The Future Past Tour
Iron Maiden Birmingham 2023
10 / 10
A 10 as an audience recording: I sat down for a few tracks and stayed for the whole show.
// The bootleg
This one sounds so good that I sat down meaning to pick out a few tracks and ended up playing the whole thing. It is one of those bootlegs you listen to for the pleasure of it.
Everything is very well separated, the sound is full, there is no distortion, and it all sits in balance. On top of that, this tour has one of the best setlists in Iron Maiden’s history.
And there is a treat in here: the band’s slip in “Stranger in a Strange Land”.
As an audience recording, I give it a 10.
// Full facts
The show
- Date
- 2023-07-04
- Venue
- Utilita Arena Birmingham
- Location
- Birmingham, UK
- Tour
- The Future Past Tour
The recording
- Source
- AUD
- Format
- FLAC 16-bit / 44.1 kHz
- Running time
- 108:52
- Equipment
- SP-CMC-8 microphones (AT943 cards) > SP-SPSB-8 battery box (69 Hz bass roll-off) > Edirol R-09
- Lineage
- SP-CMC-8 (AT943 Cards) > SP-SPSB-8 (69Hz Bass Roll Off) > Edirol R-09 (Line In) > PC (via USB) > Sound Forge v.8 (fades, track splits, normalisation & EQ) > FLAC
Credits
- Taper
- Unknown
- Cover art
- Official The Future Past Tour artwork, not made for this release
Help Taper unknown. If you taped this show or know who did, let me know and I will credit them.
// Tracklist
- 01 Blade Runner (End Titles) (Intro) 2:07
- 02 Caught Somewhere In Time 7:13
- 03 Stranger In A Strange Land 6:54
- 04 The Writing On The Wall 5:40
- 05 Days Of Future Past 6:11
- 06 The Time Machine 6:39
- 07 The Prisoner 7:43
- 08 Death Of The Celts 11:20
- 09 Can I Play With Madness 3:29
- 10 Heaven Can Wait 7:52
- 11 Alexander The Great 8:46
- 12 Fear Of The Dark 7:55
- 13 Iron Maiden 6:26
- 14 Hell On Earth 10:34
- 15 The Trooper 4:08
- 16 Wasted Years 5:46
// Cover art
// The night
Birmingham turned in a sold-out crowd for this leg of The Future Past Tour, with German gothic industrial rockers Lord of the Lost opening the night and Hit The Lights putting the audience at around fifteen thousand. Bruce Dickinson wailed "Scream for me, Birmingham!" before the opening "Caught Somewhere in Time" had even reached its first chorus. The night also carried a couple of audible slips: Dickinson stumbled over the lyrics in "Stranger in a Strange Land", and later began to introduce "Can I Play With Madness" in the slot that belonged to "Death of the Celts", until Steve Harris set him straight.
Sources Hot Metal gig review (Brian Giffin) Hit The Lights live review (Steve Johnston) Setlist.fm: Utilita Arena Birmingham, July 4, 2023 Iron Maiden official tour dates: The Future Past Tour
// What the press said
There's just Iron Maiden, showing once again why they are, as they have been for a generation, a true force majeure in the world of live music.
Iron Maiden have been around forever and on tonight's showing I don't see it, and I don't want it to ever be any different.
Iron Maiden, the undisputed kings of British Heavy Metal in many eyes, sought out Time and beat it to within an inch of life.
As powerful and engaging as ever, any talk of retirement is thankfully premature; nights like this prove that Iron Maiden remain at the very top of their game.