Iron Maiden launched their Run for Your Lives 50th anniversary tour on Tuesday, introducing some main adjustments to their personnel and stage manufacturing.
The tour kickoff on the Papp Laszlo Sportarena in Budapest, Hungary, featured a number of songs that Maiden hadn’t performed dwell in additional than a decade. It additionally marked the debut of drummer Simon Dawson, who changed Nicko McBrain after the elder musician introduced his retirement from touring final December.
Other than these developments, although, Iron Maiden made one other main change to their dwell present — much less splashy than the arrival of a brand new bandmate, however a considerable replace nonetheless.
The BIg Change to Iron Maiden’s 2025 Stage Manufacturing
Iron Maiden have usually adorned their phases with bodily backdrops and big analog props, which they cycle by means of to usher in new “actions” inside their set. (In recent times, this was particularly obvious on the Legacy of the Beast tour.) However throughout their 2025 tour kickoff, the band used digital screens as a substitute of bodily backdrops and props.
Fan-shot footage from the Budapest efficiency exhibits an unlimited display behind the stage displaying quite a lot of Eddie mascots, thematically applicable surroundings and canopy artwork associated to the 17 songs Maiden carried out on Tuesday.
The digital strategy regarded particularly highly effective in the course of the band’s efficiency of “Powerslave,” with Bruce Dickinson singing on a riser above the drums as an unlimited sphinx Eddie loomed behind him.
READ MORE: Iron Maiden Launch 50th Anniversary Tour: Setlist and Video
Different spectacular digital imagery included a ship tossed by tempestuous winds throughout “Rime of the Historic Mariner,” an ominous guillotine throughout “Hallowed Be Thy Title,” an unlimited, writhing Eddie struggling to interrupt freed from his confines throughout “Iron Maiden,” and dizzying aeronautical stunts throughout “Aces Excessive.”
Do not Fear — There’s Nonetheless a Big Eddie (or Two)
Followers of Iron Maiden’s extra vaudevillian stage productions shall be happy to know they did not cast off bodily props solely. Dickinson nonetheless squared off in opposition to a life-sized Eddie throughout “The Trooper,” and an enormous leather-clad model of the band’s well-known mascot prowled the stage throughout “Killers,” which they dusted off for the primary time since 1999.
General, the Run for Your Lives tour manufacturing represents a reasonably drastic change for Iron Maiden that may in all probability flip off some followers who insist all the pieces have to be performed the old fashioned method. Nonetheless, there’s one thing comforting about the truth that half a century into their profession, they’re nonetheless attempting new issues and placing their very own twist on it.
Watch Iron Maiden’s Tour Kickoff in Budapest on 5/27/25
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Gallery Credit score: Joe DiVita