Help finding archived BBs from Blaze era

I just joined a couple of hours ago to ask if anyone could direct me towards any archived internet chat forums from 1998. I want to read what Maiden fans were posting about Virtual XI when it was unleashed at the time. The whole Blaze Bayley era is fascinating to me.
 
From that time period Usenet may also be useful. alt.rock-n-roll.metal.ironmaiden would be the relevant group.

Google Groups should have a pretty complete archive, but its interface isn’t the best (you’ll have to click through many, many pages to get to the time period you care about): https://groups.google.com/g/alt.rock-n-roll.metal.ironmaiden
I'm going to spend a few hours tomorrow going through the links people have kindly posted here. I'll post anything funny or interesting I find. Maiden fans still seem to dislike Virtual XI after all these years, so I imagine that the opinions of it when it was released were even more brutal than they are now.
 
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Worth noting that you'll find other Blaze fans here, OP. And many of us, even while having a preference for Bruce, can acknowledge that the Blaze albums are quite good, and quite underrated. So you're in good company!
Yeah I feel really bad for him. I know it crushed him when he had to leave in '99, and it seems like a lot of fans resented him just because he wasn't Bruce and didn't have the same vocal range. Maybe if Maiden had recruited a singer with godlike singing ability (Dio maybe?) instead, those albums would be more accepted. I love all Maiden songs though and am fortunate that I don't really care whether Paul, Bruce or Blaze is on vocals.
 
Yeah I feel really bad for him. I know it crushed him when he had to leave in '99, and it seems like a lot of fans resented him just because he wasn't Bruce and didn't have the same vocal range. Maybe if Maiden had recruited a singer with godlike singing ability (Dio maybe?) instead, those albums would be more accepted. I love all Maiden songs though and am fortunate that I don't really care whether Paul, Bruce or Blaze is on vocals.
I’m grateful Maiden hired Blaze. If they didn’t, they likely wouldn’t have reunited and would’ve probably just limped along into obscurity, regardless of their chosen singer’s abilities.
 
IMO, Virtual XI is a solid album, but it’s sandwiched inbetween two far superior albums.

Also, and I’ve written about this elsewhere, VXI is an embryonic version of Brave New World irt songwriting and such.
Yeah I read somewhere that a few of the tracks from Brave New World were created for Blaze to sing, not Bruce. Blaze's acoustic version of Blood Brothers is pretty good in my opinion. I'd love to hear any full band demos of Brave New World tracks with Blaze singing.
 
From that time period Usenet may also be useful. alt.rock-n-roll.metal.ironmaiden would be the relevant group.

Google Groups should have a pretty complete archive, but its interface isn’t the best (you’ll have to click through many, many pages to get to the time period you care about): https://groups.google.com/g/alt.rock-n-roll.metal.ironmaiden
I figured out the right format for limiting the search -- if you use this link it should restrict it to posts before Jan 1, 1999: https://groups.google.com/g/alt.rock-n-roll.metal.ironmaiden/search?q=before:1999-01-01
 
You can also do a search to narrow it down. E.g. all posts from 1.1.95-31.1.95. It's still a bit of a hassle, but you'll have to do a lot less clicking.
 
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