In previous Dream Setlist articles, we’ve gone through Farewell Tours, Different Singers, and more. This time, we’re focusing on a specific time period that could use some love. Looking at the history of Iron Maiden, we’ve seen tours devoted to Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son era, and the Somewhere Back In Time World Tour. I’m not satisfied by those two tours. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve both awesome in scope and setlist, but I can do better.
Looking at the two albums after the “Synth-Period” for Iron Maiden, you have No Prayer For The Dying and Fear Of The Dark. Looking at recent Iron Maiden history (2000-Now), these two albums don’t really have some coverage. You get to hear “Fear of the Dark” at every Iron Maiden show you go to, but what if we restricted the setlist to those four albums, plus a couple select hits. So we’re going to roll with the No Prayer For The Dark World Tour.
I’m not hopping in a time machine for this one. In this hypothetical world, Iron Maiden is hopping into this setlist right after the Legacy Of The Beast tour. Hopefully we get a new album soon, but this’ll have to do for now! As for limits on songs, we’re going to try to include some crowd favorites from outside the time period selected, but it won’t be many. We’re also going to spread the love between the four albums highlighted here. Let’s get to the show.
The Rationale Behind The Dream Setlist For No Prayer For The Dark
So like I said above, I’d like to spread out the love between these four albums (Somewhere In Time, Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, No Prayer For The Dying, Fear Of The Dark). Being an Iron Maiden show, some people are going to go and not know many of these songs. So for those people, they’re getting three classic songs outside of this time period. The set is going to be twenty songs, which fits well into the varying setlist sizes that Maiden has played throughout their career. Also on setlist length, a lot of these songs are on the shorter side, so we get more songs.
The Setlist
- Moonchild (Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son)
- From Here To Eternity (Fear Of The Dark)
- Holy Smoke (No Prayer For The Dying)
- No Prayer For The Dying (No Prayer For The Dying)
- Heaven Can Wait (Somewhere In Time)
- Stranger In A Strange Land (Somewhere In Time)
- The Clairvoyant (Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son)
- Afraid To Shoot Strangers (Fear Of The Dark)
- The Trooper (Piece Of Mind)
- Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son (Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son)
- The Number Of The Beast (Number Of The Beast)
- Alexander The Great (Somewhere In Time)
- Be Quick Or Be Dead (Fear Of The Dark)
- Public Enema Number One (No Prayer For The Dying)
- Only The Good Die Young (Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son)
- Iron Maiden (Iron Maiden)
- ENCORE (Blade Runner Theme)
- Caught Somewhere In Time (Somewhere In Time)
- Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter (No Prayer For The Dying)
- Second ENCORE (No Tape)
- The Evil That Men Do (Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son)
- Fear Of The Dark (Fear Of The Dark)
This One Took Longer Than Others To Craft
I started off with this setlist after watching some live videos of Iron Maiden’s shows from the Maiden England tour in 2012 and from their performance at Download Fest on the A Matter Of Life And Death Tour in 2007. Now how did I get to a tour focusing on these four albums? Well, No Prayer For The Dying might be the worst rated Iron Maiden album from a consensus of sources, including me, it still has some solid songs on it. It’s just a different type of Iron Maiden.
The first half of that album is really solid. So including most of those songs was pretty easy to pick. On the Maiden England tour, the band brought back out “Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son” and a couple other songs they hadn’t played in ages. This tour is a celebration of that album’s story and this era of Maiden in general.
Questioning Individual Choices
“Only The Good Die Young”
That’s why the weird inclusion of “Only The Good Die Young” is near the end of the main set. It’s a beautiful beginning and end to the Seventh Son album with “Seven deadly sins, seven ways to win, seven holy paths to hell, and your trip begins. Seven downward slopes, seven bloodied hopes, seven are your burning fires, seven your desires…”. I wanted to maintain that effect on this setlist. Yes, “The Evil That Men Do” is in the encore, but that song works so well in that slot of the set, I couldn’t move it.
The Somewhere In Time Songs
Somewhere In Time is a strange Iron Maiden album to put on a setlist. It’s my highest rated Maiden album from Iron Maiden-A-Thon but the songs don’t translate as well to live performances. I picked two songs that Iron Maiden hasn’t played in ages (“Caught Somewhere In Time”, “Stranger In A Strange Land”), one they’ve never played live (“Alexander The Great”), and one song that is perfect for playing live (“Heaven Can Wait”). I didn’t however, include “Wasted Years”. That was a hard one to cut for me, because it’s such a classic part of Iron Maiden history and definitely was on the “Best of the Rest” for this setlist.
No Prayer For The Dying Actually Makes A Showing
I wasn’t joking when I said that No Prayer was going to make a showing here. The only song that I was weary of leaving off was “Tailgunner”. The rest of the songs are the absolute best that album has to offer. It’s not the most popular Iron Maiden song, but as an encore song, it fits the mold of a crowd-sing-a-long tune. The extended version that they played above during the Give Me Ed…Till I’m Dead Tour is perfect to showcase this. The song, while being pretty silly, is a killer tune to get the crowd interacting and introducing the band.
Fear Of The Dark Closes The Show
Iron Maiden hasn’t gone with a normal showcloser for their past two tours. They closed The Book Of Souls Tour shows with “Wasted Years” and The Legacy Of The Beast Tour with “Run To The Hills”. This time around, we’re going to experiment with arguably the most successful and longest lasting song from this era, “Fear Of The Dark”. Iron Maiden usually closes with something like “Running Free”, “Hallowed Be Thy Name”, or “Sanctuary”. I think “Fear Of The Dark” would be a fine closing song, and you’d definitely send the fans home happy with it.
Final Thoughts On The No Prayer For The Dark Tour Setlist
I was incredibly surprised at how well all these songs fit together. They flowed nicely, and while it’s not a setlist that Iron Maiden would play in a million years, it gives some of these songs hope for being brought out of the dust that they’ve been sitting in. Give this one a listen, make a playlist of it on your phone or YouTube, and let me know what you think! It’s always an interesting thought experiment to make these Dream Setlists. If you have an idea for one, let me know in the comments!
You can check out the album by album reviews of Iron Maiden-A-Thon right here.
You can also check out Judas Priest-A-Thon right here!
For more on Iron Maiden, heavy metal, or any other general pop culture, make sure to check back to That Hashtag Show.
I just happened stumbled across this article and I’m 110% in support of a tour like this happening (whenever those happen again) and would be front row at that show, considering that Powerslave to FOTD are the Maiden albums I listen to the most. Truth be told, I expected Maiden to do something for this period of the the band after Book of Souls, but they’re doing Legacy of the Beast instead. To which that tour is not a bad thing at all, I just agree that No Prayer and FOTD need a little more love outside of the title track of the latter. So hopefully after they complete the second leg of Legacy, record/tour for a new album, we’ll have this show before they decide to call it quits.
I’ve done a couple articles in this series if you’re interested in them! You can check them out on the site if you just look up Dream Setlist! Thanks for reading!