Best Live Maiden song

I've noticed the differences between CD and DVD as well, but, in my opinion the outrage over "live" albums in general needs to end. I'm willing to bet every Maiden live release has some sort of tweaks made so that it will sound more presentable and polished. It's a pretty common practice on live albums.

Hell, Iced Earth's Alive in Athens is one of the greatest live albums of all time, but no one will convince me that there are not dubs.

At the end of the day, though I think the nitpick is valid, the show is still incredible in terms of scope, performance, and overall bombast.
 
It depends on how they tweak it though. You brought up AiA which is a good example, lots of overdubs but they managed to maintain the energy of the performance. On the contrary, their latest live album is tweaked so much that you might as well be listening to a studio recording. The lifeless performance doesn't help much, but I digress.
Sometimes mistakes need to be fixed, I don't have a problem with that, though personally I'd leave the mistakes, makes it more human.

Rock In Rio has a bunch of vocal overdubs, I think those are fine for the most part, though the ones in Fear Of The Dark are pretty unnecessary.
 
Depends what mood i am in. But overall Can i play with madness, Bring your daughter, Seventh son and afraid to shoot strangers.
 
Since I've only seen 2 shows which were on the recent tour.
These 4 songs in this section were the highlight of the night

Seventh Son of a Seventh son
The Clairvoyant
Fear of the Dark
Iron Maiden

And Phantom of the Opera was good too.
But I'd take a guess and say Hallowed be thy Name would be the best song live even though I've never seen them play it
[\spoiler]
 
This is nitpicking in the highest degree, but there is one thing that really bothers me with the Rock in Rio version of Fear of the Dark. I'm putting it in spoilers, because this really pretty much ruined the version for me when I noticed it, and most of you are probably going to curse me for pointing it out.

We all know that in the first chorus, Bruce always lets the audience sing the fourth "fear of the dark" line. In Rock in Rio, Bruce prompts the audience to sing by saying "you!", but then proceeds to sing the line anyway. If you listen to the bootleg version, you will notice right away that Bruce did not actually sing this line. It was edited in, and if you listen closely, you will notice that it is exactly the same as the second time he sings the line. They simply copied it in! I've seen this discussed years ago, and apparently the semi-official explanation somebody got from somewhere was that the audience was out of pace. However, it wasn't. Here is the unedited bootleg version:


Now, as I said, this is a nitpick, but this is my favourite moment in the song, and one of my favourite live moments in general, and it bothers me so much precisely because this is otherwise such an amazing recording of the song, and because it was a completely unnecessary thing to do.

Compared to most live albums/DVD:s Rock in Rio has a minimal amount of editing and no real overdubbing that I am aware of. Back in the day, they could overdub as much as they liked, because it would be the only recording of the show - nowadays someone is going to notice even the small edits. For better or for worse...

I believe editing like this, and some removal of noise was pretty much the only editing they did. Have a vague memory of the Steve mentioned precisely this in an interview.

Doesn't really bother me. It is not a bad edit - you don't notice it without knowing and listening for it, and this is the way they do their albums nowadays anyway.


I personally think many songs works well live, some works better than others and some only work with the help of a dedicated audience. Aces High is overall pretty bad and has always been at the very top of Bruce ability. Don't really like that song.

Blood Brothers is one of the songs that they I think they play the best at, and it also go down well with the audience so I'm gonna say Blood Brothers.
 
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I don't know about in general but for me in terms of versions, the candidates for being the best would be:

Hallowed Be Thy Name from Beast Over Hammersmith
Fear of the Dark from Rock in Rio
Rime of the Ancient Mariner from Flight 666
Dance of Death from En Vivo!
 
Out of the frequently played songs, I loved hearing The Trooper live, and out of their lesser-played songs, Afraid to Shoot Strangers and 7th Son definitely hit the spot. They definitely set a great mood live, and sound even better than their studio counterparts.
 
I think The Talisman from En Vivo was awesome, I prefer this version to the studio version, the opening section and when the main guitars kick in gets me everytime
 
It definitely has to be "The Angel and the Gambler"
from their May 1998 show in Spain.

Oh, who am I kidding ??
Of course it wasn't that !!

It was actually the legendary rendition of that song
from their September 1998 gig in Sweden.

Now THAT has to be their absolute apex.
:bigsurprise:
 
Fear of the Dark, and Hallowed be thy Name are brilliant live! I understand why they are always included in there live set.
 
1. Hallowed be thy Name: Beast Over Hammersmith

2. Fear of the Dark: Rock in Rio 2001

3. The Clansman: Rock in Rio 2001

4. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son: Maiden England 1988

5. Powerslave: Somewhere Back in Time 2008
 
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