Iron Maiden – Live After Death

• 19th Mar 2008

The original release of ‘Live after death’ came in 1985-to document Maiden’s world slavery tour, and since then has entered into the halls of great live rock performances alongside ‘No sleep till Hammersmith’ & ‘If you want blood…’

As new technologies become the standard medium, so re-issues are envitable as we try to constanly capture the closest to the original source materials experience as humanly possible.

‘Live after death’ is a quality performance by a band at the height of their powers at a pivotal point in the genres development-the real question is: if you own both the cd’s and the originally released video why buy this DVD release?

The actual concert is perfectly captured, all the are songs present and accounted for, without any undue tampering., It can be all to easy for people to add extras that frankly ruin the source-and in that respect the first disc is untouched and altogether better for it.

Songs like ‘2 minutes to midnight’ & ‘hallowed be thy name’ are timeless rock classics and lesser appreciated greats like ‘Powerslave’ are expertly blended and it becomes difficult to put a credit card in-between the hits.

It’s the second disc that holds the descion making extras that will sway those yet undecided-chiefly of which is the ‘Behind the iron curtain’ documentary-alongside performances until now unavailable it contains such priceless moments as one fan- in what seems like an over exaggerated accent, confiding in Bruce Dickinson that he would like to perform metal with keyboards; and the completely surreal sight of the irons playing a Polish wedding.

There are many more of these instances, and even the most hardened collector will find a selection of stories and footage that will surely be worth the asking price.

One of the true gems here is the 50 minute ‘Rock in Rio’ portion of the disc-an event Maiden amazingly didn’t headline (Queen had that honour.) With many songs obviously repeated as it was part of the chronicled tour-it’s the sheer spectacle that becomes memorable.

In an age where everything is connected-bands take mobiles and laptops out with them- nothing to far away- the chances of playing somewhere where Metallica haven’t is pretty impossible-it becomes even more surprising that Iron Maiden managed to draw such massive crowds through only word of mouth, this 2 disc set represents both an important document in not only metal, rock & music’s history, but also a simply amazing live recording.

Whether you have this on cd or any other format becomes obsolete when you add the multitude of unreleased extras and footage on offer, there really is very little to add to this DVD; and as much as it is comprehensive it also stands the test of time- twenty three years of which-and becomes that rarest of things: a timeless musical document.