Nicko McBrain opened a short Florida and Georgia run with his TITANIUM TART project on Saturday night, August 29, at The Barn in Sanford, Florida — the same night his former band began the North American leg of "Run For Your Lives" in Toronto.
The two setlists could hardly have been more different. IRON MAIDEN stopped at 1992 and played nothing recorded after it. McBrain went the other way and picked from the era he actually drummed on, including "Sign Of The Cross", "When The Wild Wind Blows", "The Clansman" and "For The Greater Good Of God" — the long, patient, Blaze-and-after material that the 50th-anniversary tour has no room for.
The Sanford setlist ran:
- The Number Of The Beast
- Infinite Dreams
- The Writing On The Wall
- The Clansman
- Sign Of The Cross
- Darkest Hour
- Stranger In A Strange Land
- When The Wild Wind Blows
- The Trooper
Encore:
- For The Greater Good Of God
- Rime Of The Ancient Mariner
- Hallowed Be Thy Name
Four dates remain: the Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale on September 5, The Albatross in Jacksonville on September 11, Center Stage Loft in Atlanta on September 13, and OCC Roadhouse in Clearwater on September 19. Joining McBrain in TITANIUM TART are Rob Stokes on bass, Eldad Kira on keyboards, Mike Rivera and Mitch Tanne on guitar, and Paolo Velazquez on vocals.
McBrain, now 74, announced his retirement from touring with MAIDEN on December 7, 2024, after 42 years; that night's show at Allianz Parque in São Paulo was his last. He suffered a stroke on January 19, 2023 that left his right side paralysed down to the waist and took away his fast single-stroke rolls. Drum fills had already been rewritten across the "Legacy Of The Beast" and "The Future Past" tours, and the new set contained songs he knew he would struggle with. He has called the decision "80 percent me, 20 percent in agreement with the rest of the guys." Simon Dawson, Steve Harris's bandmate in BRITISH LION, took the seat.
There is a good joke buried in all of this, and McBrain tells it on himself. Before the 2024 MAIDEN rehearsals in Australia he had been out playing with TITANIUM TART — and got told off at rehearsals for taking the songs too fast. "So it wasn't a question of not being able to drive the band," he said. "It was just not being able to drive the band with the drum fills that I'd been used to playing for 42 years."
He has not closed the door on a studio return. Asked about another MAIDEN album, he said: "Watch this space." He put the question to Bruce Dickinson at a convention last December and got back that Dickinson wants to make one but does not know whether anyone else does. If it happens, McBrain says he would be delighted to play on a couple of tracks — but not the whole record.