wasn't Wrathchild or Sanctuary stealing a spot from something a bit more "substantial." Wrathchild works very well live and I have nothing against it as a song, but for a 15 to 16 song set it seems a tad bit cheap, even when it balances things out well. But since pretty much everything from the "golden bunch" gets played during history tours, it's indeed appropriate to give them some rest during album tours. I've repeated this thing to death, but yes, I think that TBOS set did a lot of things right, where as TFF 2011 and Maiden England could have given rest for 2 Minutes to Midnight, for example, which would have also made the return of it this year much more appreciated.

Anyway, since Sanctuary and Running Free are indeed semi-retired already and one or two songs from the biggest hits is often skipped during album tours anyway, I guess FOTD might deserve a rest next time. Skipping FOTD in TBOS tour in favour of Brave New World wouldn't have hurt, but after being played on both history tours after Early Days one, it's not really realistic to even think about that. FOTD has been great this year, so why not to give it a rest for next (album?) tour? It's hard to top the current rendition anyway.

So, to answer the poll question, maybe FOTD and/or Wrathchild?

Since LOTB has given us such a brilliant renditions of even some of the most worn-out classics, it'd be cool if the next album tour followed TBOS layout and gave one or two of those songs a rest. A very healthy bunch of new stuff, two or three of the biggest hit singles, maybe TNOTB and The Trooper, keep Icarus, return Wasted Years and throw in something from the category of Die With Your Boots On, Can I Play With Madness, 22 Acacia Avenue, Man on the Edge, The Clairvoyant, Remember Tomorrow, Afraid to Shoot Strangers, Phantom of the Opera etc. to play the same role Powerslave and Children of the Damned did in 2016-17. :) And then, maybe some "modern classic", meaning The Clansman, Blood Brothers, Brave New World, Dance of Death or maybe even The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg. Good sturcture with enough fresh edge to make it at least equally interesting as TBOS set was, while still retaining a healthy bunch of hits and favourites.
 
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Spambot said:
We're all bored out of one song or another and I believe we probably saw Maiden more than once. This being said, it would be interesting to know is how many of "us" is there at the concert, that is, out of total attendance number how many people are there for the first time.

Now imagine yourself going to a concert for the first time and not hearing 4-5 of their most popular songs. I, for example, would be pretty disappointed if I went to see Rolling Stones and not hear them play Satisfaction, Sympathy for Devil, Jumping Jack Flash, Paint it Black and so on...

Now, image people seeing Maiden for the first time (who I believe are big majority at most of concerts) not hearing any of the songs listed here. It wouldn't be a full Maiden experience for them, would it?
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Exactly. People like us need to understand that we are the minority at a Maiden show. 50-75% (at the low end) of the people at a show are seeing Maiden possibly for only the first or second time and they want to have a good time and they want to hear the big songs. These are the people who maybe own 1 or 2 albums. Who listen to Maiden only via Spotify, and stop the playlist after the Top Ten Most Played Tracks. They still buy a ticket, they probably still buy a shirt, and they spend a ton of money at the venue on snacks and drinks. To not cater to this people and only play deep cuts would be financial suicide.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
To not cater to this people and only play deep cuts would be financial suicide.
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Sure, but if you advertise something as a deep cuts tour and throw one in there every once in a while, that couldn’t hurt. Or at least do a “very special evening” every once in a while with deep cuts and sell the video.

Gamma Ray has done fan-selected deep cut live albums twice now, and they’re great. For the second one they excluded voting on all the tracks that appeared on the first one, so it was totally fresh. Imagine what we might get if Maiden gave the same sort of thing a try...
 
The thing is, Maiden have always been a hits band. They play the fun, live songs from each album and then write a new album and move on. When it’s time to revisit old material, they only play stuff that has been tested before. They’ve never given us a reason to expect different and they always put out new material worth hearing, so why would that change now?
 
The one time they did that (AMOLAD tour) it was rather poorly received by the general public.
 
LooseCannon said:
The one time they did that (AMOLAD tour) it was rather poorly received by the general public.
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