Pawns & Kings Tour - Setlist Predictions

[maximzub]

I don't know if it's too early for this thread, but I've been starting to guess what they might play on the upcoming tour.

There are some songs they absolutely have to play, and then some deeper cuts that they might throw in based on previous tours, the acoustic setlist for the listening party, the fact that they're going for a heavier vibe this time around, the fan favorites from previous albums, and there's one guess based on the fact that Mark posted a picture of his new 7-string recently.

They played 29 original songs each on the AB III tour, the Fortress tour, and the Walk The Sky tour (this includes Buried Alive even though it wasn't played on the official tour, but rather on the Victorius Sky tour with Skillet). I'm gonna guess that they're going to go with that number of songs for the first few months and then bring out some more songs like they did on The Last Hero tour.

From One Day Remains:
Open Your Eyes
Burn It Down
Metalingus
Broken Wings
In Loving Memory

From Blackbird:
Come To Life
Before Tomorrow Comes
Rise Today
Blackbird
Watch Over You
White Knuckles

From AB III:
Isolation
Ghost Of Days Gone By

From Fortress:
Cry Of Achilles
Addicted To Pain
Lover
Waters Rising

From The Last Hero:
Show Me A Leader
Crows On A Wire

From Walk The Sky:
Wouldn't You Rather
Native Son

From Pawns & Kings:
This Is War
Dead Among The Living
Silver Tongue
Sin After Sin
Stay
Holiday
Fable Of The Silent Son
Pawns & Kings


And here's my guess for a possible setlist:

1. Silver Tongue
2. Addicted To Pain
3. Come To Life
4. Dead Among The Living
5. Ghost Of Days Gone By
6. Sin After Sin
7. Rise Today
8. Pawns & Kings
9. Cry Of Achilles
10. Waters Rising
11. Watch Over You (with Lzzy Hale for the European tour)
12. Isolation
13. Blackbird
14. This Is War
15. Metalingus
Encore:
16. Stay
17. Open Your Eyes

They most likely will rotate some deep cuts in (Broken Wings, Before Tomorrow Comes, White Knuckles, Lover, etc.), alternate Watch Over You with In Loving Memory (if the band is reading this, PLEASE play Watch Over You in Chicago), maybe switch up the Mark song (Burn It Down???), and rotate the new songs like they did on the Walk The Sky tour.

EDIT: This just in, there's a high possibility that Mark is in Open C#5 on Silver Tongue. In that case, it would make sense if Silver Tongue and Ghost Of Days Gone By were next to each other. Although, I can't see them playing Ghost Of Days Gone By second in the setlist, and Mark has said that he can see Silver Tongue as the opener.

[Dan Dando]

Pretty sure they started the Walk The Sky run with 4 new songs which were…

Wouldn’t You Rather
Pay No Mind
Take The Crown
In The Deep

Then over time they added the likes of Godspeed, Native Son, Forever Falling, Dying Light. So if they were to do something similar for the Pawns and Kings run, I imagine they’ll start with…

Silver Tongue
Pawns and Kings
This is War or Sin After Sin
Fable of the Silent Son

[Crumbso]

Pretty sure they started the Walk The Sky run with 4 new songs which were…

Wouldn’t You Rather
Pay No Mind
Take The Crown
In The Deep

Then over time they added the likes of Godspeed, Native Son, Forever Falling, Dying Light. So if they were to do something similar for the Pawns and Kings run, I imagine they’ll start with…

Silver Tongue
Pawns and Kings
This is War or Sin After Sin
Fable of the Silent Son

Like yourself I'm guessing singles + maybe Fable. Maybe we'll get one or two more deep cuts if they become popular. I'm hoping for Season of Promise of Last Man Standing based on the Mark harmonies.

[maximzub]

Pretty sure they started the Walk The Sky run with 4 new songs which were…

Wouldn’t You Rather
Pay No Mind
Take The Crown
In The Deep

Then over time they added the likes of Godspeed, Native Son, Forever Falling, Dying Light. So if they were to do something similar for the Pawns and Kings run, I imagine they’ll start with…

Silver Tongue
Pawns and Kings
This is War or Sin After Sin
Fable of the Silent Son

The actual Walk The Sky tour started with six songs (Wouldn't You Rather, In The Deep, Godspeed, Native Son, Take The Crown, and Dying Light). The Victorious Sky tour started before the album was released, so that's why they only played the four pre-release songs. Had they toured before Pawns & Kings was released, I would have expected them to only play the already released songs. Now that they have the whole album, I think they'll play 5 or 6 songs.

These are the new songs that were played at each tour opener:
Walk The Sky: Wouldn't You Rather, In The Deep, Godspeed, Native Son, Take The Crown, Dying Light (6)
The Last Hero: Show Me A Leader, The Writing On The Wall, The Other Side, My Champion, You Will Be Remembered, Crows On A Wire (6)
Fortress: Cry Of Achilles, Addicted To Pain, The Uninvited, Farther Than The Sun, Cry A River (5)
AB III: Slip To The Void, Isolation, Ghost Of Days Gone By, All Hope Is Gone, Still Remains, I Know It Hurts, Show Me A Sign (7)

So again, on average they opened the tour with 6 new songs. This further illustrates my point that they'll play 6 new songs at the first show. My guesses for those are This Is War, Dead Among The Living, Silver Tongue, Sin After Sin, Stay, and Pawns & Kings. Since Holiday is going to be a single, I can guess they'll add that one in soon. I can see Fable Of The Silent Son going the way of Fortress and This Side Of Fate, not being played until the second year of touring. Season Of Promise and Last Man Standing will most likely not be played as they feel the most filler-like on the album.

I apologize for my overanalytical brain, but I thought this might be an interesting topic to discuss on this board.

[Dan Dando]

I apologize for my overanalytical brain, but I thought this might be an interesting topic to discuss on this board.

No sweat

Here’s a challenge for you, Max. Try and think up a 17 song set-list (15 followed by a 2 song encore) that contains the full Pawns and Kings record. This would leave space for only 7 other songs from the AB catalogue. And whilst AB would never do a show like this in a million years, you still have to think of a realistic set-list. So for example, there are certain songs like Blackbird, Watch Over You etc that pretty much have to be included because they are mainstays. It’d be cool to see what you can come up with

[maximzub]

I apologize for my overanalytical brain, but I thought this might be an interesting topic to discuss on this board.

No sweat

Here’s a challenge for you, Max. Try and think up a 17 song set-list (15 followed by a 2 song encore) that contains the full Pawns and Kings record. This would leave space for only 7 other songs from the AB catalogue. And whilst AB would never do a show like this in a million years, you still have to think of a realistic set-list. So for example, there are certain songs like Blackbird, Watch Over You etc that pretty much have to be included because they are mainstays. It’d be cool to see what you can come up with

Challenge accepted.

I'm gonna time myself and not go back and edit what I type. So this is kinda representative of my actual thinking process.

What could be the mainstays? Here's a shortlist that will probably end up being longer than 7 songs.
Open Your Eyes
Metalingus
Come To Life
Rise Today
Blackbird
Watch Over You
Isolation
Ghost Of Days Gone By
Cry Of Achilles
Addicted To Pain

So we have 10 songs and we can only have 7. Okay, at the listening party for Walk The Sky, they had 7 songs not from Walk The Sky, 6 of which were on this list, and one of which was a deep cut (Buried Alive). I would assume that they're not going to go for a deep cut to fill out the time, so it's between Metalingus, Come To Life, Watch Over You, and Ghost Of Days Gone By. Although, I've noticed a strange pattern in some of their setlists. It seems like whenever they play at festivals, they never play Open Your Eyes. Strange considering that was their first single, but I guess they chose to axe that song whenever they're in a time crunch. I really don't know which two to choose of Open Your Eyes, Metalingus, and Watch Over You. For the sake of this challenge, I'm just going to choose the two that I prefer most, which are Open Your Eyes and Watch Over You.

So now let's talk about tunings. We have:
Open D5: Open Your Eyes
Drop C#: Rise Today, Blackbird (Mark is in Eb Standard), Addicted To Pain, Silver Tongue (Mark is in Open C#5), Sin After Sin, Stay (Mark might be in Open B5), Last Man Standing, Pawns & Kings
Eb Standard: Blackbird (Myles is in Drop C#), Cry Of Achilles
Open G: Watch Over You
Drop C: Isolation
Drop Bb: This Is War, Dead Among The Living, Holiday
Weird unidentifiable low G# tuning: Fable Of The Silent Son
Open D: Season Of Promise

With all of those out of the way, what's our opener, our main set closer, and our encore? As much as I liked Addicted To Pain as a closer, I would more expect to see Open Your Eyes as the closer. And since Godspeed was the last tour's encore opener, I can guess that Stay will be that for this tour. Mark said that he can see Silver Tongue as an opener, so I'm gonna start with that.

A common block of songs on The Last Hero tour was Watch Over You + Isolation + Blackbird, so I can see them keeping that up. They need a high energy after Silver Tongue that is in the same or similar tuning, so I'm gonna put Addicted To Pain there. After that they can do two of the Drop Bb songs (not all three to not sound monotonous by playing songs in the same key all in a row), so I'm gonna say Dead Among The Living and Holiday would be right there. They need a mellower song to break it up, so enter Sin After Sin + Rise Today. Throw Last Man Standing in after that. Change of pace as they do Cry Of Achilles, This Is War, and Fable Of The Silent Son. Here comes the Watch Over You + Isolation + Blackbird block. End the set strong with Pawns & Kings. The encore is Stay + Open Your Eyes. Did I miss any songs? Yes, it looks like I did. Season Of Promise can go anywhere as it's the only song in its tuning, so I'm actually gonna throw that between Isolation and Blackbird because I feel like it should be somewhere later in the set.

My final setlist looks like this:
1. Silver Tongue
2. Addicted To Pain
3. Dead Among The Living
4. Holiday
5. Sin After Sin
6. Rise Today
7. Last Man Standing
8. Cry Of Achilles
9. This Is War
10. Fable Of The Silent Son
11. Watch Over You
12. Isolation
13. Season Of Promise
14. Blackbird
15. Pawns & Kings
Encore:
16. Stay
17. Open Your Eyes

And I'm done. It took me 26 minutes from when I read your post to think about it and type this all up.

[Dolo]

Around 11:16 he mentiones they're gonna play all of the P&K singles plus an extra new song on the upcoming tour.

[Crumbso]

What are you guys betting will be the opening song for the tour? I'm going to bet it's This is War but would prefer Pawns and Kings.

[Mr.Vlado]

What are you guys betting will be the opening song for the tour? I'm going to bet it's This is War but would prefer Pawns and Kings.

I hope it will be This Is War but I guess it will be Silver Tongue.

[Dan Dando]

And I'm done. It took me 26 minutes from when I read your post to think about it and type this all up.

Job well done. I was struggling to think of a sequence without taking stuff like tunings into account, so fair play

[Crumbso]

Around 11:16 he mentiones we're gonna playing all of the P&K singles plus an extra new song on the upcoming tour.

Called it!

[maximzub]

Around 11:16 he mentiones we're gonna playing all of the P&K singles plus an extra new song on the upcoming tour.

Called it!

Does that mean that at each show they will play the 4 singles and a random new song, or are they only playing 1 new song besides the singles for the entire tour?

[Dolo]

Around 11:16 he mentiones we're gonna playing all of the P&K singles plus an extra new song on the upcoming tour.

Called it!

Does that mean that at each show they will play the 4 singles and a random new song, or are they only playing 1 new song besides the singles for the entire tour?

Yeah, that's not clear to me actually. It's probably safe to say that, at some point, we'll hear all of the singles plus an extra tune. I don't think they will play 5 new songs each night since there are 7 albums to choose from and the setlist is mostly 17-18 tracks.

[Dan Dando]

Does that mean that at each show they will play the 4 singles and a random new song, or are they only playing 1 new song besides the singles for the entire tour?

Pretty sure it means that they’ll start with the 4 singles and one other song, but as the tour goes on they’ll rotate the songs. So one night they’ll bring in Season of Promise, another night might be Last Man Standing etc.

Edit - Looking through some old set lists. When I last saw AB in Cardiff in 2019, these were the new tunes…

Wouldn’t You Rather, Pay No Mind, Native Son and Godspeed.

2 nights earlier in Birmingham…

Wouldn’t You Rather, Pay No Mind, Native Son, Godspeed, and Dying Light

Manchester a few nights earlier…

Wouldn’t You Rather, Pay No Mind, Godspeed, Dying Light, Take The Crown and Forever Falling.

[maximzub]

Does that mean that at each show they will play the 4 singles and a random new song, or are they only playing 1 new song besides the singles for the entire tour?

Pretty sure it means that they’ll start with the 4 singles and one other song, but as the tour goes on they’ll rotate the songs. So one night they’ll bring in Season of Promise, another night might be Last Man Standing etc.

Edit - Looking through some old set lists. When I last saw AB in Cardiff in 2019, the guys only played 4 songs from Walk The Sky. Wouldn’t You Rather, Pay No Mind, Native Son and Godspeed. 2 nights earlier Birmingham got the 4 I mentioned plus Dying Light. Manchester a few nights earlier than that got Take The Crown and Forever Falling.

Yeah, on the U.S tour in 2020 they were playing 16 songs and rotating 4 of the spots. It was Broken Wings/White Knuckles, Native Son/Take The Crown/Dying Light, Waters Rising/Forever Falling/Burn It Down, and In Loving Memory/Watch Over You. I can assume they'll have that many spots rotating for this tour. Although I'd REALLY hate it if I don't get to see Watch Over You live simply because they're alternating it with In Loving Memory.

[Blackbird]

Mark has confirmed 12 songs to be pretty much mandatory for the upcoming tour in this interview:

Metalingus, Blackbird, Watch Over You, Isolation, Rise Today, Addicted to Pain, The Other Side (because Edge's used it as his theme song in WWE for a while), Cry of Achilles and the four singles from P&K.

Looking forward to The Other Side because I'm pretty sure I've not seen it live yet, not sure whether it'll be a good live song though. Having serious concerns about Sin After Sin in this regard as well because I still find it kind of boring and it's taking up SO much space, I'd love to see Last Man Standing instead, but oh well.

Also glad to see that Cry of Achilles is a must-play for them, but equally surprised that Open Your Eyes and Come to Life aren't on that list. Curious whether those 12 stables will turn out to be more like 15 (including Wouldn't You Rather or Show Me A Leader maybe) and they'll throw in a few rotating songs on top of it.

[anguyen92]

At least, they are playing something from The Last Hero which did not happen at all in the Walk the Sky tour (as brief as it may be). They also picked the best option. I liked the brood mood of The Other Side and it got some buzz going thanks to Edge, so I think they are making the right call. It also sounded nice on the two live albums that featured it.

[Crumbso]

My only real question is... will they play Fable?

It kind of decides whether I can stomach going to see them at the O2 arena. I hate that place, pain in the arse to get to, stupidly expensive tickets and they fleece you £8.50 for a pint and even more for a shitty burger. There aren't any decent pubs in the area.

[Blackbird]

My estimation is that they won't start to play Fable before 2023 because they might need more time for rehearsal before they feel comfortable with it.

[Crumbso]

I think that you're probably right. They might shove Stay in the set as it got some talk before release.