They should make another one of those Geico ads where it ends with "Happy as Iron Maiden in 1984". The "Powerslave" album was a high point in the band's career and their first full live album release captures them at the peak of their powers, in the USA (Long Beach!) of all places! These days it seems like Maiden drops about three live albums for every studio offering, but back in 1985 the release of "Live After Death" was special. Other than a handful of B-sides and the "Maiden Japan" EP from the Di'Anno era, it was their first official live album.
Live After Death has had a tortured release history. The original 2 LP release was given a buzz cut for release on CD which wiped out the Hammersmith tracks (side 4). This was the version I bought in high school. In 1995 a 2 CD release appeared, but the second disc was the B-sides to the singles released during that time. The 1998 remaster restored the Hammersmith tracks, but left out the B-sides. Until the iPod era, getting all the tracks has been a bit of chore without purchasing the album twice, which I did. In fact, I STILL don't have the Hammersmith tracks, but I'm working to fix that.
Even today, as the band has moved well into "prog-metal" pastures, the album still holds up. I'm not a huge fan of note-perfect renditions of studio songs, but Iron Maiden does exceptionally well at this. Bassist Steve Harris is probably the driving force behind this, known for his militant professionalism. Vocalist Bruce Dickinson and the guitarists Adrian Smith and Dave Murray manage to sneak in a little bit of improvisation, lending some distinctiveness to the live renditions of the songs. An Iron Maiden show is a metal experience that is part Rolling Stones (spectacle, legacy), part Grateful Dead (obsessive fan following). Their stage repertoire is so expansive that they routinely need to do "current tours" and "retro tours" so that fans can get the whole career experience. My one Maiden show featured an entire play-through of 2006's "A Matter Of Life and Death", a technically brilliant performance, but one that left the fans wishing they had been a bit more selective and played more the classics. Life After Death however hits all the sweet spots as of 1984, representing the best songs of each of their five albums ("Killers" was relegated to the missing Side 4 and B-sides, but it was there). Clearly more focus is given to the three recent albums, given that Dickinson was the original singer on those, plus the band's sound had moved away from the "New Wave of British Heavy Metal" and punk sounds of the first two albums.
For some purists, after Live After Death, it was all downhill for the band. The following studio albums would be marked with tension, acrimony and discord between Harris and Dickinson and Smith. Janick Gers replaced Smith in 1990, a move that the purists like to slag, but his "wild" style added some fire to the live shows. Dickinson followed Smith out the door in 1993 with a ceremonial on-stage "beheading" and went on to outclass his old band for most of the 1990's. In 1999 the hatchet was buried and the classic lineup reunited (while retaining Gers, who I hear is an all-around nice guy). Oddly enough, their highest-charting albums in the USA have been the most recent two (peaking at #9 and #4 respectively), far outdistancing Live After Death's #19 showing. However, as the youngsters spin their way through the progressive-era "Final Frontier", they inevitably reach back to the 1980's heyday albums. It should be no surprise that Live After Death is a certified Platinum album.
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