Iron Maiden's Reviews

Live After Death

Essential.

Back then, you only had two options: buy the tape or buy the record. The record had an astounding gatefold sleeve with huge liner notes, but the darn things were so cumbersome, so the only choice was the cassette. The problem with the tape, though, was that its quality was so shoddy. The 100-odd minute cassette required thinner audiotape than usual, and the result was a fragile and flimsy little ribbon that would not survive multiple listens. The eventual cd release of the album was very disappointing, an abbreviated, 75-minute piece of junk with the entire 'fourth side' omitted. Finally, in 1998, Live After Death was released in its entirety, and we were at last able to properly enjoy one of the best metal albums of all time.

During their mammoth 1984-85 World Slavery Tour, Maiden were at their peak, commercially and artistically. Their last three albums, The Number Of The Beast, Piece Of Mind, and Powerslave built up a massive following in North America to go along with their huge core audience in the UK and Europe, and as a result, Maiden were able to sell out five consecutive shows in Long Beach, California, creating an ideal situation to record a live album. Three shows were recorded on tape, while the other two were filmed, but instead of patching together a live album from the three different shows, the band and producer Martin Birch realised they were so on top of their game that they just mixed one performance in its entirety (with the exception of 'Sanctuary', which still remains a mystery), with no studio enhancements or overdubs.

The result is an album of sheer power. Though the audience is still heard in the mix, the band's performance is right up front, leaving the listener to marvel at the musicianship of bassist Steve Harris, Adrian Smith, and Dave Murray, the thundering precision of drummer Nicko McBrain, and, best of all, the superhuman vocals of Bruce Dickinson. The twelve tracks of the Long Beach performance are now all staples in the Maiden catalogue, and all outshine their studio versions, especially the
astounding 'Revelations', whose tempo is sped up a slight bit, 'Aces High' and 'Powerslave', which practically burn with intensity, and 'Flight Of Icarus', whose studio version Harris always thought was too slow. The best moment, though, is Maiden's live rendition of the thirteen-minute epic 'Rime Of The Ancient Mariner', which proved that the band was more than capable of reproducing such an intense, intricate, grueling song in a live situation.

The second disc features both a cd-rom feature, as well as the lost 'fourth side' from the original vinyl and cassette version. Recorded earlier in the tour at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, it consists of (at the time) older songs, and it serves as a kind of encore, a special treat for diehard fans. Early songs like 'Wrathchild' and 'Phantom of the Opera' are given the Dickinson treatment for the first time on record (he replaced Paul Di'Anno in 1982), while lesser-known classics like 'Children of the Damned' and '22 Acacia Avenue' soar. The cd-rom contains excerpts from the exceptional film version of the show, including 'Aces High', '2 Minutes To Midnight', and 'Powerslave', all in their entirety, as well as a short clip of 'Revelations'.

The only thing that seems missing from the album is Dickinson's between-song babbling, which fans know used to have a comically surreal feel all their own (the live film has an hilarious Dickinson tale of how Queen Victoria smoked hemp), but that would have slowed the album down, and is only a minor issue anyway. This album is simply perfect in every way, and while my musical tastes have broadened considerably since 1985, sixteen years after my first listen, Live After Death is a cd I still regularly take out and listen to in complete awe.

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