The 44 Songs Iron Maiden Have Never Played Live

With over 150 songs in the catalog, Iron Maiden have done a remarkable job of giving most of their material some stage time and there’s not even 50 songs that they’ve never played live. So, with the ever-trusty archival site setlist.fm at our disposal, we rounded them all up here.

Of their 16 studio albums, only two albums bear the distinction of having every song played live, one of them being on a tour where the record was played from front to back.

What’s most impressive here is that there’s only one — ONE! — album where the legendary metal band played less than half of the material that was on it, and it came during one of the most tumultuous points in Iron Maiden’s career.

Fans new and old understand this when Iron Maiden announce a new album tour — they’re going to hear a lot of new songs. A lot. That was the case back in the early ’80s and it’s no different now, especially with the group putting out incredibly strong records so late in their career.

Ever the trend-buckers, Maiden have faithfully stood by their status as a relevant band in the current day, not one resigned to just playing two new songs with the usual hits us fans still aren’t sick of hearing. And it’s not just some stubborn move either — so much chatter around a new release is centered around fans fantasizing about which new songs they’ll have the opportunity to see when Eddie and the boys come rolling (or flying) into town.

So, here they are — the songs none of us have ever seen Iron Maiden play. Maybe one day we’ll be fortunate enough to strike a couple of these off the list.

Note: We strictly stuck to songs that appeared on the standard studio release or subsequent re-release. Japanese bonus tracks, covers and other non-album B-sides (such as the lovably goofy, Rod Smallwood-jeering “Sheriff of Huddersfield”) were not factored into the tally. The “Virus” single (spoiler alert!) is an exception.