As you will have read from our press release (click here to read), this latest Best Of CD selection is aimed primarily at Maiden’s ever-growing army of new fans. As we travel round the World touring we find ourselves continually and pleasantly surprised at the number of new young fans who are coming to the shows . So, as with Somewhere Back In Time, this compilation is an introduction to these guys and others, of Maiden’s recording history. SBIT was a single album with 15 tracks covering the first 10 years, 1980-1990, and seven studio albums. This compilation covers a similar number of albums (8 in fact), but as many of the tracks from this era are of a much longer duration, we felt we needed more space. So we have made it a double album set, however we’ll be keeping the price the same as a single album would be. In this later period many songs were getting generally longer and more complex so this gave us room to include epics like When the Wild Wind Blows, Paschendale, For The Greater Good Of God and Sign of the Cross to name but a few.
As before, we are conscious of giving value for money so we have crammed a total of 23 songs onto the compilation, with a total playing time of just over 2 ½ hours, which is all we can get onto 2 discs! We also know that many of you enjoy collecting all the various Eddie artworks, so we will, as with previous compilations of this nature, ensure that the front and back CD artwork is made available free to you to print, closer to the album’s release date. Keep checking the website for full details of when the art will be available to download.
The Final Frontier World Tour 2011 is well underway now, and, as you all know, sadly the 2 shows in Tokyo were cancelled due to the tragic and catastrophic current circumstances in Japan, with Ed Force One being diverted to Nagoya just prior to its landing in Tokyo. Now we’re on our way to Mexico and South America, where we’ll be filming the shows in Argentina and Chile for a DVD release later this year. More details to follow about that soon. We finish this leg with a show in Puerto Rico and two shows in Florida after which the band will have a well-earned rest for a few weeks before we resume the tour a lot closer to home in Europe, rounding off with the UK Arena tour. This tour has been a very special one for the band, not least because of the opportunity to play to fans in countries we’d never visited before: Singapore, Indonesia and Korea. As Steve remarked “The tour has been amazing so far and we’ve been overwhelmed by the reaction from our fans everywhere. We are now on our way to Mexico and South America which the whole band is very excited about! We really enjoy playing there as the fans are so passionate and we always feel a huge responsibility to put on the best show we possibly can for them. For this tour we have a great set list, a brand new stage show, and of course Eddie!. This leg of the tour ends with two shows in Florida in April, , then we’ll be taking a short break before a series of Summer headline Festival and Stadium shows in Europe, finishing up with our first UK Arena tour in many years. It’s a great way to round off what has been an incredible time for Maiden these last few years. We are really looking forward to seeing all our loyal fans again and welcoming all the new ones!”
And on behalf of myself and the rest of the band too, we very much look forward to seeing you when we land in a city near you!
All the best,
Rod