The Official Book of Souls Tour 2016 Thread (Warning: Spoilers within!)

I wonder how about the fan - base and attendance. Some sources state that ticket sales in Beijing were poor.
 
There are some pics up on FB of Janick and Dave out sightseeing. The Chinese event shirt is a beauty, it appears to be genuine IM merchandise, and nothing like any of the other TBOS shirts.
 
I don't understand why Powerslave should be banned.
If it's because it talks about a god, then why would they be allowed to play TBOS?
 
It isn't, it just wasn't on the censor-approved list that came out earlier this year, and speculation began when they played it first night at Fort Lauderdale.
 
Maybe Brave New World was banned and they decided replaced it with Powerslave for the tour. Maybe they were never gonna play Powerslave til BNW was banned. Maybe they also planned on playing The Wicker Man but dropped it for length.

And I would love to see a pic of the event shirt.
 
It's the same design as this poster. I don't want to pinch anyone's photo of the actual shirt without their permission.

94985_n.jpg
 
Shit yeah. That looks pretty awesome.

I've always loved this one, not sure when it's from exactly but sometime in the 80s I guess. I think its official because I used to have Maiden calendar with the image in it.

EddieSamurai.jpg
 
Maybe Brave New World was banned and they decided replaced it with Powerslave for the tour. Maybe they were never gonna play Powerslave til BNW was banned. Maybe they also planned on playing The Wicker Man but dropped it for length.

And I would love to see a pic of the event shirt.

Now this seems very likely: Brave New World was chosen from the tour, the Chinese banned it and the band picked Powerslave to replace it, for the whole tour, with Wicker Man being cut due to length of the concert.

So...thank you, China! I take Powerslave over Brave New World all day
 
Nah, BNW was on the original approved list, as was Wicker Man. The only thing that didn't appear was Powerslave.
 
Now this seems very likely: Brave New World was chosen from the tour, the Chinese banned it and the band picked Powerslave to replace it, for the whole tour, with Wicker Man being cut due to length of the concert.

So...thank you, China! I take Powerslave over Brave New World all day
Not me. Would take anything off of the Brave New World album over Powerslave. But I know I am in the minority on that one. And I am happy those who love Powerslave got to/get to hear it. And hey, I heard Brave New World in 2010, so I really can't complain.

Seeing Powerslave live also helped me to appreciate it more. I still don't like the chorus, but I definitely understand better why people like the song so much.
 
Guys, I think I figured out what happened... They intended to play Powerslave since the beginning, so they put "The Wicker Man" on the setlist just to get through the chinese censorship. Or they first sent a setlist with "Powerslave" written on it, the government didn't approve, so they sent another one with "The Wicker Man", but they were still intending to play Powerslave. Why am I saying this? I saw a short video on twitter of Bruce singing "Tell me why i had to be a Wickerman". I don't know if you can see the video, but here it is:

https://twitter.com/meina_cat/status/724221714196885504/video/1
 
Thinking about it again, I can't see how any song from the current setlist should be banned even in the Chinese authorities' eyes. Everything is tongue-in-cheek in the current repertoire: "2 Minutes to Midnight" is the only popular Maiden song with real social-political contents -and we are talking about undertones rather than message here. The only other two I can think of that could be thought to come across as "committed" (and even this is a stretch) to audiences are "Fear is the Key" (never played live and unlikely to ever be so) and, from an even more far-fetched perspective, "Wasting Love". Bottom line: Iron Maiden is not Rage Against the Machine, they have hardly anything to fear from censorship.
 
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