Hypothetical Tyranny of Souls Setlist

Bruce Dickinson
1

If Bruce had decided to tour Tyranny of Souls in between Maiden’s Early Days Tour and the upcoming release of A Matter of Life and Death, what would you envision the setlist to be?

Here’s what I think is a realistic take on it:

Intro: Mars Within

  1. Abduction
  2. Soul Intruders
  3. Accident of Birth
  4. Flight of Icarus
  5. Power of the Sun
  6. Kill Devil Hill
  7. Laughing in the Hiding Bush
  8. Back from the Edge
  9. Powerslave
  10. Navigate the Seas of the Sun
  11. Tyranny of Souls

ENCORE I
12. Tattooed Millionaire
13. The Tower
14. Tears of the Dragon

ENCORE II
15. Bring Your Daughter… to the Slaughter

Kickass concert opener in “Abduction”, which I think would go over well, followed by a few more powerhouse songs. “Kill Devil Hill” is a track I’m not really sure of, he might’ve left it out and went for “River of No Return” instead, but I think it would sound awesome live. “Navigate the Seas of the Sun” would be a great acoustic moment and closing the main set with the album’s title track makes a lot of sense to me. Maybe bring Rob Halford out for a night or two, too.

The non-Tyranny tracks are pretty standard Bruce fare, the ones he brings out a lot. It would be great if he’d dive deeper into BtP instead of always gravitating towards “Laughing in the Hiding Bush”; it’s a solid song, but it’s not as good as he thinks it is. The Maiden songs are also the usual suspects, swapping “Revelations” for “Flight of Icarus” because he would’ve just played that song with Maiden. But you’ve gotta get your audience onboard I guess.

I think the encore is really strong. “Tears of the Dragon” would be a great semi-closer with “Daughter” finishing things off on a fun note, and if he did the audience extension in “The Tower” that he did during the tour for The Chemical Wedding it would be immense.

That’s my take, curious to see what others come up with!

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2

I think you’re exactly right about how the show would open (even though I’m not personally too keen on “Soul Intruders”), but I don’t think we’d see any Maiden songs while Bruce was still active in that band.

Also, without Adrian on the tour I think the setlist would lean toward things that Roy would be more personally interested in playing, which would affect the song choices a bit. Here’s my guess at a realistic set list:

Intro: Mars Within

  1. Abduction
  2. Soul Intruders
  3. Solar Confinement
  4. Darkside Of Aquarius
  5. Kill Devil Hill
  6. Laughing In The Hiding Bush
  7. Tattooed Millionaire
  8. The Tower
  9. The Magician
  10. Power Of The Sun
  11. Chemical Wedding
  12. Tears Of The Dragon

Encore

  1. Book Of Thel
  2. Innerspace
  3. A Tyranny Of Souls

Getting a couple of Skunkworks songs in there is probably wishful thinking, but of the available options it seems like “Solar Confinement” and “Innerspace” might be more up Roy’s alley, and they would be great live tracks.

“The Magician” might seem like a dark horse, but it was their “banter and introduce the band” song on the Accident Of Birth tour, and it was also a surprisingly strong live number.

The rest of the songs seem like pretty obvious no-Adrian choices, and it feels to me like the title track is the right way to end the show.

3

I’m not so sure about that. He was playing Maiden tracks in that short 2002 tour. I’d be happy with him dropping them though.

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4

You’re right, I’d forgotten about that. I’d rather that he drop them, though — we’ll be lucky to ever get another solo tour after this one, so I’d rather have him pack the set list with solo songs.

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