[SPOILER] Here's the Book of Souls tour setlist

[H.P. Lovecraft]

Dance of Death was a perpetual parade of masturbatory never-ending choruses, filled in with some of the most generic drum, bass, guitar, and vocals of the band's career. It sucked harder than Jared Fogle on a preteen. To top it all off, they generated a piece of cover art that mirrored the album in quality. Once again, I'm not saying don't promote the album, I'd just like to see some of it excised from the setlist or see them extend the setlist. Some of these songs just aren't worthy of Maiden performing them live. Hell, there are songs from The Book of Souls better than the some of the ones they picked.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Death on the Road is one of their best live releases and is filled with material from Dance of Death. Highlights include the only accoustic song the band has ever done (hardly generic) and one of their best ever epics. Set list surprises even dip into the Blaze era. Good stuff.

I agree that there is better material on Book of Souls than what was chosen for the setlist, though I also can see they chose the songs that would better translate to the live environment. For example The Great Unknown and Man of Sorrows are far stronger songs than Tears of a Clown, but I concede they have less of a live feel.

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

The fact that you have to default on Death On The Road, a live release, to justify Dance of Death's quality only proves my point. The fact that it took a live setting to give the bloated corpses that are the songs from Dance of Death anything resembling vitality and quality speaks freaking volumes. It also speaks volumes that you chose Journeyman, perhaps the only song on the entire album that doesn't make me want to suicide bomb my stereo. Even that defaults on repetitiveness to the point of being nauseating and projectile vomit inducing though. You make a good point regarding those songs from Book of Souls having a better live feel to them than their counterparts, I won't dispute that. Same reason Black Sabbath doesn't do Planet Caravan in a live setting in spite of it being a superb song.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

I prefer Dance of Death to Death on the Road and listen to it far more regularly so I can't agree that it proves any point about the albums quality, I only draw the comparison as it is relevant to the argument about Book of Souls and the material taken from it in the supporting live shows. And in turn, the following tour was that of a greatest hits where they did pull some unexpected hits from the back catalogue.

This actually highlights one of my favourite (albeit frustrating at times) things about Maiden. So many fans consider different albums to be classics, so many fans have different favourites. You would be hard pressed to find any peers that rank the albums from best to weakest in the same order, and I think that is a lot more unique about the band than most others. When it comes to Maiden, you often have to agree to disagree.

 

[H.P. Lovecraft]

I don't care as much for either, though Death On The Road is alright. I personally find a lot of the video and audio bootlegs from the band that I own to be more impressive, for example Dortmund '83. I understand they do the greatest hits tours afterwards, I just don't think an album as average as The Book of Souls deserves as much promotion as it's getting. Go ahead, promote it, but don't go gaga over such a middle of the road effort. I've noticed the schism you speak of amongst Maiden fans in terms of their favorites and least favorites. However, there does seem to be a few points where there's a majority consensus, one that drives me nuts. For instance the interminable worship of Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and The Number of The Beast as classics and the ludicrous measures to which their latter day output is praised despite so much of it being veritable tripe. I don't think the schism is too unique though, I've seen plenty of bands where one person's favorite is something another person finds to be worthless.

 

[Spiff]

Perth gig was great.

PS: Not to get involved in the conversation because, let's face it, I just scrolled past 95% of it, Dance of Death is my second least favourite Maiden album after FOTD. SSOASS is my third least favourite.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

No. 1 Spiffo?

 

[Spiff]

OK, let's see what my rankings are at the moment:

1. A Matter of Life and Death
2. Somewhere in Time
3. Iron Maiden
4. The Number of the Beast
5. The Final Frontier
6. The Book of Souls
7. No Prayer for the Dying
8. Piece of Mind
9. Powerslave
10. Virtual XI
11. Killers
12. Brave New World
13. The X Factor
14. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
15. Dance of Death
16. Fear of the Dark

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Love that number one choice.

 

[Southy]

Top choice there Spiffo, I bet it will be different next month, and that is the joy of music.

As for the argument of the material released since 2000, I would watch a 2hr Iron Maiden made up of just material from the last 16yrs, because there is still so much great material released in that time

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Hell yes.

 

[Spiff]

AMOLAD has been my no. 1 since it was released, but Somewhere in Time has come very close lately. I think it's definitely Bruce's best album - his voice sounded so much better after the World Slavery Tour matured it. He still sounded squeaky (for want of a better term) on Powerslave, but everything sounds great on SiT.

 

[Southy]

My SiT LP cops quite a beating, I love the album, has always been one of my favs. As for the last 16 years AMOLAD is probably a stand out, I have never really thought about it before, I tend to just listen to Iron Maiden without analyzing it too much, guess I would have to think hard as to what I listen to the most.