Iron Maiden: Live After Death (1985)

One of my wife's favorite movies is Rock of Ages, which is a musical with an ensemble cast and featuring all rock songs from the 1980's.  As a result, I have seen it a number of times.  In one part, the female lead and the male lead are discussing rock albums and the female lead says that her all-time favorite album is a live album by this fictional band.  That has always struck me as kind of odd.  I have personally never cared all that much for live albums, but maybe I have been listening to the wrong ones.  There are a few live albums that are considered absolute metal classics.  Judas Priest's Unleashed in the East is one and this is another.

There is a reason that Iron Maiden continues to sell out large arenas despite the fact that they receive very little radio or television play.  They are without a doubt, a terrific live act.  I saw them finally a couple of years ago when they made their way into Nebraska.  Their explosive live performance shines through extremely well on this album.  The songs are all performed with a lot of energy and sound great live.  There are some minor issues with some instruments being a little too loud in the mix compared to others, but that is not that big of a deal.

This is a somewhat early release, so the songs are limited to those on the band's first five albums.  There are some questionable choices here.  It is not terribly likely that Iron Maiden will be breaking out the 13-minute long epic "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" too often nowadays.  It is a good song, just not terribly conducive to a concert.  And then there is the closing track "Phantom of the Opera", which is not a song I would have thought would have been a closer in a concert.  There is obviously some editing going on on the release and different versions have songs in different orders so maybe it was not the closing song.

The only complaint that I have is that Bruce Dickinson was having a little bit of a bad night.  He is not quite able to hit some of the incredible high notes that he did on the album versions.  This is particularly obvious in songs like "Aces High" and "Powerslave".  He avoids this issue by doing a little bit more of a hoarse yell that actually fits in well with the music.

There is a reason this is one of the consensus greatest live albums of all time.  Iron Maiden does a fantastic live performance and it comes through quite well here.  I still would not consider this a favorite Iron Maiden album, but it is damn good.  Maybe I will check out that Judas Priest album next.