Why did Adrian change his solo in Stranger in a Strange Land on Ed Hunter tour 99?

Yeah, he acknowledges it this interview (has been posted before in another thread): https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/23207-iron-maiden-out-of-thin-air

"You’re all accomplished players, but do you spend any time at home woodshedding, working on your chops?
Smith:
I definitely practice, especially before an album or a tour. I can’t do what some people do—you hear about Yngwie Malmsteen practicing for eight hours a day. That’s a long time to do just one thing. When I get time, I try to learn some new things and stay fresh. One thing I like to do is work new techniques into old material. Sometimes [bassist] Steve [Harris] will say to me, “Why are you changing that? What you had before is great, it’s melodic—it’s what people want to hear.” But you know, you have to try sometimes, especially with stuff you’ve played so much."

So it's definitely a matter of spicing up the older songs from time to time, so they stay interesting (at least for him).
 
Yeah, you only really need to look at stuff like Aces High in '09 or basically anything on the two most recent tours. A lot of changes there, big and small. Hell, look at 2MTM overall, the solo has slowly become nearly unrecognizable because he's changed it so much.

And that's not to say it's bad, oh no, I love it when Adrian rewrites his solos and adds little guitar bits here and there because it adds to the live performance. It also helps the overall package feel less like an exact copy of the studio original, meaning there's something "fresh" there.
 
And that's not to say it's bad, oh no, I love it when Adrian rewrites his solos and adds little guitar bits here and there because it adds to the live performance. It also helps the overall package feel less like an exact copy of the studio original, meaning there's something "fresh" there.
At Chicago on TBOS in 2017, his solo on Powerslave had a few extra bits, and it was...what's the word - absofuckinglutely killer, as the people who were there with me can attest.
 
H's Hallowed solo was not that good on the album and on early eighties tours. Good idea he did changes later.
 
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