Watch: IRON MAIDEN Performs 'Alexander The Great' Live For First Time At 'The Future Past Tour' Kickoff

May 28, 2023

British heavy metal legends IRON MAIDEN kicked off their "The Future Past Tour" earlier today (Sunday, May 28) in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

"The Future Past Tour" features previously unperformed songs from the band's most recent studio album, "Senjutsu", along with a focus on 1986's "Somewhere In Time" LP, plus other classic cuts.

IRON MAIDEN's 15-song set at the 12,000-capacity Arena Stožice included the live debuts of "Days Of Future Past", "The Time Machine", "Death Of The Celts" and "Hell On Earth" from "Senjutsu", along with "Alexander The Great" from "Somewhere In Time".

The setlist was as follows:

01. Caught Somewhere In Time (first live performance since 1987)
02. Stranger In A Strange Land (first live performance since 1999)
03. The Writing On The Wall
04. Days Of Future Past (live debut)
05. The Time Machine (live debut)
06. The Prisoner (first live performance since 2014)
07. Death Of The Celts (live debut)
08. Can I Play With Madness (first live performance since 2014)
09. Heaven Can Wait (first live performance since 2008)
10. Alexander The Great (live debut)
11. Fear Of The Dark
12. Iron Maiden

Encore:

13. Hell On Earth (live debut)
14. The Trooper
15. Wasted Years

Asked in a radio interview a number of years ago why IRON MAIDEN had never played "Alexander The Great" live, singer Bruce Dickinson answered, "Because Adrian [Smith, guitar] can't remember the guitar solo." While Dickinson may have been joking, he did go on to say that, when the song was originally written, they put the solo through a load of then-very-advanced music computer wizardry, and it just couldn't figure out the time signature.

"Senjutsu" came out in September 2021. It marked MAIDEN's second consecutive double album behind 2015's "The Book Of Souls" which is the longest MAIDEN album, with a running time of 92 minutes.

IRON MAIDEN's first album in six years, "Senjutsu" was recorded in 2019 in Paris with longstanding producer Kevin Shirley and co-produced by bassist Steve Harris. It features three tracks whose running time exceeds 10 minutes each.

For "Senjutsu" — loosely translated as "tactics and strategy" — the band once again enlisted the services of Mark Wilkinson to create the spectacular Samurai-themed cover artwork, based on an idea by Harris.

"Senjutsu" bowed at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart, charting higher than even the band's early classics like "Powerslave" and "The Number Of The Beast". Nearly 90 percent of the LP's 64,000 equivalent album units earned came from pure album sales. The critically acclaimed double album debuted one place higher than 2015's "The Book Of Souls" and 2010's "The Final Frontier", which both peaked at No. 4.

"Senjutsu" was MAIDEN's 13th album to top in the Top 40 in the U.S.

Find more on Iron maiden

Prev More News Next

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).