Why don't Maiden delve deeper into their back catalogue?

Are there seriously people who don't realize that the "Adrian can't remember the solo" remark was entirely tongue in cheek? That gets thrown around a lot and while I'm sure some people use it as the joke it was intended to be, others I'm not so sure. These people are professional musicians and it would take less than a day for any of them to re-learn any song in their entire back catalogue, there's nothing that's too difficult for them to play live. The only limit in 2016 is MAYBE Bruce not being able to sing something as it appears on a record but there are tons of examples of him altering note pitch, duration, phrasing, etc. Furthermore, Nicko's age is no excuse in my opinion, either. They played The Prisoner and Phantom Of The Opera a good bit slower than they ever have on the last Maiden England tour and no one seemed to care, it didn't detract from the songs.

I suspect that their setlist staples are a matter of what they feel casual fans want/expect to hear, and there's nothing really wrong with that. These guys are high level, professional musicians. If bands like Metallica and Dream Theater can play sometimes wildly different set lists from night to night, you'd better believe Maiden are more than capable of it as well.
 
itwaszero said:
Are there seriously people who don't realize that the "Adrian can't remember the solo" remark was entirely tongue in cheek?
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If I recall correctly, Nicko was deadly serious...
itwaszero said:
That gets thrown around a lot and while I'm sure some people use it as the joke it was intended to be, others I'm not so sure.
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Even Adrian, himself, admitted that he has just plain forgotten how to actually play guitar like that...
itwaszero said:
These people are professional musicians and it would take less than a day for any of them to re-learn any song in their entire back catalogue, there's nothing that's too difficult for them to play live.
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Professional means you make a living from playing; nothing about skill is implied by this.
itwaszero said:
The only limit in 2016 is MAYBE Bruce not being able to sing something as it appears on a record but there are tons of examples of him altering note pitch, duration, phrasing, etc.
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There's also a ton of examples of him just not singing very well.
itwaszero said:
Furthermore, Nicko's age is no excuse in my opinion, either.
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Being unfit to play or dead might be a problem though.
itwaszero said:
They played The Prisoner and Phantom Of The Opera a good bit slower than they ever have on the last Maiden England tour and no one seemed to care, it didn't detract from the songs.
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People whine about pacing all the time; what cupboard have you been living in?
itwaszero said:
I suspect that their setlist staples are a matter of what they feel casual fans want/expect to hear, and there's nothing really wrong with that.
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It's what Bruce & Steve agree, yes.
itwaszero said:
These guys are high level, professional musicians. If bands like Metallica and Dream Theater can play sometimes wildly different set lists from night to night, you'd better believe Maiden are more than capable of it as well.
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Some people don't believe.
 
I've no problems with new album songs or if they decided to play an album in full. My small gripe with the AMOLAD set is that the fillers were songs they constantly perform! Going back to the history tours do you lot think that the Maiden England leg was planned? Surely if it was planned you'd think they wouldn't have included so many 7th son songs on the SBIT set and treated us to a few more rare gems from SIT. Also if Bruce can't sing some of the tunes, if Adrian can't remember the solo or if Nicko can't keep up just play the song slower, in a different key and improvise on the solo. No one will care! We'll all smiling like kids and pinching our selves that they are playing Alexandra the Great! But when I happily get mt tickets for next years tour leg I will be a little disappointed that I'll rock up knowing what songs they'll play and what order they'll be playing them in! I'll still enjoy the show and sing my heart out though...to be clear!
 
They're just a bit lazy, simple as that. I did applaud them for taking risks when it came to the Early Days tour (not playing FOTD, and playing some of the deeper cuts of that era) and AMOLAD, but they know that the fans are going to go crazy no matter which songs they play. When it comes to playing live, it's all autopilot for Maiden, which is why it's always better to catch one of the first dates, before even they are bored of playing FOTD the 20th time that tour - and the 500th time since it's release.
 
When we talk about setlists, I think we need to consider that Maiden must try to satisfy several different groups in the audience. On the one hand, you have the hardcore maniacs who know every song in the catalogue and have detailed opinions on the relative merits of Dave's, Adrian's and Janick's solos. On the other hand, you have more casual fans who might have a Maiden playlist on Spotify but probably haven't heard every album in its entirety. And you've got the "play classics" crowd, and so on. The thing to remember is that the more people you draw to your shows, the higher the percentage of less fiercely dedicated listeners (there's a term for groups with a high ratio of hardcore to casual fans; we call them "cult bands").

As I see it, Maiden have never been an experimental live act. Rather, they're focused on making their shows an event for the audience, a party that's bigger than just the music. "We're all flood brothers!" etc. And that's why you get "Fear of the Dark" and usually "Hallowed Be Thy Name" or "The Number of the Beast" as well - those songs have a ritualistic function in the Iron Maiden live experience. Most of the audience like this approach. It's part of the reason why Maiden are so widely considered a fun band to see live.

This is not to say that the criticisms here are necessarily wrong, I'm just being the voice of commercialism. I do think that some setlist decisions are at least partly based on cutting down rehearsal time (e.g. "The Trooper"), although on this tour I thought they had a pretty good mix of new songs, long-time staples and less commonly played numbers (like "Children of the Damned", which wasn't played on any of the four previous tours I've seen them on).

Oh well. You should have seen them back in '77, when they played whatever they felt like. Then Dennis Wilcock left and it was never the same again.
 
Plus there are slightly more constraints on them health and fitness-wise these days. If they want to maintain that professional polish they can't do a performance that knackers them in the first half hour or ends up with Bruce struggling and sounding terrible throughout. I wouldn't be surprised if Death or Glory was developed as a replacement for Aces High for live performance to inject some 80s-style energy without being too punishing on Bruce's voice.
 
So I've heard the "Adrian can't play the solo anymore" quote from Nicko, but was never sure what specific part he was referring to...I'll have to listen in detail, but as I recall, there were no Steve Vai-esque moments of virtuosity during any of the solos in that tune (am I wrong)? The ATG solos don't sound any more technically challenging than anything else they've done (that's not a knock - I love Maiden solos more than any other band, but I also realize that they are not technical shredders like Malmsteen or Paul Gilbert).
 
Let's see what they do next year. As I assume this will be a Book of Souls / Legacy of the Beast tour.

Maybe drop 2 of the book of Souls and add a song more to the set list along with switching , we could get 4 "more unlikely" songs.

Hope it doesn't evolve into wrathchild x4
 
Adrian "admitting" that he doesn't know how to play like that any more is just probably a bit of self-depreciating humour and a way to brush aside the likely annoying questions about why X song isn't being played on Y tour.

The band is comprised of professional musicians, and as you said this means that you play music for a living and is no indicator of skill. Professional musicians. It's their job. If the boss, Steve, says "Hey we are going to put ATG into the next set list", do you really think that they don't have the skill to do their job and re-learn a song that 15 year olds post covers of on YouTube? They are technically competent enough to play their own material, it's only a question of practice and rehearsal.

I'm curious, do you play any instruments? You can't forget how to play guitar a certain way, that's not how the skill works. It's already been composed, as I said above it's a matter of sitting down and practicing -- you know, being a professional about it. There is nothing out of the ordinary or ultra advanced about Adrian's pre-solo or solo in ATG. That's not a criticism, it's a fact. It's a great passage of music but it's hardly anything beyond what he is presently capable of. If anything, Adrian is the guitarist who has pushed and advanced his craft over the years further than the others and thus has greater technical capabilities than when the album was recorded.

Yes, sometimes Bruce doesn't sing well. Sometimes Nicko fucks up timing. Sometimes Janick's improvised solos don't work. It's live music. Shit happens. Your point?

I don't think that anyone here would say that Nicko has shown any signs of being unfit to play. Your point?

People whine about pacing, people whine about set lists, people whine about monkeys and bananas and vocal samples and an endless number of ridiculous things. In my opinion the slower tempo didn't detract from either song mentioned.

You believe that the band isn't capable of playing every song in their entire back catalogue, and that's fine, but in my opinion it's more of a matter of they just don't want to play certain songs, as opposed to them being incapable of it. If they wanted to, they would practice, rehearse then perform any track in their history if called on to do so and there has never been any evidence to support that they aren't skilled enough to pull it off -- even if it's at a different tempo or bits here and there aren't as recorded.

CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
If I recall correctly, Nicko was deadly serious...
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CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
Even Adrian, himself, admitted that he has just plain forgotten how to actually play guitar like that...
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CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
Professional means you make a living from playing; nothing about skill is implied by this.
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CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
There's also a ton of examples of him just not singing very well.
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CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
Being unfit to play or dead might be a problem though.
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CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
People whine about pacing all the time; what cupboard have you been living in?
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CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
It's what Bruce & Steve agree, yes.
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CriedWhenBrucieLeft said:
Some people don't believe.
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itwaszero said:
You believe that the band isn't capable of playing every song in their entire back catalogue, and that's fine, but in my opinion it's more of a matter of they just don't want to play certain songs, as opposed to them being incapable of it.
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Nope. People don't want to play songs for a reason. Not just: because "we don't want to and that's it."

So, we'll keep whining on and on and on.
 
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