Ullevi 2005: the overlooked masterpiece?

Mosh said:
Maiden England was fine, I think it just comes down to the missed opportunity. No Infinite Dreams, no Killers, no Still Life. The excitement around Moonchild was kneecapped a bit by them playing it on the previous tour, although the 2012/13/14 version of Moonchild was infinitely better than the 2008 one IMO. It worked better as an opener, Adrian got his solo back, I always found the 2008 version of the intro, while cool, to be somewhat awkward.

Of the three "History Of" tours, I find The Early Days to be the only one that really takes some left field choices. Prowler, Another Life, Drifter, and Charlotte the Harlot are all songs that you wouldn't have expected them to touch again. The only real exception I can think of is Afraid to Shoot Strangers on Maiden England.
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I totally agree. I don’t think the Early Days tour gets enough credit. Ok it was the first tour I saw them on, but they busted out at least 6 songs that were considered deep cuts. I don’t think it would be criticised as much if they had played 22AA, Still Life, To Tame a Land and Killers on more recent tours.
 
Going back to the spirit of the opening post, since most seem to agree that the Ullevi show isn't that overlooked, what would be the lesser talked about bootleg that more Maidenfans should be aware of? For me, these are the bootlegs that seem to get a lot of attention either for being a great performance or some other reason:

1980 - Live at the Rainbow
1981 - Maiden Japan complete
1982 - NYC
1983 - Ipswich, and now that Munich soundboard
1984 - Hammersmith
1987 - Philly
1990 - Wembley
1996 - Whichever show had the guy that spit on Blaze
1999 - The first show of Ed Hunter
2001 - Any of the South American pro shots
2005 - Eggfest, Ullevi
2006 - Globen
2007 - Download

I have always been a big fan of the Rock Am Ring 2003 show. Just a very energetic Maiden at what I consider to be the peak of their career as a live band. Many songs hadn't been played live in a long time, so they have a freshness to them, also Revelations is slightly different.


I also think Iron Maiden's Red Rocks appearance from the Brave New World tour is quite remarkable. It's no Rock In Rio, but I think it is interesting to see this tour in North America. You get to see the cross prop that was omitted in South America and you also get a sense of how the new songs were received by a less enthusiastic audience. No surprise that the Americans don't appreciate the new songs as much, but it shows even back then that Maiden was making bold choices by representing so much new material (and Blaze material) live.

 
Mosh said:
Maiden England was fine, I think it just comes down to the missed opportunity. No Infinite Dreams, no Killers, no Still Life. The excitement around Moonchild was kneecapped a bit by them playing it on the previous tour, although the 2012/13/14 version of Moonchild was infinitely better than the 2008 one IMO. It worked better as an opener, Adrian got his solo back, I always found the 2008 version of the intro, while cool, to be somewhat awkward.

Of the three "History Of" tours, I find The Early Days to be the only one that really takes some left field choices. Prowler, Another Life, Drifter, and Charlotte the Harlot are all songs that you wouldn't have expected them to touch again. The only real exception I can think of is Afraid to Shoot Strangers on Maiden England.
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If I were to choose, I would go with Somewhere Back in Time first (I was lucky to see them 4 times on that tour in 2008), followed by Maiden England (I saw that tour 4 times too, 3 in 2013 and 1 in 2014), and then The Early Days tour. My memories of the latter might be affected by the gig I attended (Bospop festival), with the band going through the setlist in a rush - the gig lasted 90 minutes - to get back to the airport to catch their private jet back home before it was too late (I did not need to know that Nicko, but thanks for your diaries). At least they played the full set, unlike in Croatia in 2003...

I have always been much more of a fan of Maiden's output from 1982 to 1988 than the earlier material, and the 2005 tour featured too many song from Fillers. No Flight of Icarus? No Children of the Damned? No 22 Acacia Avenue? No Still Life? No To Tame a Land? To be honest, I think Gangland would have been a much better choice than Drifter or Another Life! That being said, Remember Tomorrow and Where Eagles Dare were worth the money I paid for the ticket.
 
If I have to compare the 2005 tour (not the stage set, although it could have been more effective like for the first 2 songs) with the other History tours (some with 90's songs in them!) - all had missed songs, some pretty obvious and while SBIT made the best set, Early Days tour was really fresh and unique. It has to be said. I also think the 2003 tour had an impact on it.
ME (great flow, ''boring'' 2014 additions) was basically SBIT all over again with a couple of new songs (I think they didn't want to copy the original '88 tour), when they could have done a short 90's tour or something special for SIT. I'm glad we got TFP.

The mix of the Hits tours (1999, 2003, Legacy) was better.
 
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