Best Live Album?

dickinson1978 said:
I will listen to it in a few days. I like more real live than dead one
Click to expand...
I vastly prefer Live One over Dead One. It's a fun, very warts 'n all listen. So is Dead One, but the band's reasoning for releasing them separately is why I prefer Live One--because Dead One is full of stuff that was on LaD and Maiden England with a few other oldies. Live One had the new stuff that wasn't on those albums.

But yeah, the bounce in the midsection of FotD was captured at its peak in Helsinki, which is why I rank Live One's version as the best one.
 
BoS Live Chapter has the best Adrian Smith solo in Number of the Beast IMO.

His use of the wah is so expressive, and the last big high note ringing out is pure ecstasy.

Other than that Live After Death is hands down the best overall.
 
I've put on Live After Death just now and - sincerely no offence to all those who have it as no. 1 - I was really surprised how bad Bruce actually sounds there. At times he's just wailing without any tonal centre at all and it really brings the album down for me. I know it was a long and intense tour and the setlist doesn't really give him any leeway, but still.

The band is on fire (Nicko was such a beast, wow) and the Powerslave-based setlist can't go wrong, but I'm really surprised Bruce hasn't developed polyps or lost his voice altogether after this tour, Miles Davis-style.

But the energy, yeah, it's all so fast and insanely fiery, it's such a fascinating listen.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
I've put on Live After Death just now and - sincerely no offence to all those who have it as no. 1 - I was really surprised how bad Bruce actually sounds there. At times he's just wailing without any tonal centre at all and it really brings the album down for me. I know it was a long and intense tour and the setlist doesn't really give him any leeway, but still.

The band is on fire (Nicko was such a beast, wow) and the Powerslave-based setlist can't go wrong, but I'm really surprised Bruce hasn't developed polyps or lost his voice altogether after this tour, Miles Davis-style.

But the energy, yeah, it's all so fast and insanely fiery, it's such a fascinating listen.
Click to expand...
I agree. I came to the album late. I had been a fan since around 1998 and only heard the abridge live performance of Running Free from my well-worn Best of the Beast CD.

I got the album around 2008. I thought I should be clued up for the SBIT tour. After all, it’s had just got the DVD. I was a little underwhelmed with the performances. I suppose I was spoilt with owning Rock in Rio and a bootleg copy of Beast Over Hammersmith. To this day, Bruce shouting ‘Yeah!’ every 10 second pisses me off. However there are some incredible performances on the album, especially the second disc.
 
Overall: Rock in Rio
Best audio quality: Flight 666
Best video quality: En Vivo
Best performance: Ullevi 05
Best setlist: Flight 666
Best crowd: Rock in Rio
Best cover art: LAD
 
Watching to it right now: Rock in Rio with such a margin it's not even a competition. The biggest minus is probably the editing which is serviceable, messy and way too rapid fire, but at least it's not Death on the Road or Donington '92 bad. That and the silly "overdubs" that aren't really a problem if you don't know about them. Everything else is pretty on-point though. About the only change I wish they made was to not fucking play RTTH but do The Fallen Angel and Out of the Silent Planet as bonus songs instead, somewhere in the main set since they're very odd encore picks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top