(Rated this album with 10 out of 10) Reviewed by
the_wickerman
from Some Place
As a live album, this is truly monumental. I'd say that outside of Iced Earth's "Alive in Athens" (the GOD of live albums), and possibly Ozzy's "Live and Loud", this is the best live album ever made. And, one listen will tell you why. Just about all of Iron Maiden's best songs (at least, all the ones up to '85) can be found here. All of them sound at least as good as the original recordings, which is something you don't often get in a live album. Even Metallica and Slayer can't recreate their recordings. Bruce's vocals are top tier, and every instrument is audible and right on the mark. The best moments have got to be "Powerslave", "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", and "Hallowed Be Thy Name", which all somehow manage to sound even better than when they were first recorded. This may be because they were played a little faster, but I don't know. The part where Bruce is trying to get the crowd going on "Running Free" is really funny too. Everything sounds great here. "Powerslave" and "Number of the Beast" are well represented, the Paul DiAnno stuff is greatly improved (Paul's not a bad vocalist, but Bruce is far superior), and there are some scorching tracks from "Piece of Mind". I don't have that album yet, and I'm now wondering why so many people didn't think much of it. "The Trooper" and "Flight of Icarus" are killer tracks, and "Revelations" really hits hard. All in all, this is a great live album from one of the best bands of all time. My only complaints are that it's not very long for a double album (Disc 2 is less than 30 minutes in length), and their two best albums ("Brave New World" and "Somewhere in Time") had yet to be unleashed upon the world, so sadly they were not represented here. If they put out a live album from the BNW tour, it could likely be even better than this (so long as there isn't too much of their '90's stuff), but until then, buy this. UP THE IRONS!!!!
