The Official Book of Souls Tour 2017 Thread - NO SPOILERS ALLOWED

Mosh said:
That aside, there are other reasons Priest wouldn't open for Maiden. The first is pride. Maiden opened for Priest several times when they were starting out and Priest probably wouldn't want to admit that the roles have changed (if they really have).
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That was my initial reaction. But Priest went down in popularity. They play way smaller venues than Maiden. I can imagine the bands have become older and more friendly over the years. I remember Rob and Bruce their collaboration and friendship, I remember a nice recent pic from the two bassists, I remember the indirect Maiden relation Richie Faulkner had (toured with Steve's daughter, opening for Maiden).
Mosh said:
Both are headline acts. It doesn't make sense for Priest (or any band on that level) to open when they could do their own headlining tour, especially considering that Priest probably have less tours in them than Maiden.
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Priest doesn't headline big festivals anymore I think. They do club tours but opening with a shorter set sounds good when you are as old as Glenn Tipton (almost 70).
Mosh said:
It also doesn't make that much sense from Maiden's perspective. Chances are the people who want a Maiden/Priest tour are already going to see Maiden regardless of whether Priest is there or not. When they take a newer band out on the road they save money and potentially attract younger fans who might casually enjoy Maiden but the package deal of them being with Shinedown or Avenged Sevenfold makes it worth seeing. Probably doesn't make that much of a difference, but with Rod every dollar counts.
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They could sell more tickets if two big metal names would tour together tough.
 
When I saw Priest in 2014 or 2015, they were at a venue of about 2000 capacity. The smallest I've seen Maiden at was 13000. Priest definitely don't pull the same size audiences.
 
But still... Priest or no Priest, they can't sell out Camp Nou (concert capacity around 100 000). No chance. Even U2 needed to downsize to the Olyimpic stadium in Barcelona this year.
 
It does look fishy, copying the appearance of the official site, and I've never noticed Maiden's publicity people use American spellings ('finalized') before.
 
Forostar said:
Priest doesn't headline big festivals anymore I think. They do club tours but opening with a shorter set sounds good when you are as old as Glenn Tipton (almost 70).
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Brigantium said:
When I saw Priest in 2014 or 2015, they were at a venue of about 2000 capacity. The smallest I've seen Maiden at was 13000. Priest definitely don't pull the same size audiences.
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Ok good to know. I was hoping for a European perspective on that because they are more comparable in the US. For anecdotal experience, Priest came to Denver on their reunion tour in 2005 and Maiden came the same year playing the same venue. 5 years later, Priest moved up to Red Rocks and a hockey arena a year later while Maiden were still playing the same venue. Maiden moved up to arena status here just last year. I'm not surprised that it seems to be the other way around in Europe, but I am surprised that it is that much of a difference.

Still, my main point is that it probably comes down to Priest not wanting to concede to being the opening act (even if the members are friendly, Priest still have the image of being Metal Gods) and probably being a more expensive opening act than a smaller band.

Anyway, I think the ship has sailed on Priest and Maiden ever sharing the stage again. The time for that was 2011/2012 when Priest were doing Epitaph and Maiden were doing Maiden England. Also the Sabbath reunion was in full swing if I'm remembering right. But it would've been a coheadlining one-off, not a full tour.
 
LooseCannon said:
Judas Priest is just as big as Iron Maiden - the most likely thing they would do is co-headline. And quite frankly, I can't see Maiden doing co-headlining anymore.
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They are not. They cannot draw the same crowds anywhere in the world.

Judas Priest are still quite popular in some places, but they are on a lower level compared to Maiden. Even in North America, where Judas Priest was incredibly popular during the 80s, they struggle to sell as many tickets as Maiden even with heritage packages (Billboard boxscores do not lie).

That being said, I think they will never open for Maiden. Too proud for that.
 
Yeah, I use "ize" instead of "ise". Apparently the 'z' is the correct version anyway. I didn't know about "analyze" being wrong though.
 
Black Wizard said:
Yeah, I use "ize" instead of "ise". Apparently the 'z' is the correct version anyway. I didn't know about "analyze" being wrong though.
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I use "ise" most of the time. That being said, most of the examples ending in "ize" have been used in British English way before American English even existed...

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/spelling/ize-ise-or-yse

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/03/ize-or-ise/

Off-topic, I know.

Back to topic: the list of dates in those stadiums is just someone's wishful thinking.
 
Forostar said:
riest doesn't headline big festivals anymore I think.
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They headlined Rockavaria, Download, Hellfest, Graspop, Belgrade Calling, Rock Wave, Rock Fest, See-Rock and Wacken in 2015. Almost all these festivals were headlined by Maiden last year.

Forostar said:
They do club tours
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Again, some selected venues from 2015: Oslo - Spektrum, Helsinki - Icehall, Hamburg - Sporthalle, Berlin - Arena Treptow, Paris - Le Zenith, Prague - O2 Arena, Lodz - Arena, Sofia - Arena Armeec. It's true that in some parts of western Europe, their non-festival venues seem one tier lower than Maiden's, but everywhere else, they're on the same level, and they are definitely not clubs.

EDIT: I see where the idea of a club tour comes from. They did a tour in late 2015 that brought them to some small venues in the UK. But they also played venues in the 15,000 category elsewhere, like Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle in Stuttgart and Arena Oberhausen during the same leg. Smaller than Maiden's current venues, yes, but not by much. So it seems the UK venues were an oddity.
 
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Perun said:
They headlined Rockavaria, Download, Hellfest, Graspop, Belgrade Calling, Rock Wave, Rock Fest, See-Rock and Wacken in 2015. Almost all these festivals were headlined by Maiden last year.

Again, some selected venues from 2015: Oslo - Spektrum, Helsinki - Icehall, Hamburg - Sporthalle, Berlin - Arena Treptow, Paris - Le Zenith, Prague - O2 Arena, Lodz - Arena, Sofia - Arena Armeec. It's true that in some parts of western Europe, their non-festival venues seem one tier lower than Maiden's, but everywhere else, they're on the same level, and they are definitely not clubs.
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They are certainly not on the same level in many places. Sad, but true, and also probably an indication of them not being able to make the most of the initial interest their reunion generated.
 
They're not on the same level, I agree, but the difference isn't as dramatic as it sounds here. Mostly, their venues have had the same capacities for the last ten years (many of the venues in the 2011 and 2015 tours in Europe are the same), which is the about the same as Maiden had before 2007, and they only rarely played venues as big as those Maiden do nowadays. In fact, many of the western European venues I can identify from the 2015 Priest tour are ones Maiden played in the Dance of Death/AMOLAD era. So they never got bigger than the mid- to late naughties, but they also never got smaller. In Eastern Europe, they play the same venues as Maiden do today, e.g. Armeec Arena in Sofia.
 
Perun said:
They're not on the same level, I agree, but the difference isn't as dramatic as it sounds here. Mostly, their venues have had the same capacities for the last ten years (many of the venues in the 2011 and 2015 tours in Europe are the same), which is the about the same as Maiden had before 2007, and they only rarely played venues as big as those Maiden do nowadays. In fact, many of the western European venues I can identify from the 2015 Priest tour are ones Maiden played in the Dance of Death/AMOLAD era. So they never got bigger than the mid- to late naughties, but they also never got smaller. In Eastern Europe, they play the same venues as Maiden do today, e.g. Armeec Arena in Sofia.
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In Western Europe they sometimes play the same venues as Maiden (with rarely the same amount of tickets being sold). In North America they sometimes play the same venues Maiden have been playing in recent tours, but the boxscores show a significant difference in terms of tickets sold (Maiden winning there, even with Priest having heritage packages). In the UK after the fiasco of their 2009 tour, Priest are back to playing venues with half/one third the capacity of the venues Maiden are selling out.
 
GhostofCain said:
In Western Europe they sometimes play the same venues as Maiden (with rarely the same amount of tickets being sold).
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They played the point in dublin on the nostradums tour and sold about 4/5 thousand tickets, and that was with Megadeth and Testament on the bill. Maiden sold it out, 14,500, in 2009 and 2017, as well as selling it out at the older smaller capacity of 8,000 in 2003 and 2006. Plus Maiden did an outdoor gig in the RDS in 2005 with Marilyn Manson which did 24,ooo I think.
 
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