The Future Past tour 2023

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Saturday night I knew that the first show of this year's tour would begin and I repeatedly told myself and my girlfriend over the past few months that I wanted to know NOTHING in advance this time. With the Legacy of the Beast tour last year, I could basically dream the set list and I listened to it several times a day for months. I completely sucked the emotion out of some songs looking at it in hindsight. That's how hyped I was for the show. With this tour, I wanted to keep it different and be surprised on the day I went myself.

As I lay in bed that night and was casually scrolling on Instagram before going to sleep, having unfollowed everything Maiden-related, Instagram decided to show me one of the photos posted on Iron Maiden's official Instagram page of one of the songs they played that night. It turned out to be Alexander the Great in the picture. I couldn't contain myself and thought "Oh shit they actually did it!" and immediately went to Maiden's page and saw all the pictures. I hated myself for a few minutes because I had seen this year's setlist despite convincing myself I didn't want to! Why did I have to be so weak?

But soon my self-hatred turned into extreme and uncontained hype. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! Senjutsu and Somewhere in Time are my favorite Maiden albums of all time, and knowing that I would now see songs like Caught Somewhere in Time, Alexander the Great, Hell on Earth and Death of the Celts live was a dream about to come true for me! And on top of that, The Prisoner and Can I Play With Madness are both great songs that I've wanted to see live for a long time!



Let's just say I slept very well that night, although I hate Instagram for spoiling, I think it was for the best. I still keep myself from seeing pictures showing the stage setup, but the set list completely blew me away and I can't wait for July! Now I have to stop myself from putting this setlist on repeat until then.
 
I guess someone had to be the one, but it is not sounding good for the Senjutsu songs. We are talking about completely different leagues here!
 
A trivia question...

Was there ever an Iron Maiden setlist in which Steve only has one writing credit during the first 4 songs?
 
Danthrax93 said:
I don’t see the need for rehearsing before shows like Metallica. I think it’ll all be sorted by third show.

MARK MY WORDS.
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Thats not good for the people at the first shows though is it? I bet you if they started the tour in the UK/ Germany they would of been better rehearsed. Not cool to treat smaller EU countries as guinea pigs imo and i say that as an englishman.
 
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Sabawish said:
Thats not good for the people at the first shows though is it? I bet you if they started the tour in the UK/ Germany they would of been better rehearsed. Not cool to treat smaller EU countries as guinea pigs imo and i say that as an englishman.
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They usually start their tours at smaller markets probably for that reason.
 
Lets be honest this is nothinh new. Theres always been mistakes in the first few shows of the tour going back years. Whether its lack of rehersal, i dont know. Those talking about retirement listen toba show in a couple of weeks time. Although i do admit Nicko clearly is not quite the drummer he was but thstd understandable given his age and they are not the easiest songs to play. This isnt The Beatles or Rolling Stones
 
My thoughts on the opening night:

Stage set:
I never thought Maiden would use LED screens. It's cool and something fresh, but I will always prefer traditional painted backdrops, especially with the Maiden art. It looks better imo. Even with the new improvements, the stage is somehow smaller (in the amps and overall).
I'm not a fan of the moving artworks/projection of other clips in the 2 small screens - it's distracting, although it was cool for CSIT, SIASL (the bar scene!) IM (battle) and maybe Wasted Years. When it's a continuation of the backdrop (well, screen too I guess?), it was better. For Wasted Years, not.
The light show was great and really needed. The top half of the stage, part of the stage decor... everything looked very futuristic.
To be honest, I think the futuristic decors within the stage could have been better, and the ones for TBOS and LOTB tours looked better.
Visually, I guess I could say that it topped LOTB just a bit, even without a lot of inflatables, props and theatrics.

Setlist:
Amazing setlist. One of their best. No Hallowed, no NOTB!!! Wow. Who would have thought.
The only song I'm not a big fan of is CIPWM. I would have replaced it with Futureal. A missed opportunity.
I love Celts, but I can't call the setlist ''perfect'' without Parchment. I guess one can't have everything. This is a big surprise to me.
Highlights were ATG (amazing moment), Hell On Earth (beautiful), CSIT (just wow) and Stranger.
DOFP is a great live song, Time Machine is tricky and Celts is not so good live.
Prisoner, Fear, Trooper, Wasted Years, TWOTW and IM are always strong live. CIPWM is more of a studio song imo. HCW is always fun live.
So, I personally would change: Celts with Parchment(!), CIPWM with Futureal and I would add one more Reunion era song (Brave New World would have been fitting) instead of Wasted Years because I wanted to be a unique show closer for TBOS tour. Also, Janick needs more solos in this set.

Props:
I do expected less theatrics than LOTB tour, but I certainly expected more stage props. Maybe more inflatables (well, not a space ship). I was basically expecting the level of the props from TBOS tour. The laser gun is a great addition.

Eddies:
Stranger and SIT (battle with Bruce) walk-on Eddies were cool. The not moving, smaller and maybe not inflatable(!) big SJ Eddie was a bit of a let down for me. The walk-on SJ Eddie was not needed for Iron Maiden. He should have appeared during Celts.

Backdrops:
I love the ones for CSIT, ATG, Hell On Earth, Celts (I expected it to be with SJ Eddie), Fear and Prisoner.
TWOTW one was expected and fits the stage. CIPWM too.
Although it fits, I expected more from The Time Machine one. It should have been only a big time machine or with Eddie - but they used the single cover of Wasted Years with the tour poster on it. I'm not a big fan. If not Time Machine, the one for DOFP should have been different - only with SJ Eddie imo.
The one for Iron Maiden should have been a Japanese landscape(!) because of the big SJ Eddie.
For Wasted Years they used the tour poster (it would have been more fitting for DOFP) - I think only Wasted Years Eddie would have been better.
And I think they should have used a backdrop with Eddie for HCW - SIT Eddie, SJ Eddie or both would have been much better. Why the amazing gatefold artwork wasn't used?

Costumes:
Bruce's costume is really fitting and cool. Dune! The mantle, the vest! The sunglasses are a nice addition too. I missed the jacket from 1986 a bit and I expected somthing special for ATG. Adrian's costume is the same as for the LOTB tour (at least the 1st show), Dave's and Nicko's too. Steve is in his traditional costume and Janick is with the best shirt (again).

Drum kit:
I like the colour, it fits, but SJ Eddie on every piece is not necessary. The bass drum artwork could have been more creative or SJ Eddie head.

Performances:
Mistakes and sound issues aside, I think everyone's performances was very good, especially Bruce and Adrian. I'm worried about future thoguh, Nicko simplified a lot of the drum parts in the (some) songs. This wasn't the case last year, iirc.
 
I think Maiden can continue for a few years. But they need to choose songs that can be played due to their age.

Simplifying drum parts works, but there is a very thin line there between good performances and songs not sounding great. For example CSIT is currently on the limit of that. No double kicks and no snare fills, but they kept a decent tempo (again, shame they didn't do it in 2008 or in 2012, because it would sound great, especially in 2008). On the other side, Nicko can perform ATG as he did on the album. So, all in all, picking the songs in the future will be key for longevity.

Another good example of that is probably CIPWM and TETMD. I think they can perform CIPWM until the end of their career, while TETMD sounded a bit sluggish on LOTB.
 
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