The Future Past tour 2023

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FTB said:
My wife just emptied her purse and look what she found in there. WOW, I'm a fuckin lucky man

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Congrats! Janick is super stingy with picks. If I'm not mistaken he only threw them after Iron Maiden and after Wasted Years.
 
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Vaenyr said:
Congrats! Janick is super stingy with picks. If I'm not mistaken he only threw them after Iron Maiden and after Wasted Years.
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She just told me someone was talking to her and touching her purse during the gig. She basically said she'd have no chance of getting stuff, because people would probably take it off her. A random bloke just said to her : sometimes you're lucky.

So my wild guess is, he put in in there. Awesome Dude
 
Vaenyr said:
Glad the show was in-doors, because it created a much better atmosphere compared to Cologne's open air show. Sound was much better too, but that was in part due to me wearing some hearing protection this time around, and honestly: I'll never watch a show without that again. They have a bit of a filtering option, which helps a lot in making the music clearer + I had no issues whatsoever afterwards. Add to that, that hearing damage is cumulative, and I'll wear them religiously from now on. I wanted to do that for a while now, but I always forgot.
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I started going to gigs in 1991, but only started wearing earplugs back in 2008, after a very scary experience following a very loud indoor gig. My hearing was awful for much longer than usual and an ENT specialist I visited STRONGLY advised me to wear earplugs from them on whenever I went to loud gigs.

I am glad I followed his instructions. My hearing is fine and I can enjoy a much clearer sound.
 
Vaenyr said:
There was a dude a couple of spots to the left of us who was watching some kind of Netflix show or movie on his phone during TRA, which I found to be quite rude and disrespectful. Of course we're all there to see Maiden, but if you're in the first line, I'd expect a modicum of respect for the opening act(s).
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I am not particularly into The Raven Age, but that is very disrespectful. Sadly, there are a good number of Maiden fans that are only interested in Maiden.
 
Mega said:
I honestly don't see the point in FTTB. How can you enjoy the show after 3+ hours of standing next to a million other people?
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Great view of the stage and being really close to the band. As I am short I probably wouldn't be able to even see the band well from further down the pit and I really don't like the experience of watching a gig seated (a Maiden one, for what it's worth).
 
Smither said:
Great view of the stage and being really close to the band. As I am short I probably wouldn't be able to even see the band well from further down the pit and I really don't like the experience of watching a gig seated (a Maiden one, for what it's worth).
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Well, I didn't have FTTB and was there by 3pm. Got to 10th row at first but when the show starts , new cards on the table. Got as close as 2nd row. Still don't see the point
 
That's another thing, people pushing others to squeeze by. I'm not judging you @FTB, I'm just stating the facts. It's just an overall unpleasant experience.

I was pretty happy with my seats on the sides. I wasn't very close to the stage but could still see fine and look at the screens when I wanted to look at anyone specific. There were a lot of other seats behind me so there were worst seats.
 
FTB said:
Well, I didn't have FTTB and was there by 3pm. Got to 10th row at first but when the show starts , new cards on the table. Got as close as 2nd row. Still don't see the point
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Oh yeah, I never got FTTB and usually arrive around 1/2 pm, but we still get to stand 3+ hours next to a million other people like Mega said. I guess he was just referring to arriving quite early to the venue.
 
Mega said:
That's another thing, people pushing others to squeeze by. I'm not judging you @FTB, I'm just stating the facts. It's just an overall unpleasant experience.

I was pretty happy with my seats on the sides. I wasn't very close to the stage but could still see fine and look at the screens when I wanted to look at anyone specific. There were a lot of other seats behind me so there were worst seats.
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I didn't push at all. People just tend to move quite a bit (especially if there's a moshpit right behind them). I didn't squeeze through, just had the luck of some empty space :)

Next time, I'll take a good seat though. I can't really feel my legs today and there are some rowdy assholes in the pit.
 
Smither said:
Oh yeah, I never got FTTB and usually arrive around 1/2 pm, but we still get to stand 3+ hours next to a million other people like Mega said. I guess he was just referring to arriving quite early to the venue.
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I was. Had to google FTTB to even know what you guys are talking about.
 
Vaenyr said:
There was a dude a couple of spots to the left of us who was watching some kind of Netflix show or movie on his phone during TRA, which I found to be quite rude and disrespectful.
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I am convinced one of the killer crew slept through half of Lord of the Lost in Tampere. He was sitting next to the mixing desk. He had his arms crossed, head down and eyes closed for about 20 minutes. And he didn’t move for the entire time. I got more interested in him than the band. If he was sleeping, how do you sleep through that noise?
 
As far as FTTB is concerned: Technically I could've gotten my number any time at noon and then come back at 5 pm. Early entry a bit before 6 pm, The Raven Age at 7:30 and Maiden at 8:50. If you're in the balcony you can arrive much later, that's true. For me the Maiden concert is the main event of the day (well, I'd assume it's for most people as well), so I don't really have any other big plans on the same day in the free time before the show. I actually waited much longer and had a more stressful time last year without FTTB, than I did this year with. I'll try to win next time again and if I don't I might hang around in the middle towards the mixing desk to have a better view of the show and a better sound. After all, it's great that there are different options for the different tastes of the fans.

Poto said:
I am convinced one of the killer crew slept through half of Lord of the Lost in Tampere. He was sitting next to the mixing desk. He had his arms crossed, head down and eyes closed for about 20 minutes. And he didn’t move for the entire time. I got more interested in him than the band. If he was sleeping, how do you sleep through that noise?
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I know a person who managed to see Slayer live at some festival, was in the first row, and slept through the majority of the show because she was far too exhausted from hte previous days lol.
For the crew it's a bit different, in my opinion. They'll see and hear the same things for large parts of the tour and who knows how exhausted that person was. Still, quite remarkable to be able to fall asleep during that.
 
Vaenyr said:
As promised, a review of yesterday's show:

Due to traffic we reached the venue rather late, at around 3 o'clock. Apparently there's been a rather new (since last year?) fan club-organized queuing system for FTTB, where everyone gets their number and we enter according to that. My brother and I got 19, so quite good. Saw a few familiar faces from last year's Cologne gig and talked a bit with the folks there. All in all quite fun and very relaxed.

The idea was to go towards the left side, between Dave/Adrian and the middle, but that was probably what everyone else wanted to do as well lol. That part filled up quickly, so we went to the right side in front of Janick, since reaching the barrier was more important this time around, than having the preferred spot but in the second or third row.

I don't know about you guys, but The Raven Age was much better than expected. Far superior to Lord Of The Lost and Airbourne (I absolutely hated Airbourne's show last year. Never had such a miserable live experience so far). They could've tried a bit more in terms of audience participation. There was a lot of "make some noise" and the gimmick with the lights on the phones during a half-ballad, but there were plenty of spots where they could've asked for some "hey"s or more clapping. They are young and have time to evolve and to learn though. Funnily enough George threw his pick and it landed on the shoulder of my brother, so I simply picked it off, while the second guitarist threw his pick which landed on my shoulder lol. There was a dude a couple of spots to the left of us who was watching some kind of Netflix show or movie on his phone during TRA, which I found to be quite rude and disrespectful. Of course we're all there to see Maiden, but if you're in the first line, I'd expect a modicum of respect for the opening act(s).

Onwards to the main show:
The performance was mostly fantastic. Nicko had a couple of mistakes, Adrian missed a lick or two, Janick did Janick things, and Bruce had a few timing issues. Most notably the second verse of The Trooper, where Bruce sang everything one line late, but caught the "oooh" in time.
Glad the show was in-doors, because it created a much better atmosphere compared to Cologne's open air show. Sound was much better too, but that was in part due to me wearing some hearing protection this time around, and honestly: I'll never watch a show without that again. They have a bit of a filtering option, which helps a lot in making the music clearer + I had no issues whatsoever afterwards. Add to that, that hearing damage is cumulative, and I'll wear them religiously from now on. I wanted to do that for a while now, but I always forgot.

I was quite annoyed with two of the security people at one point. There was a girl behind me who tried to get their attention because she was being crushed. Me and like 4 other people tried to get their attention, waving in their faces and basically screaming at them and they completely fucking ignored us. That was a bit annoying, but doesn't really have anything to do with Maiden.

Bruce sounded fantastic and had tons of fun on stage. Was running and jumping around much more than on the videos of the first couple of shows. Some of his banter was a bit weird (the introduction to TWOTTW), while other were hilarious. It was genuinely funny when he was introducing DOTC by asking if there were any Irish people there (there were, and as Bruce pointed out, someone else had "Irish hair" lol), because "every single city in Germany has at least 6 Irish pubs" haha

All in all a fantastic time, though I'm still not a fan of Iron Maiden having the big Eddie + walking Samurai Eddie + the LCD panel Eddies. Would've liked the walking Samurai to appear at another time, because the big Eddie is one of my favorites and this way it was a bit distracting. Such a fantastic design, a bit of a shame really.

Lastly, something about Nicko: Not sure if that has happened before, but at the end Steve was throwing sticks as well. When Nicko was throwing his, you could see how truly grateful and happy he was to still be able to perform in front of crowds like that. His playing was great, he nailed a lot of tricky parts, and though some sections were simplified, it never detracted from the music. Some of the tempo changes in TTM and HOE were a bit weird, but that's not on Nicko. It's because of these sections being played a bit differently compared to the studio version.

Finally, some pictures:
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Just curious: what hearing protection are you using?

I definitely need to commit to using it
 
Iron Brody said:
Just curious: what hearing protection are you using?

I definitely need to commit to using it
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Honestly? I just took some super cheap one-way ones like these. They did the trick. Probably gonna invest in better ones that are reusable, but I was lucky that the cheap ones were quite comfortable to me. My idea was that any protection is better than none and I'm definitely happy that I wore them. Bless my girlfriend for putting them in the envelope with the tickets, otherwise I would've forgotten again lol
 
I'm a short dude (5'7"-5'8") and the one time I did FTTB it sucked. I get to stare at one small part of the stage and have to crane my neck to look up, I get tired of standing because I'm old and I can't move from my spot or then taller people will be directly in front of me. I always get seats midway back and center now and can see everything so much better.
 
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