50th Anniversary Documentary Announcement

I would love to be wrong about this but the reality is that the majority of this doc is going to be centered around the band's 80s period. I expect the post Brave New World segment to bring all the remaining albums under one umbrella and dovetail into the typical spiel about how Maiden has remained relevant through the 21st century and continues to appeal to younger generations etc etc. With that in mind, if Maiden does continue for another 5 years and makes one or two more albums, it's not like any future activity is going to require the career spanning documentary to be updated.

In other words, I don't think this documentary is really a signal one way or another about Maiden's retirement plans. I think it has more to do with commemorating the 50th and probably getting some final interviews in before people start dying (see Di'Anno, as well as the missed opportunity to interview Clive again).
 
Vaenyr said:
My hopium is that they went through the archives digging up some interesting stuff to see what they can add to the documentary. Having hopefully found some long forgotten treasures now would be the perfect time to polish, produce and release some of those rarities. If we were talking about any other band I'd be betting that we'd be getting some really cool releases in the next couple of years, but Maiden is unusually stubborn about legacy releases for some reason.
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Would be nice if they release a soundtrack album with the songs featuring in the doccumentary
 
AncientMariner_Essex said:
I’m now wondering if the band are gearing up for retirement.

pat cash, he’s the ex-tennis player that is mates with Adrian and a big fan of the band.
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Yeap, Pat Cash! Also Slaven Bilic can be a nice guest. Not that famous but he can make a good similarity between Maiden and sports. And West Ham too.
 
AncientMariner_Essex said:
I’m now wondering if the band are gearing up for retirement.

pat cash, he’s the ex-tennis player that is mates with Adrian and a big fan of the band.
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Pat Cash is a long time fan and mate of the band, and even released a charity single with John McEnroe that Steve and Nicko played on, but I think that @Starblind might be referring to the tennis player that had the strongest serve in the world, Wayne Arthurs, that Adrian tried to return in the Flight 666 video.
 
Of course, the most interesting parts from a documentarian's perspective happened in the 80s. The 90s are also interesting, with the emergence of grunge, the decline of metal and separation and the obvious reunion. There's a lot of story material here.

But I don't know how deep they'll dive. For example, during the X-Factor period, Steve's depression due to both Bruce's separation and his own divorce, and the reflection of this in the lyrics, are like a treasure for a documentarian. But the band literally "covers up" such events in their "official" biographies.

After that... Apart from the classic post-reunion success stories, there is also Bruce overcoming cancer. And, the issue with the highest rating potential is what happened at Ozzfest. But Maiden is very secretive about that, they never talk about it (just wrote a song about that with a "war metaphor", like we didn't get :) ). The fact that Bruce invested heavily in this big airship project and even tells about the R-101 accident, which inspired that airship, in Empire of the Clouds may also add color to the documentary. Also Bruce's ex-wife's sad story is another one, which seems to be sealed forever.

If the band were Metallica, not Maiden, there would probably be such events, conflicts within the band, and even divorces. But this is Maiden. That's why I'm waiting for a straight biography, not an award-winning realistic and artsy documentary.
 
Starblind said:
Of course, the most interesting parts from a documentarian's perspective happened in the 80s. The 90s are also interesting, with the emergence of grunge, the decline of metal and separation and the obvious reunion. There's a lot of story material here.

But I don't know how deep they'll dive. For example, during the X-Factor period, Steve's depression due to both Bruce's separation and his own divorce, and the reflection of this in the lyrics, are like a treasure for a documentarian. But the band literally "covers up" such events in their "official" biographies.
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They will never spend more than about three minutes on the blaze stuff if it's in the doc, I know that, but I hope they don't just jump from FOTD to BNW and don't even mention him
 
I do think this documentary will cover all aspects of the bands history from the early pub days, through the Paul Years, the Bruce years and will also include the Blaze years and then on to the reunion.

This doesn’t need to be like Metallica’s some kind of monster and shouldn’t be a therapy session where all their feelings during certain events are aired. As long as this is a comprehensive doc that doesn’t pretend the blaze years never happened then it’s all good.
 
This has potential to be great.

Hopefully a trailer is released soon. September will be great (Spinal Tap II: The end continues will also be released).
 
TheRegularUnknown said:
Would be nice if they release a soundtrack album with the songs featuring in the doccumentary
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It would be similar to Flight 666, only the songs probably wouldn’t be live.
____no5 said:
What difference does it make for us? It’s gonna be the same old songs featuring in every live and best of and we have those songs from different releases and formats anyway.
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It’s not always about us. A soundtrack could be a good release for the next generation of Maiden fans. Something they could easily find in stores to get them started.
Starblind said:
. And, the issue with the highest rating potential is what happened at Ozzfest. But Maiden is very secretive about that, they never talk about it (just wrote a song about that with a "war metaphor", like we didn't get :) ).
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Apparently I didn’t get it. Which song are you referring to?
 
Abas said:
Full Polish wedding concert please
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The Polish wedding wasn't recorded fully. Ken Fuerman, the director was with them when they went into the wedding but didn't have cameras. When it was agreed that the band was going to play, Ken had one of his assistants run to the hotel where they were staying, wake up one of the camera guys, then ran back to the Adria (where the wedding was taking place) so the full performance wasn't recorded. However, all the concerts that were played behind the iron curtain were filmed and there's definitely interesting material there.

And before anyone ask, yes, I did interview Ken Fuerman for my second book.
 
Just like Best Of The Beast had the Blaze live version of Afraid To Shoot Strangers, a potential documentary soundtrack could see some kind of rarity unearthed and released for the first time (watch it be another version of Wrathchild lol)

But I kinda doubt that would happen.
 
I will be curious about how they handle the Blaze era. There are some interesting implications to this documentary. If Blaze appears, it will be the first time Blaze has appeared in any Maiden related material since (I believe) the Essential Iron Maiden CD compilation back in 2005 or whenever that was. It'll be the first time Blaze is interviewed as part of a Maiden project since he was actually in the band (assuming he was interviewed). If live footage is used it will be the first time any live footage with Blaze has been released by the band since Visions of the Beast included a live version of Afraid to Shoot Strangers in 2003. It will be the first time the Blaze era is acknowledged in any capacity in a retrospective project (not counting times the band is asked about this period in interviews).

There was a bit of hoopla over the omission of any Blaze versions of songs in the From Fear to Eternity compilation, although I continue to believe this was less an attempt to sweep the Blaze era under the rug and more as a way to create continuity between tracks as the From Fear and Somewhere Back in Time compilations seemed to be ways to promote Maiden's live shows (even if From Fear didn't get a proper tour). The SBIT comp also replaced any Di'Anno era songs with versions sung by Bruce. The band continues to reissue the Blaze albums, play songs from them live, and generally acknowledges their existence, so I would expect that to continue in a documentary.

With all of that being said, I think this has the potential to be either a vindicating moment for Blaze fans or something that will engulf this forum in a fierce debate over Maiden's censorship of their own history. I'm leaning toward the latter, but genuinely hoping for the former. If I was to make a bet, I would predict that there will be a passing reference to Blaze's time in the band but the focus will be more on Bruce leaving and the subsequent reunion. Probably some sort of commentary about how both Maiden and Bruce were able to get by separately but quickly learned they were better together.

Do we know if Blaze was interviewed? This is the wildcard for me. I can't imagine he will get much screen time but man I would really like more than a passing comment about this period. I would love to hear each member talk about those albums in retrospect and, of course, would love to see archival footage of the band from this time. At the same time, I will not be surprised if Blaze doesn't even appear in the doc.

I've long believed that we never got a History Of Part 4 because the band doesn't seem interested in reopening old wounds. If they go in depth into Bruce's departure from the band and Blaze's time in the band it will be the first time an official Maiden documentary actually digs into actual struggles they've had as a band. So far the most we have is Adrian implying he left the band over fast tempos in the History Part 3 doc.
 
InfiniteDreamer544 said:
It would be similar to Flight 666, only the songs probably wouldn’t be live.

It’s not always about us. A soundtrack could be a good release for the next generation of Maiden fans. Something they could easily find in stores to get them started.

Apparently I didn’t get it. Which song are you referring to?
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These colours don’t run. Bruce said this during that concert, showing the British flag and just one year later they did a song. Cant be coincidence.
 
Mosh said:
I will be curious about how they handle the Blaze era. There are some interesting implications to this documentary. If Blaze appears, it will be the first time Blaze has appeared in any Maiden related material since (I believe) the Essential Iron Maiden CD compilation back in 2005 or whenever that was. It'll be the first time Blaze is interviewed as part of a Maiden project since he was actually in the band (assuming he was interviewed). If live footage is used it will be the first time any live footage with Blaze has been released by the band since Visions of the Beast included a live version of Afraid to Shoot Strangers in 2003. It will be the first time the Blaze era is acknowledged in any capacity in a retrospective project (not counting times the band is asked about this period in interviews).

There was a bit of hoopla over the omission of any Blaze versions of songs in the From Fear to Eternity compilation, although I continue to believe this was less an attempt to sweep the Blaze era under the rug and more as a way to create continuity between tracks as the From Fear and Somewhere Back in Time compilations seemed to be ways to promote Maiden's live shows (even if From Fear didn't get a proper tour). The SBIT comp also replaced any Di'Anno era songs with versions sung by Bruce. The band continues to reissue the Blaze albums, play songs from them live, and generally acknowledges their existence, so I would expect that to continue in a documentary.

With all of that being said, I think this has the potential to be either a vindicating moment for Blaze fans or something that will engulf this forum in a fierce debate over Maiden's censorship of their own history. I'm leaning toward the latter, but genuinely hoping for the former. If I was to make a bet, I would predict that there will be a passing reference to Blaze's time in the band but the focus will be more on Bruce leaving and the subsequent reunion. Probably some sort of commentary about how both Maiden and Bruce were able to get by separately but quickly learned they were better together.

Do we know if Blaze was interviewed? This is the wildcard for me. I can't imagine he will get much screen time but man I would really like more than a passing comment about this period. I would love to hear each member talk about those albums in retrospect and, of course, would love to see archival footage of the band from this time. At the same time, I will not be surprised if Blaze doesn't even appear in the doc.

I've long believed that we never got a History Of Part 4 because the band doesn't seem interested in reopening old wounds. If they go in depth into Bruce's departure from the band and Blaze's time in the band it will be the first time an official Maiden documentary actually digs into actual struggles they've had as a band. So far the most we have is Adrian implying he left the band over fast tempos in the History Part 3 doc.
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If I were a documentarian working on a doc about Maiden, I'd dedicate a good chunk to the nineties. Why? Because Maiden's history, by and large, has very little drama in it. Yes, there's Eggfest (which is nobody's fault except Bruce's big mouth and Sharon's childish retaliation), and yes, they fired Di'Anno, though that seemed pretty amicable. The nineties is where the story gets good. Bruce slagging off Maiden as dinosaurs for a few years, Nicko venting to Kerrang about Bruce shitting on them, an underdog story as the stadium-conquering Maiden are sent back to clubs, Bruce realizing on his own that the grass isn't always greener and starts orchestrating a return to metal and seeding solo interviews with reunion talk, and the band firing their new singer so they can get back with their metaphorical old girlfriend.

This is, of course, not what Rod, Steve, and the band want the world to see, though, so you're probably correct that it'll be glossed over. I expect a small appearance from Blaze, and Steve knows he can count on Blaze to be diplomatic and speak well of his time in the band.
 
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