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Release Date 23 March 1998

Producers Steve Harris, Nigel Green

Studio EMI, CMC / BMG (US)

Recorded Barnyard Studios

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Iron Maiden

• Bruce Dickinson
• Steve Harris
• Janick Gers
• Dave Murray
• Adrian Smith
• Nicko McBrain
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Released March 23, 1998.

Fan Rating: {$rating} /10 (from {$votes} votes)

• Futureal Harris, Bayley
• The Angel & The Gambler Harris
• Lightning Strikes Twice Harris, Murray
• The Clansman Harris
• When Two Worlds Collide Harris, Murray, Bayley
• The Educated Fool Harris
• Don't Look To The Eyes Of A Stranger Harris
• Como Estais Amigos Harris, Bayley

We said ...

Virtual XI is Iron Maiden's second studio album with Blaze Bayley as vocalist. It retains the Maiden feel while at the same time continuing their musical evolution and maturation. Although there will always be people who are unable to accept this evolution, Virtual XI demonstrates that the band has indeed overcome their painful transitional period and are now continuing to do what they do best -- making great music.

The album cover is once again by Melvyn Grant, and returns to the familiar comic-book style. It is perhaps the most complex album cover since Somewhere In Time, depicting a boy who is immersed in a virtual reality of flaming holocaust where the line between virtual and reality is beginning to blur.

Musically, Virtual XI is not as dark and brooding as its predecessor The X Factor , and perhaps has more in common with Somewhere In Time both in its futuristic mood and musical style. Like all of the Maiden albums since Somewhere In Time, Virtual XI has a touch of light synth in the background of some songs. Also, there is a bit more vocal harmonies than we've seen before, on songs such as 'The Clansman' and 'The Educated Fool'.

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Anonymous said:

Iron Maiden has done a dynamite job with this album, Blaze and Jannick haters beware!!!. Blaze is not as good as Bruce at least not with maiden, but he does superior with his deep vocal range. it still does have evrything maiden should have though. Steve Harris still has the awesome clean sounding lightning speed bass with his dynamic songwriting. dave and Jannick sore great together, with excellence, and Nicko Mcbrain being very solid, maybe not his best drumwork on some of the songs but still excellent all the same. Futureal-Opens fast, with a great raw repeative solo, nailed with excellent bass, and the its a very cool sci-fi type of song, Dave tears the lightning solo up. Angel & the Gambler-ok maybe if u hear it the first time, you might not like it, but try to listen to it some, and youll be surprised how awesome it really is, the keyboards are very cool, and a different type of keyboard maiden sound. As always cool lyrics, you even start to enjoy the repeative chorus over and over again, also the solos are sweet kind of get a classic rock type of feel to them. Lightning Strikes twice-powerhouse achievment,awesome melody, once again the solos are sweet and how they jam is awesome especially towards the end.The Clansman-Based on the film Braveheart, this song is incredible and a major metal classic. You get a major british metalfeelfrom it, the opening raw bass sound is incredible, Blaze sings his heart out and Nicko does absolutely spectacular on the drumming. When two worlds collide-interesting lyrics,cool song, chorus rocks, and the opening of the song u get a major pink floyd feel to it,and the repeative solos are cool too. The Educated Fool-Great melody, oh come on and ur going to tell me these lyrics arent very good? The song is dynamic though the chorus is overly repeative i suppose, but is still cool all the same, great tune. Dont look to the Eyes of a stranger(continuing saga to Killers)-Awesome tune, i luv how the keyboards sound, creepy, kind of odd sound at first but you get into it fast. Also the mid melody with the bass is awesome, youll know what i mean when you hear it. Como Estas Amigos-This is a beautiful song, Janick's solo is perfecto on here, so beautiful a very sad deep, deep song. Its truly incredible and blaze sings his heart out. The only thing i see different with x factor and XI is alot more melody, but melody is awesome and is very complicated to create, the repeative lead here is quite awesome because it builds up when they drive and nail the solos a whole lot longer. Blaze did awesome with maiden while he was with them, and this is indeed a true metal classic. Everyone listen to the album for a bit and it will grow on everyone fast who luvs true metal. UP THE IRONS!!!

#13239 , March 1, 2003 @ 00:00

Another rather unpopular album, but next to The X factor, I think it owns up very well. Of course, it's nowhere near past glory, but not at all as awful as people make out. I think all songs here are at least average, and especially Futureal and a few others well above. Soundwise, this is lighter and not as misanthropic and melancholically thick as The X factor (it wants to be, but seing as the torture art has been replaced with the band proactively smiling and posing in various soccer teams...), which is all for the better. Blaze tries to look really mean (my guess is he's a total softie) on the back cover, but that's it. I also think songs here have a lot more flow, and there aren't really any fillers (save for the lame closer). Like I said, Futureal is kickass, plain and simple - by a landslide the best song of the Blaze-era, and I really hope they'll re-record it with the Bruce. The rest of the album doesn't quite measure up, but you shouldn't turn off just yet. First you must be tormented by The angel and the gambler, a song I LOVED the first time I heard it but had grown absolutely sick of it before it ended. Hell, I've even counted the times the "Don't you think" line was repeated - SIXTYSIX times! There's also a "radio" or "edited" (in either case interchangeable with sellout :) ) version floating around somewhere, about 4 minutes shorter, and approximately 38% more tolerable. Other than that, the best songs are Lightning strikes twice, When two worlds collide and The educated fool. But Infinite dre...err, I mean The clansman and Eyes of a stranger are also decent, and I really think this album has solid numbers throughout (despite being shameless remakes). Musically, Maiden has stagnated a long time ago, and this could be considered the last spasmic squeeze-out of all trademarks. It took me a while to appreciate it, but it happened - although I doubt it will happen again. Hard to say if I should recommend this album, as so many people hate where Maiden has gone with range-less Blaze in front. My advice is: Listen before you buy. Best songs: Futureal; Lightning strikes twice; When two world collide

#13243 , March 1, 2003 @ 00:00

One of my fave albums. Futureal:One of Maiden's best songs undoubetly. Sweet Solo TAATG: This song would have been a masterpiece except it is very very repetitive in the lyrics. Lightning Strikes Twice: Great Song. Really good chorus. The Clansman: SWEET!!! Amazing song i love it. 8 mins 58 secs long and not one boring bit. Brilliant Lyrics. When Two Worlds Collide: The worst song on the album. The Educated Fool: UNBELIEVABLE!! Probobly my fave Iron Maiden song in the BLAZE years. Remarkable Solo Don't Look To The Eyes Of A Stranger: Super song. Bit repetitive though to be honest. Como Estais Amigos: Great Song. It should have been a bit sadder because it was Blaze Bayley's last song with Maiden.

#13271 , May 9, 2006 @ 11:01

A little better, still not as good. Futureal is brill!

#13274 , May 10, 2006 @ 11:01

Definetely the worst Iron Maiden album there is. It has it's brief moments of brilliancy such as the Clansman minus the sing along intermision part and the climatic breakdown in Lightning Strikes Twice, but for the most part this album is too short, poorly recorded, and lacks depth. Some parts of it are just plain cheesy such as Two Worlds Collide and Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger. I have an MTV broadcast of this tour in South America and it's just painful to watch Blaze struggle singing damn near all the Bruce songs. I love Blaze. I thought what he did on The X Factor was great, but even Bruce can struggle to keep up with some of the singing at times 'cause it's that hard to do. There's a reason Blaze never sang Run to the Hills live. I did see maiden 2 times on the X-Factour and Blaze was really good, but it's hard to keep up that pace night after night when your singing things that are a little out of your comfort zone. Back to the album though, some will disagree, but I just think it's very weak although like all maiden albums it has it's good moments.

#13283 , June 6, 2006 @ 04:39

I think this is better than the X-factor, but only because the songs sound more varied. The only thing i wish to highlight is the song Don't look to the eyes of a stranger. This song has such a great mood to it, so dark and mysterious, the quiet middle part where it gradually fades up is awesome. The songs on this album have some cool solos, but I find that Jannick and Davey played somewhat similar on some of the songs, but hey its still good stuff. Once again, not classic Maiden by any means, but worth listening to for sure.

#13297 , June 6, 2006 @ 21:58

The Worst album Maiden have ever done and the blame ain't only Blaze, ok he is not Bruce, and I doesn't have his vocal extension, but also the song-writing is lacking, all the members of the band were not inspired and the song were and are too long and repetitive...I think if there was Bruce some song would not have been written because he'd have make head!! There are two and not more good songs The Clansman & Futureal and the math is dispersive...in this work they hear the assence of two good writers.....with the next Brave New World the Heavy Metal has had a new dawn!

#13325 , August 13, 2006 @ 19:19

One of my favourite maiden albums. Great work!

#13354 , September 7, 2006 @ 15:31

Oh dear...... Sounds like a band that ran out of ideas. Futureal is a typical maiden opener (not unlike any other opener) and the clansman is the albums residential attempt at an epic, although no way near as good as Sign Of The Cross, 7th Son, Phantom ETC. Take these two songs out and there is nothing else left..

#13356 , September 7, 2006 @ 20:53

not as bad as the x factor but it still dosent sound like maiden

#13365 , September 10, 2006 @ 16:05

Maiden's only bad album. It is not Blaze fault, the songs are repetitive, long and boring. Guitars are weak and drowned in the mix (sounds like a 70s rock production) Just compare these songs with Aces High, The Number of the Beast, The Trooper, Phantom of the Opera and you will hear how weak they are.

#13384 , September 28, 2006 @ 09:18

Many people give dont appreciate Blaze because he's not Bruce Dickinson. Granted, Dickinson is a much better performer live, Blaze still did a good job filling in and adding a new Dynamic to the band-one unlike Paul and Bruce. The X-Factor is a much stronger album than Virtual, but with songs like The Educated Fool, The Clansman, and Lightning Strikes twice, and the fast paced guitar attack of Futureal,its easier to forgive the repetition and boredom brought on by The Angel and the Gambler and Como estas whatever its called. Anyway, Virtual is the weakest Maiden album ever in my opinion, but i like it nonthe less. up the irons

#13390 , September 28, 2006 @ 21:35

Can I rate this album with a 0/10 note ? This is awful...The only track I like is "The Educated Fool", but the others are bad.

#13411 , October 2, 2006 @ 18:50

Blaze Bayley was pressured for not singing like Bruce and it shows here. On some parts he just sounds strained. Still a good album trying to go back to the Maiden feel after The X Factor (which I LOVED)

#13433 , November 7, 2006 @ 10:21

They say that this album shows maturation and musical development, but that there will always be some who can't accept this development. I guess I belong to the latter group. This album just doesn't appeal to me. I find it very weak musically, and, while not having a problem with Blaze as a vocalist, I think he could have done a lot better on the quiet pieces on this album. The production is even worse than 'The X Factor' and the guitars have the stranges sound ever and are not audible enough. Apart from 'Futureal' and 'The Clansman' plus the choruses of 'Lightning Strikes Twice' and 'The Educated Fool', there's nothing on this album that appeals to me, and there are some outright unfortunate parts like the up-tempo-section of 'Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger' which sounds more like polka to me than anything else. I really thought this would be the end of Maiden for me... fortunately it wasn't.

#13449 , November 20, 2006 @ 13:00

I must admit it. This was the first album I couldn't listen to all of the way through. I eventually did, but for me, Iron Maiden albums , even No Prayer, were always listenable and innovative in some small way. I didn't like a single song. Especially not the lauded Clansman in which is just plain too long. With other artists expanding the Metal genre and Bruce Dickenson producing quality metal music in his solo efforts with Adrian, this would become the first Maiden album I would not buy. Some people claim this is the beginning of the return of Maiden's new sound. I don't think so. This was the slow demise of Iron Maiden, that was luckily averted by Bruce and Adrian kicking Harris back into gear on Brave New World. I do appreciate Maiden's hiatus as it gave me a chance to explore other bands that were handling innovation in the late 90s much better (like COC and In Flames). Up the Irons!

#13457 , December 2, 2006 @ 20:54

THE ALBUM IS OVERALL VERY BAD , EXEPT FOR THE STAND OUT TRACK , THE BEST IRON MAIDEN SONG EVER (AND BEST SONG EVER), THE ANGEL & THE GAMBLER,THE OVERALL MOST AWESOME SONG IN MUSIC HISTORY,OVERALL THE ALBUM SUCKS BUT TAATG IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOO AWESOME, ANYWAY I LOVE THE ANGEL AND THE GAMBLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111

#13461 , December 6, 2006 @ 22:48

May be the worst maiden album.

#13467 , December 22, 2006 @ 19:46

Yes, this may be Maiden's worst album ever. I mean, lets see: 1) Futureal: Just another opener, almost the same as any other, though along with The Clansman it is the only standout track. 2) The Angel And The Gambler: GOD this song sucks SOOO fucking much, I think it is the reason why many people heard it before deciding not to buy Virtual XI, and when I say BAD I mean WORSE THAN QUEST FOR FIRE! 3) Lightning Strikes Twice: Its just a filler song, theres nothing special from it. 4) The Clansman: The other standout track, of course, it isnt as good as other tracks as other songs from Maiden's golden era, but those miserable 3 points are thanks to this song. 5) When Two Worlds Collide: It is one of those fucking songs which seem to NEVER end, its just boring... 6) The Educated Fool: What can I say? GIVE ME THOSE 6 MINUTES FROM MY LIFE BACK! 7) Dont Look To The Eyes of A Stranger: I may say this is the longest title of a song Maiden has ever done, and again, one of those songs which seem to never end (Well, its better than The Angel and the Gambler) but it has something missing which just makes it horrible. 8) Como Estais Amigos: Come on...This song blows...why am I even taking time to review it?

#13480 , February 17, 2007 @ 21:55

VIRTUAL 11< QUEST FOR FIRE & BACK IN THE VILLAGE

#13484 , February 22, 2007 @ 15:10

worse than the dance of death and x-factor album cover and all of the fillers on no prayer... ,fear of the dark,the x factor, Iron Maiden and powerslave combiend ... so in other words ...THIS ALBUM IS A BUM

#13485 , February 22, 2007 @ 15:19

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Why ‘Virtual XI’ Marked the End of Iron Maiden’s Blaze Bayley Era

When Blaze Bayley joined Iron Maiden in 1993, he hadn’t been given the opportunity to tour before recording his first album. The X Factor , released the following year, received lukewarm reviews.

That had been easy to predict, however, since Iron Maiden was trying to move on without classic-era vocalist Bruce Dickinson . Band leader Steve Harris had also been going through a messy divorce.

The result didn't just sound different; it felt different. The NWOBHM giants had to accept that a period of discomfort had to be endured. As they wrote and prepared to release Virtual XI on March 23, 1998, they hoped that period had passed. Their mood, band members say, was completely different.

“It’s definitely a progression,” Bayley argued at the time. “With The X Factor , we took a long time to record it, and it was quite a long album with a lot of songs. I think there was a lot of expectation attached to that. We were learning how to work together and all of that as well. We hadn’t toured; I hadn’t done a gig with Maiden. Now, coming back to the studio there’s a lot of confidence in the band. Everybody feels really positive. There’s a lot of creative energy. This album feels a lot more positive.”

Songs eventually emerged with subjects that felt a little more familiar to Iron Maiden’s famously loyal fans. For example, “Futureal” told of a character lost in a dystopian world. “The Angel and the Gambler” was a classic tale of good versus evil, while “ The Clansman ” was inspired by Mel Gibson ’s movie Braveheart .

Guitarist Janick Gers said Virtual XI was an attempt to portray the past, present and future in the band’s traditional style, adding that in the modern world “everything changes within a month. We’re trying to keep right on the edge of the technical equipment we have here, but we’re trying to keep that real-live feel – that real-live essence – to what we do.”

Watch Iron Maiden Discuss 'Virtual XI'

This approach was underlined by the fact that most of the lead vocal tracks that made the cut on Virtual XI were recorded during early rehearsals, rather than during the main recording sessions. “What I was trying to do was get a bit better than that,” Bayley noted, “but [the early versions] had such a good vibe, which is what we always look for in recording.” Drummer Nicko McBrain registered his appreciation for Bayley’s work: “I really am excited. There’s something special about this album.”

Iron Maiden continued to pursue a sound that leaned more toward their early material with singer Paul Di’Anno than the pomp-and-circumstance of their mid- to late-'80s tracks with Dickinson. They followed that direction since 1990’s No Prayer For The Dying , beginning a cycle of diminishing returns that began before Bayley’s arrival. Harris described the effect as “a bit more raw – a bit more on-the-up, if you like.”

The new album’s virtual-reality theme had been established at the start of the project, including a tie-in with the band’s Ed Hunter computer game. Then Steve Harris realized that 1998 was a soccer World Cup year, and that there were 11 men in a soccer squad, so he began focusing on that number. He remembered that, during the previous tour, “people were giving me football shirts – all of us, really. In Brazil, I wore the Brazil football shirt on stage, and the Argentina one in Argentina and stuff. We thought it would be great to tie the whole thing in, basically our two loves, music and football.”

Harris went as far as to stage a promotional tour in which Iron Maiden played matches as a team, with band members featured along with a group of professionals. “They’re all world-class international players – and we’re not, basically!” Harris added. “We’ve had a lot of fun with this album.”

Watch Iron Maiden Perform 'Futureal'

The optimism was short-lived. Issued with a modified band logo that remained in use until 2016, Virtual XI wasn’t the giant leap up from The X Factor that they hoped for. It peaked at No. 124 in the U.S. and No. 16 in the U.K., compared with its predecessor’s No. 147 and No. 8 finishes, respectively. That represented Iron Maiden's lowest album-chart entries in both markets since 1981’s Killers .

Only two singles were released, “The Angel and the Gambler” (in two versions) and “Futureal,” and neither did much business. Band manager Rod Smallwood later revealed that the general consensus was that “Futureal” should have been released first, but that Harris had been determined to do things differently. Despite some “grudgingly decent” reviews, journalist Dave Ling bluntly argued that “what fans and critics alike craved was Dickinson's return.”

The Virtual XI World Tour started on April 22 and featured a more elaborate stage set than anything Iron Maiden had done since the ‘80s. They opened the show with “Futureal” and “The Angel and the Gambler,” and also delivered “Lightning Strikes Twice,” “When Two Worlds Collide” and “The Educated Fool” from Virtual XI . The level of interest had declined noticeably, however, and Iron Maiden ended up making appearances at smaller venues than they’d played in years. As with The X Factor shows, Bayley encountered vocal problems, resulting in the cancellation of some shows. Harris hailed the way Bailey got the best out of his voice in the studio, but there was no doubt that he struggled with some of the Bruce Dickinson-era songs.

Watch Iron Maiden Perform 'The Angel and the Gamble'

More than that, certain hardcore fans’ hatred for what the new singer represented wasn’t dissipating; in fact, it seemed to be growing. A decision had to be made on whether Iron Maiden could risk a third album with Bayley.

The tour finished on Dec. 12, 1998, and a band meeting was held – without Bayley – the following month. On Feb. 10, 1999, Iron Maiden announced that Dickinson was back , along with classic-era guitarist Adrian Smith. Completely unaware, Bayley had been working on material for his third Iron Maiden album when he was told.

The reinvigorated lineup turned to the future with 2000’s Brave New World and went on to reclaim their position in the top flight of rock. Dickinson performed both "Futureal" and "The Clansman" in concert, with the latter track remaining in Iron Maiden's set lists until 2003. Meanwhile, Bayley began building a solo career, and also reconnected with his cult-rock outfit Wolfsbane.

He later admitted that it took some four years to get over the disappointment of being dropped, but Bayley eventually gained some needed perspective. He dubbed his five-year tenure “an amazing achievement” in 2016. “They had to make a business decision. Getting Bruce back, it was the right thing to do," Bayley told Team Rock . "Look at what they’ve done since . I don’t think anything bad of the guys. In Iron Maiden, I was living my dream. And when that dream was lost, I didn’t take time out to grieve.”

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All things maiden, review: virtual xi (1998).

In trying to build the new Iron Maiden with their second Blaze Bayley album, the band unfortunately reaches the nadir of their recording history.

Virtual XI Produced by Steve Harris and Nigel Green Released 23 March 1998

Iron Maiden’s battle to survive the 1990s continues with Virtual XI , a record that is unfortunately football-themed in its title and visuals, and just as unfortunately produced and mixed by band chief Steve Harris in conjunction with Nigel Green . This production duo proves utterly incapable of shepherding Maiden towards the new millennium, and they have the poorest collection of Maiden songs to work with.

In 1995 Maiden had delivered a disappointing introduction to their new Blaze Bayley line-up with the dark and downbeat The X Factor , an album of interesting ideas that were ultimately underdeveloped and severely hampered by the Harris/Green production. In a display of sheer 180 degree incomprehensibility, the overloud low-end of that previous album, where faint guitars faded into the background, is replaced here by a top-heavy mix that sports a nearly inaudible Nicko McBrain bass drum.

Virtual XI is undoubtedly Maiden’s worst sonic presentation since the debut album eighteen years before, not counting the cheap-sounding 1993 live albums, and grim proof that letting Harris handle Maiden’s productions in his own Barnyard Studios at home was a bad idea.

CGI Eddie hurts your eyes, in back of the 1998 Iron Maiden line-up: Dave Murray, Steve Harris, Blaze Bayley, Nicko McBrain, Janick Gers.

Before Maiden could even get to the recording sessions for their second Blaze album, former singer Bruce Dickinson effectively stole their thunder with a spellbinding return to heavy metal: 1997’s Accident Of Birth . Tables now decisively turned, Iron Maiden created their new record in the shadow of a singer and an album that successfully pushed the stylistic hallmarks of Maiden themselves into the late 90s.

Iron Maiden would prove unable to rise to the challenge, suffering another humiliation when Dickinson delivered his masterwork The Chemical Wedding (1998) just a few months after Maiden’s dismal Virtual XI .

The record opens well, if badly produced, with Futureal . This is a fast and furious track clocking in at under 3 minutes, with music by Harris and lyrics by Bayley. Actually this was the last ever instance of Harris writing a short hard rocker for Maiden. To top it off, the song features a blistering trademark Dave Murray solo:

If one imagines this track with a proper heavy metal production, something akin to what Maiden would later achieve with Kevin Shirley , packaged with the proper Derek Riggs artwork seen below, it could have been a killer first single and a kick-ass opening to the record. It’s sorely lacking in the audio department because Steve Harris has full control of the production, but the song itself is good enough to register.

Derek Riggs’ superior artwork for Futureal, which the band used less than the ugly CGI rip from their then forthcoming video game. Heck, why not call the record Futureal and use this for the album cover?

However, any and all momentum is lost as soon as the second track is unleashed: The Angel And The Gambler is the very nadir of Maiden’s output, comically overlong and repetitive, without a single riff or melody to make it memorable. This is the horrifying sound of Iron Maiden self-destructing.

Manager Rod Smallwood argued that Futureal should be the first single and video from the album, but he was overruled by Harris. In retrospect it is plain that the band leader, bassist, main songwriter and producer lapsed into artistic and commercial insanity when he insisted on issuing The Angel And The Gambler:

The lack of any discernible quality control in the songwriting is exacerbated by the infantile production choices (synthesizer horns, we’re looking at you), and the album version of the track is also a mind-blowing 10 minutes long (mercifully edited in the video). This was a flopping turkey in its day and time has not improved its reflection one bit. The Angel And The Gambler quite easily tops our list of the worst Maiden songs in existence.

Derek Riggs’ superior artwork for horrible first single The Angel And The Gambler.

Virtual XI never recovers from that particular train wreck. To be fair, there is a modern Maiden classic here in the form of The Clansman , and there is also the promising but unrealized The Educated Fool , but even those are effectively neutered by the weak production and the failure to accommodate Blaze Bayley’s vocal style: He sounds as dry and unproduced as he did on The X Factor , and Harris still doesn’t bother to shore up Bayley’s tendency to drift too sharp in his delivery. This is a shame, as Bayley works hard to deliver the lyrics with conviction.

Then there is the utterly below-par entries, songs that would be unthinkable on any Maiden album prior to 1990, including Lightning Strikes Twice , When Two Worlds Collide , Don’t Look To The Eyes Of A Stranger and Como Estais Amigos . Although there are bits of worthy songwriting in the latter track, a ballad, it is a depressing fact that Maiden have lost their ability to take advantage of such skills at this point. And it is conspicuously strange that a prolific writer like Janick Gers has only this one credit to his name on the entire album.

The painfully ugly CGI illustrations for The Angel And The Gambler and Futureal, including a literally pointless new Maiden logo.

In the cold light of day, everything becomes clear: If The X Factor showed worrying signs of decline but also a glimmer of hope that a different Maiden could emerge, a chance that the sporadic interesting attributes of that album could be built upon, Virtual XI (easily Maiden’s worst ever album title, signifying nothing about musical or lyrical content) confirms the decline and fails completely to re-energize the band. It’s evident that Harris and his current crew are unable to create a new beast.

The album also sounds the death knell for Steve Harris’ once inventive flights of songwriting. He might have been struggling in the early 1990s, but from this point on his solo compositions for Maiden would suffer the perpetual fixation of the Em – C – G – D chord progression, with variations of celtic-tinged vocal or guitar melodies that are basically designed for wordless audience shout-alongs. Even some of Harris’ best latter-day tracks, like Blood Brothers (in 2000) and For The Greater Good Of God (in 2006) would expose a composer with no interest in finding other chords for his works, and it seems to have started with The Educated Fool on Virtual XI .

Eddie as Mel Gibson as William Wallace in the not very impressive Derek Riggs artwork for the Braveheart -inspired The Clansman, the only qualified highlight on Virtual XI .

There are some harmony vocals here, on The Clansman and The Educated Fool, a feature that was inexplicably missing from The X Factor . But horrible production ruins what could have been an aid to Bayley: There is no sense of which line takes the lead and which lines back it up, different vocal tracks are rising and falling in volume in an utterly amateurish fashion. When Bayley also struggles to hit the right pitches in his layered harmonies there is no saving the choruses this way.

Add to this another major problem: The band finds not a single occasion for displaying their trademark harmony guitars. The indistinguishable tones of Murray’s and Gers’ Stratocasters make for a bland guitar landscape that is depressingly far removed from the masterful sonic storytelling of Powerslave (1984) and Somewhere In Time (1986).

It’s impossible to tell that this is the same band.

The Melvyn Grant artwork for Virtual IX would turn out to be one of the least popular incarnations of Eddie. Worst of all is the band’s request that a football game be inserted in the bottom left corner.

An interesting footnote to the production issue is the fact that Nigel Green also worked on Killers (1981) and The Number Of The Beast (1982), as the great Martin Birch ’s right hand engineer. Based on this evidence, either he had little to do with the sound of those records, or Harris’ production choices and the qualities of the Barnyard studio are so terrible that Green is all but useless at the console.

None of this was Bayley’s responsibility, but it was inevitable that he would ultimately take the fall for Harris’ failure to maintain the previous high quality of Iron Maiden’s records and concerts. Bayley was simply the wrong man for the job, through no fault of his own, and Maiden clearly lacked songwriting qualities and production expertise to see him through.

Hold this photo next to the Powerslave inner sleeve’s band picture and you’ll see all that has gone wrong with Iron Maiden by 1998.

Two misconceptions about the Blaze Bayley period of Iron Maiden need to be adressed in rounding this review off.

The first misconception is that the Blaze albums have been underrated. Since this is claimed so often, since the internet is full of fan praise and popular articles about these albums actually being good, they can’t possibly be underrated. Quite the reverse, they seem to be overrated. In my somewhat rational argument The X Factor is a poor album, and Virtual XI is worse. If some fans think they are in fact good, that’s fair enough. But this in itself does not make them underrated.

The second misconception is regularly promoted by Bayley himself, that these records were the start of Maiden getting more progressive. This is an utterly absurd statement, although readily repeated by the press over the past few years, about a band that made Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son (1988), a band that before Bayley’s time had recorded Phantom Of The Opera , Hallowed Be Thy Name , Revelations , To Tame A Land , Powerslave , Rime Of The Ancient Mariner , Alexander The Great and Infinite Dreams , to name a few.

The X Factor is not a progressive rock record just because it has an overabundance of long songs on it. And Virtual XI is neither progressive in its songwriting or good enough to warrant interest beyond the realm of the most hardcore Maiden fans. I venture the guess that if a new band had made Virtual XI , us Maiden fans would have deemed it a poorly written and produced record with some bad Maiden impressions on it.

Another Derek Riggs piece that is much better than the music of the Virtual XI period.

Click here for our Maiden History chapter about the making of Virtual XI and what happened behind the scenes when Iron Maiden decided to fire Blaze Bayley!

At this point in their history, Maiden had a simple choice: Stay the course and fade into oblivion, or do a major rethink and recalibration. Smallwood pushed them to choose the latter, and by the end of 1998 the Blaze era of Iron Maiden was over.

In 2000 there would be a Brave New World .

Some of you will no doubt disagree with the score I give this record, so I will explain what my aim is: I put all of Iron Maiden’s records in an order relative to each other and nothing else. I’m simply making a long-winded list of how I rate the Maiden albums comparatively. In order to differentiate them, Virtual XI gets rated the worst ever Iron Maiden album.

Christer’s verdict: 1/6

6/6 Masterpiece 5/6 Great 4/6 Good 3/6 OK 2/6 Disappointing 1/6 Crap

33 thoughts on “ Review: Virtual XI (1998) ”

Harsh but fair!

Totaly fair review, and I agree. And as an indicator, even Riggs’s rejected artwork is crap. His use of digital graphics is horrendous even if its better than the used single ”artworks”.

I love this album. Compare it to NPFTD X

NPFTD is bad, but nowhere near as bad as Virtual XI. NPFTD is bad because it followed the great Seventh Son album and took an unexpected turn in creativity from where the band was going. But NPFTD does have that raw vibe of the first two albums, so its salvageable. Nothing salvageable about Virtual XI.

The main thing that bothered me about this album, both at the time and with 22 years’ hindsight, is how bad a 5 a side team they would make. Steve obviously is a decent player but I can’t imagine Blaze had the athleticism even back then and as for Nicko in goals, what were they thinking

The football stuff was probably the most cringe worthy thing about the whole album. And that includes The Angel and the Gambler and Blaze’s backwards baseball cap.

It was just totally baffling! I’ve got fonder memories of the Blaze era than most commenters but the football link was misguided at best. I think it speaks to what Christer was saying about Steve being the sole arbiter of what was good for Maiden during this period. He’s mad about football while no one else in the band/set up was that botheredl it seems nobody had the clout to talk him round. The worst bit of it all was the team photo with West Ham where they’d badly photoshopped the band’s heads onto 5 of the squad.

This review is accurate. The album is atrocious and by Maiden standards, embarrassing. I’ve been a died hard Maiden fan since 1986. Buying every album and anticipating new releases, even after Bruce left. I lied to myself back then and tried to convince my self this was an alright album. There’s only 2 albums in the Maiden catalog that I don’t know the lyrics too. The X factor and Virtual XI and that’s because I just couldn’t listen to it to become familiar with the lyrics. They are a both bad as a whole, with a few exceptions. It’s no coincidence that the only songs I like are the live versions of Futureal, The Clansman, and Sign of the Cross sung by Bruce on tour after he returned. Steve is the Captain, however Bruce is the star player that the team needs.

The production on the album is no doubt low-quality. I almost jumped out of my chair when I popped in the CD for the first time and heard the hard, dry guitars on “Futureal.” Also, I blame “The Clansman” for a number of folksy tunes that came afterwards, including “Where the Wild Wind Blows,” “Blood Brothers,” and “Dance of Death.” Maiden, the quintessential British heavy metal group from London writing Scottish-sounding tunes is just wrong on so many levels. Finally, the lack of quality in songwriting on the album was neither Blaze’s fault, nor Steve’s fault. I blame Janick for this. The moment he joined the band and Adrian left was the moment the songwriting quality declined.

Janick’s style is very “stone-agey.” He does not use any effects to add texture to his tone; he writes most melodies in the same neck position using the same scale (E minor around the 7th to 9th fret); and he almost never palm-mutes notes, and when he does, he relies on palm-mutes, which are very dependent on the amp EQ settings, to carry the song. Case in point: “The Talisman,” which runs out of gas before the second chorus, because all the heaviness and aggression is in the palm-mutes, not the arrangements or the collective delivery of the song. Lastly, I suspect that Janick had something to do with the band’s decision to jettison twin guitar harmonies starting in 1990 and continuing through the present day.

As for the songs on Virtual XI, I think “When Two Worlds Collide” has depth and magic, minus the awkward and unnecessary key change during the solo, and I actually appreciate “The Angel and the Gambler” for its unique incorporation of organs and its rock’n’roll vibe. I do agree the song is definitely longer than it needs to be, but it does have some of that old magic, which Derek Riggs perfectly captured with the beautiful drawing of Eddie at the boat dock. Probably the last rendition of Eddie where Eddie looked recognizable as the iconic mascot, and also the last time that the music and the visuals reinforced each other.

Steve has the final say, therefore regardless of Janick’s tendencies, Steve allows it and/or liked it. Janick is not the one trick pony you make him out to be. He wrote blistering songs, not folksy, such as The Ghost of the Navigator and Montsegur.

Both “The Ghost of Navigator” and “Montségur” share the same problems, introduced because of the fifth (or sixth, in this case) wheel that is Janick. Since there is nothing else for Janick to do in the songs, several different parts of the songs have a guitar that is playing the same melody as the vocal melody. In addition, the melody is played up on the neck, around the 12th–15th fret and on the D, G, and B strings, in a neck position where even a well-intonate guitar has poor intonation, and where notes start to sound too thick on those three strings, but because those are very high notes, it is necessary to play them in that position and on those strings in order to avoid thin, brittle, ice-picky tones that are impossible to sit in the mix.

This would not be so much of a problem if Maiden still wrote material that is as complex as Powerslave, which had songs that had up to four different melody guitars going on, but that is not the case today. With maybe a few exceptions, the third guitar is simply not needed.

I don’t think Janick is a one-trick pony, either—I think he’s a three trick pony: 1) Acoustic songs that are of limited use to Maiden, 2) folksy and/or recycled melodies around the 7th–9th fret (e.g., “Afraid to Shoot Strangers,” “Fear of the Dark,” “Where the Wild Wing Blows,” “The Talisman,” “Dance of Death,” “No Prayer for the Dying,” “For the Greater Good of God”), and 3) the same solo melodies around the 15th–17th fret, with a full bend on the 17th fret on the 1st string, followed by some combination of the 15h and 14th frets on that string, followed by 17th fret on the 2nd string.

Blaming Janick for the songwriting seems strange when he wrote only 1 of the songs. He can’t be blamed for Adrian leaving either, but there is no doubt that Maiden never made a great record without Adrian.

Janick lowered the bar for everyone on the first two records he did with Maiden. By doing so, Dave Murray ended up, over time, boxing himself in and losing his creativity. And, lastly, a certain laziness developed, as well, for it is much easier to churn out melodies from one very comfortable neck position than it is to stretch oneself (and in this case, one’s fingers, literally) in search of some newer, more technically demanding ideas. It’s too bad I can’t post videos here, because I could easily demonstrate on the guitar what Janick’s influence has been on the band.

That said, I do appreciate Janick’s philosophy on playing and tone for what it is, but it is the wrong fit for Maiden, just like his dancing on stage. Maiden used to be a “dangerous” band, the kind of band that would give you nervous with excitement when you first listened to a new album or went to see them live. They were the quintessential classic heavy metal band, the band that recorded “The Flight of Icarus,” “Where Eagles Dare,” “Only the Good Die Young,” and many other examples of the finest British steel. After Janick, they became the band that started dancing on the stage, delivering sing-along crowdpleasers, and adopted annoying stylistic traits that seriously handicapped their creativity.

And there is actually one more problem with Janick that was on full display during the Blaze era. Janick does not write riffs and lacks Adrian’s edge and grit. Without Adrian, many of the cool and sometimes intentionally dirty riffs we hear on The Book of Souls would not have been possible. Examples of these riffs include the intro riff on “Speed of Light” and “The Great Unknown” and the uber-classy metal riff on “Empire of the Clouds” during the lines

Fighting the wind as it rolls you Feeling the diesels that push you along Watching the channel below you Lower and lower into the night . . . Reaper standing beside her With his scythe cuts to the bone Panic to make a decision Experienced men asleep in their graves

Her cover is ripped and she’s drowning Rain is flooding into the hull Bleeding to death and she’s falling Lifting gas is draining away

This level of class is unthinkable with Janick only. Janick’s best work was on “The Legacy” and some of the stuff on No Prayer for the Dying and Fear of the Dark (the whole albums), but the rest of his creative output is very forgettable or sounds like a parody of the band. Honestly, how likely are the band to play the following songs ever (again)?

“The Ghost of Navigator” “The Pilgrim” (a somewhat strong song from a very strong album overall) “Montsegur” “The Alchemist” (a parody of Maiden) “The Book of Souls” (a Powerslave—the album—rip-off) “Shadows of the Valley” (a hidden gem, special because of the rest of the band band refining with class, and over time, elements that are still quintessential Janick and would have produced a mediocre song, had it not been for the band’s talent)

I don’t think anyone disagrees with you about the importance of Adrian to Iron Maiden.

Your insight is definitely reasoned and well thought out. You have more an air for music than I. I will begin to listen to and look for the things you point out. The one I see obviously and sometimes annoyingly is Janick writing the melody line to the vocals. It’s alright for a song, but has been customary on every album for him.

Janice is, IMO, the best songwriter in the band today. The Legacy, Man on the Edge, Book of Souls, Dance of Death, The Talisman, I could go on. You can cite music theory toke all day long, but these are great songs and Janice is far from a 6th wheel. He’s an essential member of the band.

Great comments from everyone, and I agree totally with Seventh Son.

This is a fair review of Virtual XI. Rose tinted spectacles often blind fans to just how poor all the albums were that Maiden released in the 1990s. I often hear that even a bad Maiden album is better than other bands best efforts, but come on, this is simply not true.

The 1990s albums had 1-2 good songs on each record (maybe 3 at best), with the rest being either mediocre or poor. Post-reunion albums are generally better than this, but they still have poor tracks and tend to suffer from excessive length.

The two good songs on Virtual XI are probably Futureal and Como Estais Amigo, but I’ve never cared for The Clansman. As a Scot I find it particularly cheesy, and quite innapropriate material for an English band!

I can relate to that, as I never found Harris’ Viking lyrics to be particularly interesting…

@Seventh Son: If you ever want to write a piece about Maiden songwriting and guitar sounds, we’d be happy to publish it here at Maiden Revelations. 🙂

That would be very interesting, I’d love to see that.

I’d love to do that! Thank you! I have spent a lifetime studying Maiden’s music and their guitar sounds, including many years of persistent experimentation with recording techniques and frequent correspondence on the topic with some of the leading metal producers and experts of the present day. I can’t say that I’ve figured out Maiden’s exact formula, but what the hard work has definitely done is, it has given me an appreciation for the production quality of their work with Martin Birch behind the console.

I’d be happy to start working on ideas for the contents of an article on “Maiden songwriting and guitar sounds.” Feel free to let me know, should you have any more specific ideas of what the article should contain. My email is provided with this post. Feel free to use it to contact me.

Music theory and Iron Maiden is not a good idea. The song writing and the solos are at best at a very basic level. Most of the solos from npfd and onwards are improvised and not at all intresting to study. Maidens strenght is not technical playing, it’s about writing good songs with a hook. Songs like the trooper, hallowed, run to the hills, revelations, running free or flight of icarus are simple but great songs. They should stick to that and not writing nine minute “epics” wich ain’t epic att all. Just boring. Adrian has some skills and takes the time to actually write his solos. Dave and Janick seemes not to care anymore. The solos on tears of a clown are a great example of that. Sounds horrible. The song would have been much better without them.

You are right, but only to a point, in my opinion. It is true that with the arrival of Janick, the Dave and Janick started taking a looser approach to the guitar solos. However, it would be wrong to say that all improvised solos are bad by definition. Maiden’s today’s lead work, especially Dave’s, is more fluid—certainly the result of years of playing and becoming a master at his craft. What it lacks in originality, it makes up for with emotion. The song you mentioned as Exhibit A for poorly improvised solos is actually a pretty good example of the emotional content, which is also on display on the whole album Book of Souls, which contains some quite interesting and inspired lead work from the guys. Adrian is bluesier than every before, and Dave sound more like Deep Purple than ever before, which is already apparent on “Tears of a Clown” but on full display on Dave’s gothic composition “Man of Sorrows,” which has Deep Purple all over it.

Their music today is more difficult to judge, as it tends to have many good and bad aspects at the same time. On the one hand, using “Man of Sorrows” and “Shadows of the Valley” as prime examples, the music often has a certain musical intelligence and depth that seems to only come with age and experience. On the other hand, the impact of their latter-day compositions is less immediate and has to be seen in a bigger context in order to be fully appreciated. This was not the case with their classic-era (1982–1988) work. For example, when I heard Seventh Son of a Seventh Son for the first time, my jaws dropped and it was immediately obvious to me that I had just heard a masterpiece (and the best heavy metal album of all time, in my humble opinion). I am not implying that their post-reunion work are hidden masterpieces—none of them are, although I have to admit that A Matter of Life and Death has something special going for it—but rather that it often isn’t that clear cut as you argue by categorically dismissing their post-reunion work as banal.

“The Book of Souls” is particularly interesting to reflect on, as it is not quite a pure Iron Maiden album in that it contains quite a few songs that pay a tribute to many other great bands and even Maiden’s own past itself. “If Eternity Should Fail” and “The Book of Souls” are references to Powerslave (and so are the even more obvious visual references to pyramids in the album artwork). “Where the River Runs Deep” is a nod to Guns’n’Roses (Bruce’s half step melodies in the verses and the guitar riff that sounds like the intro to “Welcome to the Jungle”, for example). “Shadows of a Valley” has guitar work that sounds like a nod to, or an improved version 2.0 of, “Don’t Look to the Eyes of a Stranger” and the whole Virtual XI album. That song could easily have been a left-over from the Blaze Bailey era. “Man of Sorrows” is, as before mentioned, an homage to Deep Purple. And lastly, “Speed of Light” is an homage to Thin Lizzy and Zeppelin-style classic rock in general.

I don’t think songs like Phantom of the Opera, Hallowed Be Thy Name, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Alexander the Great, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, Sign of the Cross, Paschendale, and Empire of the Clouds are boring. Most Maiden fans I believe look forward to listening to the epics on a new album. Song difficulty aside, the epics are interesting and take the listener on an enjoyable ride. Not all are great, but for the most part they deliver. It’s alright to prefer the straightforward chorus anthem songs. But those songs are balanced with the epics.

I agree, the old epics were great. But it was ony one of them per album, and they had really worked on the song. What i meant is the new ones. From x-factor and on. Angel and the gambler, the whole a matter of life and death, empire of the clouds and a ton of other songs are just boring. They have the same amount of riffs as say 2 minutes or aces high, only stretched and uses over and over again. All played in E-C-D. Maybe i’m geting old, but there’s not much energy and creativity left in the band. I would much rather have 6-8 really good tunes per album, they had really worked on, than 80 minutes of sleeping pills. Skip the intros, the bass solos, tune down halv a step and do something fresh. If eternity should fail was the only bright spot on the new album, a song not even ment for Iron Maiden. In my opinion, both Bruce and Adrian did their best work on accident of birth and chemical wedding. Far greater than anything maiden had come up with in 30 years, in every single aspect.

The “newer” epics are not as good, with the exception of Paschendale and Sign of the Cross. However I love A Matter of Life and Death the album as a whole. I find it dark, yet uplifting, and heavy sounding. I don’t know anything about music theory or chord progressions. Just a fan who enjoys the songs on a basic level. Adrian Smith is the member that gets overlooked and his departure in 1989 was noticed in subsequent releases.

Funny how a review comment section for a Blaze album evolved into a lament about the post-88 state of affairs for Iron Maiden en bloc.

Seems that most of the funs, knowingly or not, recognize this album as part of a (declining) process.

And as I may tend to agree about the album in terms of “objective reviewing”, I cannot help but drift pleasantly in the nostalgia of buying the CD the day it came to my hometown (a spot somewhere on planet earth) and push it in the CD player after staring at the weird cover (what was all that obsession with football? and that video game?) and being blown to pieces by “Futureal”. Yes I know the album was weird and boring and I felt that even after that time, but it gave me the opportunity to see them live for the first time (and “Sign of the Cross” live was beyond epic)… Years gone by, I have rarely played the album, but I strongly believe the X-Factor is a serious, foreboding, dark affair that beneath the bleak sound hides some of the most mature songs Maiden did after “Seventh son”, if flawed. “2 AM” will always bear harrowing truth as the years go by and we all age — and yes, I do not care at all for anything post-Brave New World , endless tracks going nowhere whereas a single three minute blow from Killers makes everything right again.

But in the bottomline, I strongly suspect that we meet and exchange ideas here as much for this (or any other) album … or as much as our own sense of growing up — and afar (?) from these memories…?

“And the wedding guest’s a sad and wiser man….”

One of the worst things about this album is the repetitions. “The angel and the gambler” is the most obvious example, since Blaze is repeating the phrase: “Don’t you think I’m a savior? Don’t you think I could save you? Don’t you think I could save your life?” – for a ridiculous amount of time. So many times that I cannot understand how they decided to go with it. This pattern is also showing at the end of song “Don´t look to the eyes of a stranger”. “Don’t look to, don’t look to Don’t look to the eyes of a stranger Don’t look to, don’t look to Don’t look to the eyes of a stranger Don’t look to, don’t look to Don’t look to the eyes of a stranger…….” (repeat x 150)

It’s just lazy songwriting really. When I re-listended this album recently, I just bursted into laughing.

Futureal and The Clansman is the only two songs that makes this album worth your time.

I have spent the good part of a year getting back into Iron Maiden after not listening to the band since maybe like 2016, listening to every album. Some albums actually got much better with the recent listen like the first album, Killers and A Matter of Life and Death. The Blaze Bayley albums on the other hand got much worse.

I don’t remember the production being so bad. I remember noticing a drop in quality when it came to the mixing when i went from a pre X Factor album to the X Factor, but damn, the production is terrible. Very thin guitars and really loud drums. Virtual XI is somehow worse, with the reverse (guitars being too loud and the drums barely audible).

At the very least X Factor has some solid song writing (even if i think people overrate it too much), Virtual XI doesn’t even have that. It has some decent song writing here and there, but overall it’s really embarrassing.

Of course i’m not gonna give anyone shit for liking these albums, but i’m gonna question calling them underrated. In my point of view, they got the reception they deserve. Just the sheer drop in quality from Seventh Son to Virtual XI, Maiden in 10 years went from making their best album to their worst.

It’s good to hear that someone agrees with me on this: The notion that the Blaze albums are underrated becomes a logical fallacy the more it is repeated.

I believe you meant underrated as a logical fallacy for the Blaze Bayley albums. Which i agree completely.

There’s maybe a decent album if you combine the best songs from both albums and that maybe would have been actually worth defending. But since they’re separate albums and that means having all the bad songs in them, i don’t get the point of defending them.

Right. Fixed it.

Even if you think the Blaze albums were bad at least they were interesting. Since 2000 we’ve have “chug chug chug, galloping bassline, 10 minute song about war, chug chug chug, another song about war, galloping bassline, oh, another 10 minute song about war”.

Creatively they’ve stagnated worse than they did in the early 90s.

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The Virtual XI Tour

(Abril 1998 a Diciembre 1998)

“To promote an album and play some football, it’s the ultimate for me”: The bizarre story of the time Iron Maiden became a football team

In 1998, Iron Maiden tried to promote Virtual XI by putting on football games with journalists and professional players. It was all a bit weird.

It’s fair to say that the 90s weren’t the best decade for Iron Maiden . After the British metal heavyweights lost iconic vocalist Bruce Dickinson in 1993, his replacement Blaze Bayley ’s first album, 1995’s The X Factor, got a lukewarm reception from fans and critics. So, in late 1997, when Maiden returned to the studio to record their 11th LP, they hoped it would be the record that steered the ship back in the right direction.

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. Virtual XI often tangles with No Prayer For The Dying at the bottom of “Iron Maiden albums ranked” lists – and, looking back, the entire idea behind it does a pretty good job of highlighting what went wrong. The band pushed for the more thematic concepts of bygone opuses like Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son , but confusingly tried to tether the disparate worlds of VR and football.

“Here on the front cover, you’ve got a kid playing a virtual reality football game,” bassist Steve Harris explained at the time. “But [immortal Maiden mascot] Eddie is reaching around behind him, but because he’s playing the game, he doesn’t know what’s going on.”

Harris was famously on the books of his beloved West Ham United as a youngster, before giving it up to become one of the most famous figures in heavy metal. He still retains a love for the game though, and with the album’s release coinciding with the 1998 World Cup in France, Maiden decided to give Virtual XI an extra twist.

“We figure our fans are pretty much the same as we are, with pretty much the same interests,” Harris is quoted as saying in Mick Wall’s 2004 Maiden biography Run To The Hills . “So we thought, ‘It’s World Cup year in ’98. Let’s get the football involved in the new album.’ And we were already working on a computer game at that time [1999’s Ed Hunter ], so we thought, ‘Well, let’s bring that element into things, too.’”

Beyond Virtual XI ’s cover, Maiden achieved this crossover in the CD’s sleeve booklet. They included a picture of the band all kitted up alongside some of the biggest footballers of the era: clown prince of 90s football Paul Gascoigne, England hardman Stuart Pearce, French midfielder Patrick Viera, flying Dutch winger Marc Overmars, Columbian forward Faustino Asprilla and arch poacher Ian Wright. Quite the team.

“They’re all world class international players… and we’re not basically,” laughed Harris.

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Quite what any of this actually had to do with the album, it’s hard to say. But, it didn’t stop Maiden from deciding that they were going to do a whistlestop tour across Europe promoting the album – not by playing songs, but by having a kickabout with various invited journalists and industry folk. Dates were announced – starting at Steve Harris's Essex manor house on March 8, 1998 – where Maiden's team was augmented by Terry Butcher and fellow England international Neil Webb – with games in Paris, Stockholm, Madrid and Milan in the aftermath. The band was clearly taking it seriously, going as far as to create a trophy for the winners of each game.

“We’ve had a lot of fun with this album,” Harris grinned at the time. “Basically it’s my favourite things. To be able to go out and do promotion on this album and play some football games, it’s the ultimate for me.”

“We keep telling people we’re going to go out on the piazza, play a game and have a party afterwards,” added guitarist Janick Gers. “People can’t believe it, they think it’s a great idea, it ties in really nicely with the World Cup coming up.”

It seemed too good to be true, the implication being that the world-class lineup you saw on the inlay of the Virtual XI album were going to be heading off on tour with one of the world’s biggest metal bands. But… right in the middle of the season? Surely Arsene Wenger would have something to say about all of this!

Obviously, many of the dream side Maiden put together in the artwork were too busy preparing to win Premier League titles and World Cups that year, and none pictured played with Maiden in the games. Still, the band did manage to attract a few notable former players to join them.

“We’ll have a couple of ex-pros playing, people like Terry Butcher and Paul Mariner, who are actually big fans of the band,” said Harris. “Terry Butcher used to come and see us when he was at Ipswich and then when he moved to Glasgow Rangers he always came to the shows. They were really pleased to be asked, we think we’re not worthy, but they actually feel the same way. So, it’s nice.”

Evidence of the games themselves is thin on the ground. There are a couple of news clips from the game in Madrid, where a bunch of Maiden fans seem more interested in doing a Mexican wave and getting autographs from the band. There was also a match at a depressingly small indoor sports hall in Stockholm, where a tiny handful of metal fans headbang to Maiden’s latest whilst they kick off against a team including former Swedish internationals Anders Limpar and Glenn Hysen. The Maiden team’s only defeat of the tour was in front of a couple thousand fans at the 120,000-capacity Stadium Of Light in Lisbon.

Ultimately, much like the Virtual XI album itself, it was all a bit confusing and a little underwhelming. 

Still, if you are looking to collect a very niche piece of Maiden memorabilia, the official Iron Maiden Football Challenge 1998 trophy for the game in Essex on March 8 is available for purchase on Ebay for £625 . At time of writing, it has zero bidders. 

The good news is that all of this worked out OK in the long term. A mere two years after the odd football experiment, Dickinson returned, his comeback album Brave New World reintegrating Maiden’s more majestic side. Meanwhile, Bayley was able to embark on a prolific solo career and, nowadays, is more respected as a talented singer who held the fort during the band’s darkest days. Virtual XI still isn’t great but, like the Iron Maiden football team during their 1998 games, you can’t win them all.

Since blagging his way onto the Hammer team a decade ago, Stephen has written countless features and reviews for the magazine, usually specialising in punk, hardcore and 90s metal, and still holds out the faint hope of one day getting his beloved U2 into the pages of the mag. He also regularly spouts his opinions on the Metal Hammer Podcast.

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• A Real Live Tour  ( 45 )
• Brave New World  ( 86 )
• Dance of Death  ( 48 )
• Eddie Rips Up the World  ( 45 )
• Fear of the Dark  ( 67 )
• Give Me Ed... 'til I'm Dead  ( 55 )
• Iron Maiden Tour 1980  ( 128 )
• Killer World Tour  ( 128 )
• Legacy of the Beast  ( 139 )
• Maiden England  ( 100 )
• Metal for Muthas  ( 26 )
• No Prayer on the Road  ( 108 )
• Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour  ( 96 )
• Somewhere Back in Time  ( 90 )
• Somewhere On Tour  ( 153 )
• The Beast on the Road  ( 185 )
• The Book of Souls World Tour  ( 117 )
• The Ed Hunter Tour  ( 28 )
• The Final Frontier World Tour  ( 99 )
• The Future Past  ( 37 )
• The X Factour  ( 129 )
• Virtual XI World Tour  ( 87 )
• World Piece  ( 138 )
• World Slavery Tour  ( 188 )
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• Concert Map

Songs played by tour: Virtual XI World Tour

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Virtual XI World Tour

The Virtual XI Tour was a concert tour by the heavy metal band Iron Maiden from 22 April 1998 to 12 December 1998. As with their previous tour, several of the band's U.S. shows had to be cancelled after vocalist Blaze Bayley had issues with his voice, [1] this time reportedly from an allergic reaction to pollen and dust while the group were in Nevada and Arizona. [2] The band later made up the Los Angeles and San Diego dates. This would be Iron Maiden's last tour with Bayley as then former vocalist Bruce Dickinson would return to the group the following year. [3]

Following the more basic stage sets that they had been using following 1988's Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour , the band returned to a more elaborate stage set in 1998. [4] The tour also saw the group make their first visits to Turkey and Malta. [5]

• 1 Tour dates
• 3 External links
• 4 References
• Dance Of The Knights," theme from Romeo And Juliet, served as the intro.
• " Futureal " (from Virtual XI , 1998)
• " The Angel and the Gambler " (from Virtual XI , 1998)
• " Man on the Edge " (from The X Factor , 1995)
• "Lightning Strikes Twice" (from Virtual XI , 1998)
• "Heaven Can Wait" (from Somewhere in Time , 1986)
• "The Clansman" (from Virtual XI , 1998)
• "When Two Worlds Collide" (from Virtual XI , 1998)
• " Lord of the Flies " (from The X Factor , 1995)
• " 2 Minutes to Midnight " (from Powerslave , 1984)
• "The Educated Fool" (from Virtual XI , 1998)
• "Sign of the Cross" (from The X Factor , 1995)
• " Hallowed Be Thy Name " (from The Number of the Beast , 1982)
• "Afraid to Shoot Strangers" (from Fear of the Dark , 1992)
• "The Evil That Men Do" (from Seventh Son of a Seventh Son , 1988)
• " The Clairvoyant " (from Seventh Son of a Seventh Son , 1988)
• " Fear of the Dark " (from Fear of the Dark , 1992)
• "Iron Maiden" (from Iron Maiden , 1980)
• " The Number of the Beast " (from The Number of the Beast , 1982)
• " The Trooper " (from Piece of Mind , 1983)
• " Sanctuary " (from Iron Maiden , 1980)
• "Murders in the Rue Morgue" (from Killers , 1981) , "Fortunes of War" (from The X Factor , 1995) and "Don't Look to the Eyes of a Stranger" (from Virtual XI , 1998) were played at select venues.
• This was Iron Maiden's last tour to feature "Fortunes of War" or any Virtual XI songs aside from "Futureal" & "The Clansman" in the setlists.

External links

• Official website
• Virtual XI World Tour Dates
• ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

fi:Virtual XI#Maailmankiertue

• Pages with broken file links
• Commons category link is locally defined
• Iron Maiden concert tours
• 1998 concert tours
• Pages with script errors

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Xi’s visit exposes fault lines in European unity

Subscribe to the china bulletin, tara varma tara varma visiting fellow - foreign policy , center on the united states and europe @tara_varma.

May 8, 2024

French President Emmanuel Macron’s ambition to transform his country’s relationship with China isn’t new. Macron’s first visit to China dates to 2018 , mere months after he was elected president. He then vowed to come back at least once a year to cement Franco-Chinese ties. The following year, he hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in Paris , alongside Angela Merkel, then Germany’s chancellor, and Jean-Claude Juncker, then the president of the European Commission.

Xi’s 2019 visit came right after the European Commission published its new EU-China strategy , which formalized the triptych systemic rival-competitor-partner relationship, as it would come to be characterized. Even back then, Macron wanted to give Xi’s visit to France a European flavor. He reiterated the same willingness when he visited China in 2023 with Ursula von der Leyen, the current president of the European Commission. Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic had occurred in the meantime, precipitating Europe’s reckoning with its dependencies on China, and the subsequent weaponization of those dependencies by Beijing.

Macron’s visit to China last year made waves when he told reporters that Europe must resist pressure to become America’s vassal, giving the impression that Europe was caught between America and China. This modus operandi is characteristic of Macron, who is adept at pushing sensitive buttons and sometimes too eager to have difficult conversations. His trip last year happened not only after COVID-19, but also while Russia, a very close partner to China, was—and still is—waging war against Ukraine. Before his trip, Macron asserted that he wanted to convince Xi to get Putin to back down. That was to no avail.

Xi’s visit and Macron’s goals

This is Xi’s first trip to Europe in five years . Macron’s charm offensive during Xi’s visit to Paris (which is Xi’s first stop before Serbia and Hungary) is characteristic of the French leader in that it aims to achieve at least two separate goals. One is to convince Xi to end, or decrease, his support for Putin in Russia’s war against Ukraine, and notably not to provide Russia with key military materiel. The second is a corollary to the first: to form a closer personal relationship with Xi. To advance this goal, Macron took Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, to the southwest of France to visit the home of Macron’s late grandmother, whom he was very close to. Macron occasionally resorts to such shows of personal contact, like when he hosted Putin at the Fort of Brégançon in 2019. France and China are also celebrating the 60th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relations.

Xi’s visit to Paris came at a time when the war in Ukraine has increasingly become a meat grinder, as Putin relentlessly attacks Ukraine’s infrastructure and civilian population. As Ukraine only recently revealed that it foiled a Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, time is of the essence.

Macron invited von der Leyen once again to the Xi meeting in Paris. They discussed international crises, particularly the war in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East, as well as trade and people-to-people contacts. Other topics included common action on addressing global issues, such as climate change, protecting biodiversity, and alleviating poor countries’ financial burdens. The situation in the Middle East warranted a separate bilateral communiqué , in which both France and China called for a cease-fire in Gaza, among other issues.

Having von der Leyen at the table was key to sending a common European message, especially as she is known to be tougher on trade issues, having initiated the European Commission’s first economic security strategy last year—which was professedly country-agnostic but quite clearly directed at China. Notwithstanding Von der Leyen’s presence, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s absence was notable. Scholz visited China twice in the past two years and rebuffed Macron’s proposition to join him on these visits, similar to how he turned down Macron’s invitation to participate in the meeting with Xi and von der Leyen in Paris this week. Macron and Scholz did, however, meet on May 2 in Paris to prepare for Xi’s visit. These mixed messages seem to undermine impressions of European unity.

Deliverables and what comes next

For Xi, the visit has domestic importance, as he wants to demonstrate to the Chinese public that he is still fêted in Europe. Xi also sought to encourage Macron’s ambition for European strategic autonomy, an element that was already present in Macron’s visit to China last year. Xi’s interpretation of strategic autonomy is one where Europe turns away from the United States and moves toward other partners, particularly China. But this is not France’s or Europe’s interpretation. Europeans’ vision of strategic autonomy intends for Europe to build greater capacity and the ability to act, from a political, economic, and security and defense standpoint, to reinforce the trans-Atlantic link with Washington. By contrast, Xi’s goal is to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe and to show that there are limits to trans-Atlantic unity on China.

For Macron, the return on investment of his charm offensive might be even lower than expected , whether on trade or foreign policy. Macron doesn’t want to give up on convincing Xi to do less with Putin, but there is no indication that Xi will do so. The rest of Xi’s European tour suggests no inclination to such compromise, nor any larger willingness to curtail Russia’s action.

Indeed, Xi has now moved from France to Serbia , where he will mark the 25th anniversary of NATO’s bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. From there, Xi will travel to Hungary, where Viktor Orbán will host him in pomp, and contribute to undermining European unity on China, particularly as Orbán seeks to entice Chinese electric vehicle manufacturing.

Maintaining European unity on China is key, but Macron and von der Leyen can’t do it alone. One may fear that what remains of Xi’s Europe trip will be the Chinese president’s capacity to divide and conquer.

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Xi Jinping begins first European tour in five years in France

Chinese President Xi Jinping is on his first trip to Europe in five years, which is likely to be dominated by Russia’s war in Ukraine as well as economic strains between Beijing and Brussels.

The first stop will be France, with Xi due to hold talks in Paris on May 6 with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, before travelling south to the Pyrenees.

After that, he will travel to Serbia and Hungary, two countries that have maintained close ties with Russia despite its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

According to Matt Geracim, the assistant director of the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, the Chinese president is travelling to Europe with three goals: “repairing relations in Europe damaged by China’s support for Russia’s war on Ukraine, blunting the EU’s economic security agenda vis-a-vis China, and showcasing Beijing’s strong ties with its stalwart partners Serbia and Hungary.”

Here is all you need to know about Xi’s European tour, which continues until Friday.

The big picture

Beijing and Paris are marking 60 years since diplomatic relations were established, with France the first Western country to formally recognise the People’s Republic of China on January 27, 2024.

But the trip also comes amid a deteriorating global security climate, with the war in Ukraine now into its third year and at least 34,683 Palestinians killed in Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza.

France has said those two conflicts, particularly Ukraine where Beijing has professed neutrality but not condemned Moscow for its full-scale invasion, will feature prominently in the talks.

“Exchanges will focus on international crises, first and foremost the war in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East,” the Elysee Palace said in a statement ahead of the visit last week.

Macron has recently emerged as one of the most hawkish of the EU leaders on the continent’s security, and he will be urging Xi to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine. In an interview with the Economist newspaper published last week, the French president argued the war was existential for Europe.

“If Russia wins in Ukraine there will be no security in Europe,” he said. “Who can pretend that Russia will stop there?” What security would there be, he asked, for neighbouring countries: Moldova, Romania, Poland, Lithuania and others?

To underline the unity of the European position, von der Leyen will also join Monday’s discussions, which are due to get under way just after 11am (09:00 GMT).

As well as the Ukraine war, Europe is also concerned about Chinese business practices and has initiated an investigation into China’s subsidies for electric vehicle manufacturers, amid concerns such payments are undermining competition and harming European companies.

Macron told the Economist that he would also convey to Xi why Europe needs to safeguard its own manufacturers and industries.

Ahead of Xi’s departure last week, Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that Beijing was ready to “work with France and the EU to take this meeting as an opportunity to make the China-EU relations more strategic, stable, constructive and mutually beneficial, promote steady and sustained progress in China-EU relations, and contribute to the prosperity of both China and Europe and a peaceful world.”

Following Monday’s summit, Marcon and his wife, Brigitte, will host Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, to a state banquet.

On Tuesday, Macron will take the Chinese leader to the Pyrenees mountains, where he made regular trips to see his grandmother as a child. The two couples are also expected to take a cable car up to the summit of the 2,877-metre (9,439 ft) Pic du Midi, a dark sky reserve.

After wrapping his trip in France, Xi will head to Serbia where he will arrive in Belgrade on the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the Chinese Embassy for talks with President Aleksandar Vucic. Three people were killed when Washington said it accidentally struck the compound during the NATO air campaign against Serb forces occupying Kosovo, in an event that triggered outrage and protests in China.

China has since emerged as the biggest single source of investment in Serbia, which is not a member of the EU, and prior to the trip Lin, the MOFA spokesperson, referred to the two countries’ ties as “ironclad”.

“The bombing remains a significant topic for Chinese officials, who use it to support narratives that question the values of liberal democracies,” Stefan Vladisavljev, programme director at Foundation BFPE for a Responsible Society wrote in an online analysis. “For Serbia, the visit presents an opportunity to strengthen its position as China’s main partner in the Western Balkans.”

Xi will then travel on May 8 to Budapest, the final stop on his European tour.

There he will meet Hungarian President Viktor Orban, the most Russia-friendly leader in the EU.

Hungary, whose policies have raised concern among other EU members, has become more closely aligned with Beijing and Moscow and recently signed a security cooperation agreement with China that allows Chinese police officers to work in areas where there are large populations of ethnic Chinese or which are popular with Chinese tourists, according to Zoltan Feher is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.

Reports on such Chinese police stations have raised alarm in other parts of Europe, particularly among exiles and dissidents.

Hungary is also part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which it joined in 2015, and the two men are likely to discuss the ongoing construction of the high-speed rail between Budapest and Belgrade.

Ukraine war

Macron has spoken increasingly about the need to develop Europe’s own security architecture rather than rely on NATO and the US.

He has even suggested that France would be willing to send its troops to Ukraine, if Russia broke through the front lines and Kyiv asked for assistance.

China has long maintained it is neutral in the war, but Beijing and Moscow have deepened their ties since the full-scale invasion began, and Putin is expected to visit China this month.

Macron will be hoping to persuade Xi of the need for China to get more closely involved in efforts to secure peace as Switzerland organises a peace conference next month to discuss a 10-point plan put forward by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the end of 2022.

The Swiss say they have already invited more than 160 delegations, but it is not clear whether Beijing, which has also put forward a proposal for peace talks and deployed its own envoy in the region, will attend.

Russia has repeatedly dismissed the process, and insists a precursor for negotiations is that Kyiv give up the 20 percent of its territory that Russia currently occupies.

“We must continue to engage China, which is objectively the international player with the greatest leverage to change Moscow’s mind,” the French newspaper Le Monde quoted an unnamed diplomatic source as saying.

Human rights

Chinese state media have been reporting breathlessly on Xi’s arrival in Paris; the streets decorated with Chinese and French flags and groups of Chinese nationals welcoming their president.

But campaigners for Tibet and Xinjiang, where the United Nations says China may have committed crimes against humanity in holding some 1 million ethnic Uighur Muslims in re-education camps, were also out on the streets of the capital.

The EU imposed targeted sanctions on certain Chinese officials and companies over Xinjiang in March 2021, prompting anger in Beijing.

Human Rights Watch says while the French president did not raise the issue publicly on his visit to China last year, he should do so while Xi is in Paris and call for the release of those arbitrarily detained or imprisoned including Ilham Tohti, an Uighur economist who was awarded the Sakharov Prize, Europe’s most prominent human rights award in 2019.

The human rights organisation said Macron should also raise the issue of Tibet, where some 1 million Tibetan children are being placed in boarding schools and separated from their language and culture, and Hong Kong, once the most free territory in China but now subject to two draconian security laws.

“President Macron should make it clear to Xi Jinping that Beijing’s crimes against humanity come with consequences for China’s relations with France,” Maya Wang, the acting China director at Human Rights Watch said in a statement. “France’s silence and inaction on human rights would only embolden the Chinese government’s sense of impunity for its abuses, further fuelling repression at home and abroad.”

On April 30, Macron was pictured at the Elysee Palace with Penpa Tsering, the president of the Tibetan government-in-exile, on the sidelines of a ceremony to honour former Senator Andre Gattolin, a longtime supporter Tibet, who was awarded the Legion d’Honneur.

Penpa Tsering presented the French president with a signed photo of his 2016 meeting with the Dalai Lama and “urged him not to forget Tibet”, according to a report the Central Tibetan Administration.

“We understand that the agenda between the two presidents will be dense given the many international crises such as in Ukraine and in the Middle East, but this must not be done at the expense of exchanges on human rights, which are in a deplorable state throughout the country as well as in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet, where a latent conflict has been going on for over 60 years and poses a threat to regional and international security,” Vincent Metten, the EU policy director for the International Campaign for Tibet said in a statement.

In Freedom House’s 2024 report on Freedom in the World, Tibet’s overall score was zero out of 100; the lowest in at least eight years.

Maryse Artiguelong, the vice president of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), said: “The conflict in Ukraine highlights the threat posed to international order and security by authoritarian regimes such as Russia and the People’s Republic of China. Their aggressive foreign policies and repressive domestic policies are inextricably linked: Anyone who does not oppose China’s human rights violations risks one day facing its aggressive foreign policy.”

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Hungary rolls out red carpet for Xi in final leg of European tour

Warm welcome for Chinese president contrasts with rest of EU, with up to 18 cooperation agreements expected

Hungary has rolled out the red carpet for Xi Jinping in a show of warmth that contrasts with wariness in the rest of the EU about China’s stance on trade, global politics and human rights.

On the third and final stop of his first European tour in five years, Xi was given a ceremonial welcome by Hungary’s president, Tamás Sulyok, at Buda Castle, in Budapest, before talks with Viktor Orbán. The Hungarian prime minister, the EU’s longest-serving leader, has sought to deepen ties with Beijing and blocked EU motions criticising China’s human rights abuses.

After that meeting, the Chinese state media agency Xinhua reported that China and Hungary had decided to elevate their ties to “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership in the new era”. China has used a similar formula to describe its relations with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Venezuela.

Orbán said the two countries were going to expand their cooperation in “the full spectrum” of the nuclear industry. In a major departure from the European mainstream, the Hungarian prime minister said he supported China’s “peace plan” for Ukraine. Western leaders have criticised the 12-point plan , published in 2023, because it does not call on Russia to withdraw its forces or return territory.

Xi arrived in Hungary late on Wednesday, after stops in Serbia and France , and was met at the airport by Orbán. “Welcome to Hungary, President Xi,” Orbán posted on X with a picture of the two men shaking hands and smiling warmly.

Orbán’s political director, Balázs Orbán – no relation – told local media that Xi’s visit was “confirmation of the effectiveness of Hungary’s connectivity strategy”. In an article for Euronews, he wrote that “Europe must also recognise that the evolving geopolitical environment requires a strategy of prudent connectivity” and he hoped “cooler heads will soon have a chance to prevail”.

The EU in 2019 declared China “a systemic rival” and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said last year that Europe needed to “de-risk” its relations with Beijing , meaning, in part, cutting dependency on Chinese supply chains.

Hungary, which is marking 75 years of diplomatic relations with Beijing, has distanced itself from the EU strategy.

The central European country has received billions in Chinese investment and hosts Huawei’s largest base outside China. The Chinese carmaker BYD will soon open a factory for electric vehicles in Szeged, southern Hungary, its first production line for battery powered cars in Europe , creating a significant challenge for European companies in the heart of the EU.

In comments carried on China’s state news agency, Xinhua, Xi said the Chinese-Hungary relationship was “now at its best in history”.

“The two sides should adhere to win-win cooperation, expand cooperation in various fields within the framework of the belt and road cooperation, and synergise their respective development strategies,” Xi said.

Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, has said 16-18 cooperation agreements would be signed during Xi’s visit, one of which could be a large-scale infrastructure scheme within China’s vast belt and road project.

Meanwhile, a Hungarian lawmaker with the opposition Momentum party told Associated Press that he and a colleague had been approached by a group of men on Wednesday as they attempted to place EU flags on a Budapest bridge. Márton Tompos said the men, all wearing red baseball caps, confronted him to make sure no flags or symbols referencing Tibet or Taiwan, claimed by China, would be hung on the route of Xi’s motorcade.

The visit to Hungary follows a similarly friendly welcome in Serbia, where President Aleksandar Vučić told Xi that “Taiwan is China”. Serbia has long backed China’s claim to the self-governing island and has Beijing’s support for its claim to Kosovo.

In France, von der Leyen warned Xi that Europe would not hesitate to protect its industries from China’s state-subsidised electric cars, steel, solar and wind technology. The European Commission has been promoting an alternative to the belt and road , the global gateway, to fund infrastructure projects worldwide.

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Aiming for Rosier Ties, Xi Wraps Up Europe Visit

The red carpet receptions China’s leader received in France, Serbia and Hungary helped recast a strained relationship with the continent.

By Andrew Higgins and Chris Buckley

Andrew Higgins reported from Warsaw and Chris Buckley from Taipei, Taiwan.

The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, received a gift of fine cognac at the Élysée Palace in Paris and was cheered in Belgrade by Serbians waving Chinese flags, albeit most of them were bused-in government workers.

And by the time he left Hungary on Friday at the end of a six-day European tour, the clouds over his country’s relations with the West looked much less dark, at least from China’s perspective.

Mr. Xi told President Emmanuel Macron of France that relations would be “as vibrant and thriving as springtime.” At his next stop, he said the “tree of China-Serbia friendship will grow tall and sturdy.” In Hungary, Mr. Xi told Prime Minister Viktor Orban that their countries were poised to “embark on a golden voyage.”

The Chinese state-run news media, never less than glowing about Mr. Xi, went to strenuous lengths to present his European meetings as a triumph.

There were no breakthroughs on trade, the war in Ukraine or other issues that have soured ties — just a long list of new joint projects that China says it will help finance. Hungary got 18, Serbia dozens more. French companies inked deals on energy, finance and transport projects.

But the red carpet receptions Mr. Xi received in all three countries helped cast a rosier hue on ties between China and Europe, which have only worsened since he last visited five years ago.

China’s rigid restrictions on travel for much of the Covid-19 pandemic deterred high-level visits in either direction. And just as the Covid crisis began to fade, Europe’s estrangement from China deepened when President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia launched his full invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.

This week, after first stopping in Paris, Mr. Xi traveled to Serbia and Hungary, which have remained reliably pro-China on a continent where, according to opinion polls, China’s reputation has taken a nosedive.

In Serbia, President Aleksandar Vucic declared that his country felt only “reverence and love” for the Chinese president, and the police detained followers of the banned Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong to make sure they wouldn’t disrupt the government-orchestrated welcome for Mr. Xi.

In Hungary, Mr. Orban assured Mr. Xi, the leader of the world’s biggest communist country, that he would “feel at home” in Budapest , though the city is studded with monuments to the fight against communism. The police banned a protest planned for the center of Budapest and cleared a busy district of people so Mr. Xi could visit an office tower undisturbed on Friday.

Mr. Xi’s goal on his European tour was to “demonstrate and strengthen China’s ability to retain friendly ties with Europe despite NATO and Ukraine,” said Yun Sun , the director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington. France, Serbia and Hungary, she added, are “about the most China-friendly countries” in Europe.

And though it is only about the size of Indiana and has fewer than 10 million people, Hungary will play an outsize role when it takes over the European Union’s rotating presidency this year. That role is mostly bureaucratic, but it will allow Hungary to try to set the agenda for meetings of the Council of the European Union, the bloc’s dominant power center.

“Hungary is China’s Trojan horse in the European Union,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a China expert at the Asia Center, a research group in Paris. Mr. Xi, he added, did not achieve much during his stop in France, but he “helped China’s position” by cementing his country’s ties to Serbia and Hungary.

In an interview with Magyar Nemzet, a Hungarian news media outlet controlled by Mr. Orban’s governing Fidesz party, Mr. Xi expressed hope that Hungary would “take the lead” in “maintaining the correct direction of E.U.-China relations.”

Noah Barkin , a senior adviser with the Rhodium Group who studies European-Chinese relations, said China would be wrong to hope that Mr. Orban can use Hungary’s council presidency, which lasts only six months, to shift European policy significantly. “The idea that Hungary will be able to do China’s bidding during its presidency is fanciful,” he said.

But Mr. Orban has a long history of swimming against the tide set by more powerful European countries. He was the only E.U. leader to travel to Beijing in October for a gathering celebrating Mr. Xi’s pet foreign policy initiative, the Belt and Road infrastructure program. He was also the only leader who blocked a statement the European Union had planned to issue in 2021 criticizing China over its crackdown in Hong Kong.

China and Hungary are “natural allies” because they share a commitment to pursuing their own national interests no matter what anyone else says, a pro-government Hungarian commentator, Levente Sitkei, told Magyar Nemzet .

“China makes alliances that it thinks useful and will never, in any forum, care about how others think,” Mr. Sitkei said. “Hungary acts in exactly the same way.”

Even before Mr. Xi’s trip, China had been making some progress on restoring influence in Europe. Olaf Scholz, the chancellor of Germany, flew to Beijing last month and softened his warnings on trade tensions by emphasizing his country’s commitment to doing business with China.

Some in Beijing seem confident that China will succeed in coaxing European governments away from alignment with Washington.

“Even if European politicians often put on a big show of shaking their fists at China, in their hearts they well know that Europe cannot do without the contribution from economic cooperation with China,” Wang Wen , a researcher at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University in Beijing, told Guancha, a Chinese news website , this week. “More and more Europeans are waking up to the fact that after losing Russia, they cannot now lose China.”

Many in Europe, however, remain deeply wary of Mr. Xi’s partnership with Mr. Putin — a relationship that will be back in the spotlight when Mr. Putin visits China in the coming weeks. A rash of recent arrests in Britain and Germany of people accused of spying for China has also raised anxieties.

And even on trade, which Mr. Xi highlighted as the lifeblood of cooperation, tensions are rising over a surge of Chinese-made electric vehicles and other products.

In September, the European Commission announced an investigation into Chinese state subsidies for electric vehicle makers. The European Union also opened inquiries last month into Chinese wind turbine and solar panel manufacturers , alleging that they benefited from unfair subsidies.

“Xi’s trip will not have reassured anyone who was hoping for signs that China is taking Europe’s concerns seriously,” Mr. Barkin said.

The final day of Mr. Xi’s stay in Hungary was strikingly uneventful for a leader whose usually full agenda has earned him the nickname chairman of everything. Mr. Orban gave Mr. Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, a tour of Budapest, Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, reported .

“The two leaders sat gazing out the window at clouds rolling by,” the Xinhua report said. “They spoke at ease about their experiences growing up and thoughts on governance, and they reached many points of consensus.”

Barnabas Heincz contributed reporting from Budapest, and David Pierson from Hong Kong.

Andrew Higgins is the East and Central Europe bureau chief for The Times based in Warsaw. He covers a region that stretches from the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to Kosovo, Serbia and other parts of former Yugoslavia. More about Andrew Higgins

Chris Buckley , the chief China correspondent for The Times, reports on China and Taiwan from Taipei, focused on politics, social change and security and military issues. More about Chris Buckley