Blaze Bayley

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Perun said:
The Evil That Men Do is another, if you consider that the recording that made it on the Futureal single is the best take they could get. The biggest mistake Maiden made with Blaze was the way the VXI tour was put together. It was too grueling a tour for a set so challenging for him.
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That recording of The Evil Men Do was also overdubbed in the studio, which is particularly apparent if you own The Eternal Flame bootleg, since both versions are from that show in Gothenburg. In the bootleg, Blaze only goes for the high note of the chorus on the last chorus of the song, whereas he mysteriously does it on all the choruses in the Futureal single version. Also, there's a sloppy splice in the final seconds of the song.

Not knocking him for that, Blaze for the most part had no business trying those songs, and Bruce has had significant overdubs in his career too--if I recall, The Evil That Men Do from Donington '92, Bruce mangled one of the verses in the bootleg version, but was fixed for the official release. Happens all the time.

And for what it's worth, a few overdubs would've made the Milan '98 show as close to as an ideal show for official release as you could get out of the Blaze era (if going by what's available for soundboard recordings of his era). Excellent boot, and Blaze sounded strong throughout (aside from his habit of forgetting lyrics here and there).
 
CA Bryers said:
That recording of The Evil Men Do was also overdubbed in the studio, which is particularly apparent if you own The Eternal Flame bootleg, since both versions are from that show in Gothenburg. In the bootleg, Blaze only goes for the high note of the chorus on the last chorus of the song, whereas he mysteriously does it on all the choruses in the Futureal single version.
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I just listened to this recording, and came to realize that Blaze didn't overdub anything afterwards - instead they just practiced some copy and paste, and inserted the last chorus note also heard on the bootleg, into the other sections for this B-side. It sounds 100 % identical all the time.


Just some standard "Virtual XI production" in practice! :facepalm:
 
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TheTalisman said:
I just listened to this recording, and came to realize that Blaze didn't overdub anything afterwards - instead they just practiced some copy and paste, and inserted the last chorus note also heard on the bootleg, into the other sections for this B-side. It's sounds 100 % identical all the time.


Just some standard "Virtual XI production" in practice! :facepalm:
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Ah, good catch! :D
 
Morning all. I am supposed to be going to Peterborough today to see Blaze but I am in two minds. My daughter was born prematurely 3 weeks ago. She is home now (thank goodness!) My wife wants me to go but I am worried about Covid and bringing it back. I think I will give it a miss. It’s a shame but priorities have changed.
 
Ascendingthethrone said:
Morning all. I am supposed to be going to Peterborough today to see Blaze but I am in two minds. My daughter was born prematurely 3 weeks ago. She is home now (thank goodness!) My wife wants me to go but I am worried about Covid and bringing it back. I think I will give it a miss. It’s a shame but priorities have changed.
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Giving it a miss would be sensible I think. Shame, but as you said priorities have changed. There will be other opportunities to see him in future! I hope your daughter is doing okay :)
 
Ascendingthethrone said:
Morning all. I am supposed to be going to Peterborough today to see Blaze but I am in two minds. My daughter was born prematurely 3 weeks ago. She is home now (thank goodness!) My wife wants me to go but I am worried about Covid and bringing it back. I think I will give it a miss. It’s a shame but priorities have changed.
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Congratulations!! I hope your daughter and wife are well.

I would give the gig a miss. Blaze is not going to stop touring any time soon, so you will always have an opportunity to see him live.
 
Super Channel there's a blast from the past:lol:

Is that the gig Massive Noise Injection was recorded at?
 
TheTalisman said:

Quite a decent frontman, Jason Edwards played some good solos as well.
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Blaze was a fantastic frontman during the Wolfsbane days. After he was announced for Maiden, I deep-dived into the band, bought all the albums I could find, and was genuinely excited with what a sort of "wildman" vocalist and personality could do in Maiden, because that's sort of how he came across to me in his vocal style.

We all know how it played out. I'm still a fan of each stage of his career, but I think he just never found a comfortable role in Maiden. With Maiden onstage, there was sadly no sign of the crazy Wolfsbane Blaze. According to him in the At the End of the Day book, that was partly due to his tour-long fight with the crew's monitor guy, which kept him mostly stuck in the center of the stage so he could hear the monitors properly. This was fixed on VXI Tour with his in-ear monitors, so he moved way more and sang generally better, but the crazy Woflsbane Blaze was gone by that point...or Steve didn't want that Blaze onstage.

In most magazine interviews, Steve was most often there alongside Blaze now, whereas back in the day, Bruce was the guy handling the vast majority of interviews. From my (possibly wrong) viewpoint, it seemed like during that period, Steve got his band back, and Blaze kind of settled in as just another band member and not the true Frontman with a capital "F" like Bruce was and insisted that he be (as evidenced in the History interview bit where Bruce details his onstage scuffles with Steve about where his place on the stage is, etc.).
 
CA Bryers said:
From my (possibly wrong) viewpoint, it seemed like during that period, Steve got his band back, and Blaze kind of settled in as just another band member and not the true Frontman with a capital "F" like Bruce was and insisted that he be (as evidenced in the History interview bit where Bruce details his onstage scuffles with Steve about where his place on the stage is, etc.).
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Or like in Bruce's autobiography where he claims Steve tried to have him sacked as early as the NOTB tour for taking the centre of the stage away from Steve. :lol:
 
CA Bryers said:
Blaze was a fantastic frontman during the Wolfsbane days. After he was announced for Maiden, I deep-dived into the band, bought all the albums I could find, and was genuinely excited with what a sort of "wildman" vocalist and personality could do in Maiden, because that's sort of how he came across to me in his vocal style.

We all know how it played out. I'm still a fan of each stage of his career, but I think he just never found a comfortable role in Maiden. With Maiden onstage, there was sadly no sign of the crazy Wolfsbane Blaze. According to him in the At the End of the Day book, that was partly due to his tour-long fight with the crew's monitor guy, which kept him mostly stuck in the center of the stage so he could hear the monitors properly. This was fixed on VXI Tour with his in-ear monitors, so he moved way more and sang generally better, but the crazy Woflsbane Blaze was gone by that point...or Steve didn't want that Blaze onstage.

In most magazine interviews, Steve was most often there alongside Blaze now, whereas back in the day, Bruce was the guy handling the vast majority of interviews. From my (possibly wrong) viewpoint, it seemed like during that period, Steve got his band back, and Blaze kind of settled in as just another band member and not the true Frontman with a capital "F" like Bruce was and insisted that he be (as evidenced in the History interview bit where Bruce details his onstage scuffles with Steve about where his place on the stage is, etc.).
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Crazy Blaze was gone because he never could be that persona in Maiden, if he looked at the crowd and said "hey you in the glasses" most people would be thinking "who is this cunt? He's not Bruce Dickinson". You can't come into a place acting all Billy Big Bollocks when you're a replacement unless you have something to back it up, which Bruce had with The Number of the Beast, whereas Blaze confidence must have been smashed by the press, and a lot of the fans, reaction to the X Factor.
 
srfc said:
Crazy Blaze was gone because he never could be that persona in Maiden, if he looked at the crowd and said "hey you in the glasses" most people would be thinking "who is this cunt? He's not Bruce Dickinson". You can't come into a place acting all Billy Big Bollocks when you're a replacement unless you have something to back it up, which Bruce had with The Number of the Beast, whereas Blaze confidence must have been smashed by the press, and a lot of the fans, reaction to the X Factor.
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I think the ''wildman'' vocalist is more suited for a rock band. Maiden's music is more ''busy''. Neither Bruce nor Paul had such stage behavior. You need to adapt to the new band. I could be terribly wrong here, but I think Bruce in Samson had a different stage behavior than after he joined Maiden.
 

A little bit of crazy Blaze was there some times though...at least at the end, and the South American audience allowed it too. Above is his ultimate performance with Maiden, 12 december 1998.
 
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TheTalisman said:

A little bit of crazy Blaze was there some times though...at least at the end, and the South American audience allowed it too. Above is his ultimate performance with Maiden, 12 december 1998.
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Ooh, thanks for sharing. Always nice to hear Blaze break out a "motherf**ker" like in the old days on a Maiden stage! And he sounds great on this. My personal fave is Madrid '98--in a perfect (or magical) world, they could go in to the soundboard recording, clean up the sound overall (especially on the first song or two), have Blaze overdub a few of his flubs, and you'd have a really strong Maiden live album, IMO.
 
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