Live-isms: "I wonder why they don't..."

itwaszero

itwaszero

AMOLAD is GOAT
Hey guys! This is kind of the flip side of the musical cues that you love thread but with an eye specifically to things that they change or omit during live performances that are a bit of a head scratcher considering that they've got 3 guitarists. I'll start off with a few:

1) Powerslave - no pick slide, harmonics or dive bomb after the solo section. It's such a simple thing but adds a lot to the energy of the song coming down.
2) Flight of Icarus - no harmonized guitar melody in the outro. The harmony before Dave's outro solo is vintage Maiden, come on guys!
3) Wasted Years - the tail end of Adrian's solo into the final chorus, it's so fantastic the way it complements the vocals.

In some cases I wonder if it's just been so long since any of them have listened to the studio versions of tracks that they've just kind of forgotten some of these bits here and there lol

What are some things that make you think "hey wait a sec, I wonder why they don't..."
 
In all the recordings I've heard, they've never included what I believe is a whammy bar dive at 4:35 in Phantom Of The Opera. I think it made the transition really cool and smooth (not that it isn't anyway) so I've always wondered why they never did it live, especially now they have 3 guitarists.
 
phantomoftheicarus said:
In all the recordings I've heard, they've never included what I believe is a whammy bar dive at 4:35 in Phantom Of The Opera. I think it made the transition really cool and smooth (not that it isn't anyway) so I've always wondered why they never did it live, especially now they have 3 guitarists.
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Yeah, there's another one that I think we can chalk up to them just not listening to studio recordings before rehearsing. Phantom's on the setlist, they all know their parts and off they go.
 
itwaszero said:
3) Wasted Years - the tail end of Adrian's solo into the final chorus, it's so fantastic the way it complements the vocals.
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Agreed... But there's a few reasons why Smith might not be doing it. Namely:

1. He sings backing vocals during the chorus and want to get out from the lead quicker to focus on that.
2. The lead distracts from where the vocals come back in live (where everything's mixed on a spur-of-the-moment-deal and not fine-tuned in the studio).
3. Smith might not have liked his original take of the solo.
4. Smith might have grown bored of his original take of the solo over the years.

And a few others. In general, I think Murray and Gers changes their leads around even more.
 
Maturin said:
Agreed... But there's a few reasons why Smith might not be doing it. Namely:

1. He sings backing vocals during the chorus and want to get out from the lead quicker to focus on that.
2. The lead distracts from where the vocals come back in live (where everything's mixed on a spur-of-the-moment-deal and not fine-tuned in the studio).
3. Smith might not have liked his original take of the solo.
4. Smith might have grown bored of his original take of the solo over the years.

And a few others. In general, I think Murray and Gers changes their leads around even more.
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He does it sometimes, like on the single b-side version of Wasted Years from 1999. I assume the reason he doesn't do it consistently is probably mostly one and two; playing the tail of the solo forces him to come in late on the backing vocals and it might not sound that good to his ears in a live setting anyway.

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Speaking of backing vocals, here's one: I wish I knew why they got rid of the backing vocals for Aces High and Flight of Icarus. Adrian did a decent job with both and although I figure the idea here is that the backing vocals are done by the crowd, both still sound kind of empty to my ears these days. It's a bit odd since if anything Adrian's been doing more backing vocals on Legacy of the Beast otherwise: the pre-chorus in The Wicker Man, more of the 2MTM chorus and the tail section of the last chorus and also always doing the second "whoaa-oo" of The Trooper's chorus which used to be more inconsistent since Bruce rarely sings that part.
 
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