Those of you who've listened to Blaze Bayley's most recent live album, Live in Czech... Just think how it sounds, produced with the limited resources they had. Nothing super fancy, but a step above his previous Live in France anyway.
And then you have Iron Maiden, one of the biggest bands in the world, well-known for their extensive catalogue in the category of live releases. Most of them great. No shortage of resources. Beautiful packaging - the booklets and all are beautiful indeed.
But soundwise... you couldn't tell that Maiden was operating in totally different league of production values. From what I've listened so far, some individual songs turned out better than I expected - Hallowed for example. They've probably included material from all three nights, since Bruce seems to be much "clearer" in some of the songs, while others (namely the mentioned WED, for example) are loaded with "mumbling." Also, his often so awesome style of delivery really suffers from the illness or whatever was troubling him then, and it really hurts songs like For the Greater Good of God and Sign of the Cross, which usually gain another level of magic through his way of phrasing and giving weight to certain lines.
Anyway, I wouldn't say it's a garbage to listen at all, but it's rather disappointing when Maiden live release somewhat fails (arguably) most with it's defining/special songs (WED, The Clansman, FTGGOG etc.). That being said, it's an interesting listen and all things considered, you can tell they still give a good show, but the overall production values and choices, along with Bruce's condition during that part of the tour, just really hurt the overall product.
