2006 must have been the AMOLAD tour, right? They really had some balls to play the new album in its entirety. Back then, they really had trust in their fresh material.

Oh yeah. It was hugely controversial with fans. I remember seeing them – for the very first time – in Camden, NJ, which is basically the absolute worst crap town imaginable (well, outside of real shithole countries – India, Pakistan, England, that sort of thing). They played the entire AMOLAD album, start to finish, and there were old-school fans behind me yelling, “PLAY OLD SHIT!!!”.

The backlash got so bad that they changed the setlist halfway through that tour schedule, to include “more classics”, as it were. I think they renamed the tour to “A Matter of the Beast”, to accommodate more stuff from TNOTB.

Back then, they did still have a great deal of confidence in their newer material, but honestly, the quality really dipped for a couple of albums – up until The Book of Souls, which I think will always remain their latter-day peak.

2006 must have been the AMOLAD tour, right? They really had some balls to play the new album in its entirety. Back then, they really had trust in their fresh material.
In 2005, they only played songs from the first four albums, i.e. no Fear of the Dark, which is probably the most popular songs among newbies.

100%. My first IRON MAIDEN concert was back in 2006, and I remember being quite mystified when “Doctor Doctor” blared through the speakers and the whole arena went bananas. By the time of my third and fourth concerts, back in, I think, 2008 and 2010, I understood quite well what was going on, and heartily joined in.