Some Iron Maiden fans are going to be unhappy with this, which is ok, but someone needs to say it.
Of the 75 sets that have been submitted to our database during Iron Maiden's The Future Past Tour, they're identical except for the time in 2023 when singer Bruce Dickinson sang "Happy Birthday" to drummer Nicko McBrain.
If anyone should be perturbed by this, don't be shocked that it's someone at setlist.fm.
Imagine if every band did this? This site would be a Spirit Halloween.
But outside of selfish concerns, how is this ok?
One could understand it with a new band with just one record or an artist who only had one or two hit songs, but Iron Maiden is one of the most veteran and talented metal bands of all time.
They are better than this:
The arguments defending this are understandable, but weak. Some argue production with the lighting and the effects and the staging all have to be coordinated.
In theory there's some credibility to that, but, if we are keeping it 100% real and brutally honest, is this stage set up that wildly complicated that the band can't throw out some audibles in each show?
Yes there are moments where pyro and flames and a fun little fake blaster is used. Does that mean the entire set has to be locked in stone Never To Be Altered?
Please don't get me wrong. I am not a hater. I go back with Maiden to the 1980s. That Live After Death album at the Long Beach Arena? I was there when Bruce yelled out the now-iconic "scream for me, Long Beach."
Before that in high school, I'd see the wild Eddie t-shirts and think, "that is the coolest mascot I've ever seen, what is the music like?" And the music was even better somehow.
The entire presentation was next level. The singing, the dual guitar attack, the bass player seemingly leading the show, and a zillion-piece drum set. It was top shelf long hair sleeveless operatic melodic heavy freaking metal with sometimes deep lyrics.
Why play it safe now decades later with the same set night after night?
Last year bassist Steve Harris told Metal Hammer, they only think about one group of critics when putting together a setlist: what the band wants.
“This might be blunt and brutal, but we don’t do it for the audience,” Harris said. “We do it for our own thing. We’ve gotta feel comfortable with what we’re playing and enjoy it, and then, hopefully, they’ll like it. That’s always been our stance. All the way through.”
Even though that attitude seems selfish, self-defeating, and creates opinion pieces like this, it's actually right in line with what the most zen record producer in America once said.
"In terms of priority, inspiration comes first. You come next. The audience comes last," Rick Rubin wrote in his 2023 book The Creative Act: A Way of Being.
The 9x Grammy-winning producer might be right. If Maiden doesn't want to add a few of their bangers to their 15-song set because their heart just might not be into playing "Run To the Hills" for the 1,500th time (no really, they're at 1,490 right now), we should be ok with it.
Just because I want to hear "The Number of the Beast" at an Iron Maiden concert doesn't mean the band wants to play it for the 2,000th time (they've played it 1,998 times so far, the last being in 2022). And I should be ok with that apparently.
Maybe I will get to that idyllic place one day... in the future past.
Iron Maiden has a few more gigs this year but over the next two years they'll be going on a new tour, the Run For Your Lives Tour, where there's a good chance the setlist will adjust.
Maybe even to my liking.
Some of the shows have already sold out so run to the Iron Maiden website to grab your tickets while they exist.
Run For Your Lives World Tour: Europe Leg
MAY 2025
27 Budapest, HUNGARY – Budapest Aréna *
31 Prague, CZECH REPUBLIC – Letnany Airport *
JUNE 2025
01 Bratislava, SLOVAKIA – TIPOS Arena *
05 Trondheim, NORWAY – Trondheim Rocks (Festival)
07 Stavanger, NORWAY – SR-Bank Arena *
09 Copenhagen, DENMARK – Royal Arena *
12 Stockholm, SWEDEN – 3Arena *
13 Stockholm, SWEDEN – 3Arena *
16 Helsinki, FINLAND – Olympic Stadium *
21 Birmingham, ENGLAND – Utilita Arena ^
22 Manchester, ENGLAND – Co-op Live ^
25 Dublin, IRELAND – Malahide Castle *^
28 London, ENGLAND – London Stadium *^
30 Glasgow, SCOTLAND – OVO Hydro ^
JULY 2025
03 Belfort, FRANCE – Eurockéennes Festival
05 Madrid, SPAIN – Estadio Cívitas Metropolitano **
06 Lisbon, PORTUGAL – MEO Arena **
09 Zurich, SWITZERLAND – Hallenstadion **
11 Gelsenkirchen, GERMANY – Veltins-Arena **
13 Padova, ITALY – Stadio Euganeo **
15 Bremen, GERMANY – Bürgerweide **
17 Vienna, AUSTRIA – Ernst Happel Stadium **
19 Paris, FRANCE – Paris La Défense Arena **
23 Arnhem, NETHERLANDS – GelreDome **
25 Frankfurt, GERMANY – Deutsche Bank Park **
26 Stuttgart, GERMANY – Cannstatter Wasen **
29 Berlin, GERMANY – Waldbühne **
AUGUST 2025
02 Warsaw – POLAND – PGE Narodowy **
*Halestorm | ^The Raven Age | **Avatar
