In 2016 it was ‘The Book of Souls World Tour’. Iron Maiden played Australia in for Soundwave on ‘The Final Frontier World Tour’ and 2008 for the ‘Somewhere Back In Time’ tour. Prior to that we go back to the ‘World Slavery Tour’ of 1985 and ‘The Beast on the Road’ tour of 1982.
With UK bands like Black Sabbath no longer active, Motörhead no more and Judas Priest and Deep Purple with maybe a last tour in them, Iron Maiden have reached “elder statesmen” status. The ages of most of the band is between 66 and 68 (drummer Nicko is 72). Rob and Glenn from Priest are mid 70s now, Roger and Ian of Purple late 70s and the Black Sabbath founders mid to late 70s. That considered the Maiden members have potentially another 10 good years of fuel left in the engine.
The 2024 ‘The Future/Past’ takes the Iron Maiden live experience to a whole new level. Mascot Eddie has always been prominent in the Maiden shows over the decades but now with technology and mechanics, the larger than life characters join the stage and become part of the show with Bruce Dickinson fighting out a lazar battle, alien attacks and a mechanical Maiden in clash mode with a giant sword as the band plays on. This was closer to an Alice Cooper show this time than Metallica.
The ‘Future/Past’ tour has an almost completely different setlist to the 2016 tour. Only ‘The Trooper’, ‘Fear of the Dark’, ‘Iron Maiden’ and ‘Wasted Years’ cross over bringing a completely new live experience to the fans. Note: They did not perform ‘Run To The Hills’ at the 2016 show I saw as well.
Bruce Dickinson was very talkative on this show. I like that. He connected the band to the audience with his banter about lots of nothing between Perth and Melbourne, wound up the crowd over Sydney and told a few anecdotes about the songs that felt more like pub talk. Like, we are supposed to believe ‘Can I Play With Madness’ was originally a song called ‘Can I Play With Agnus’ about an early pickup on an Australian tour.
Consider the seniority with this band. Bruce Dickinson didn’t join until the third album ‘Number of the Beast’, released in 1982. Of the founding members, only Dave Murray and Steve Harris remain from the first album. Adrian Smith joined for the second album ‘Killers’. ‘The Number of the Beast’ gave Maiden their first UK no 1. It was also Top 10 in Australia but it wasn’t until 2006 when Iron Maiden cracked the US Top 10 for the first time with ‘A Matter of Life and Death’. With Bruce every UK album has gone Top 10. Five have reached number one.
With Maiden you have this great rock band with multiple members working in unison and occasionally grabbing a moment of spotlight but Bruce is the showman. He was equal parts frontman, a vocal instrument of the band and an actor for the performance in the backdrop. His energy is incredible. He was so active I was surprised we didn’t see some of those Jake and Elwood Blues .
Of course, it is worth going to an Iron Maiden show just because they once got name-checked in a Bill and Ted movie.