The MAIDEN Years: 2018/19/20/21/22/ad infinitum (Rock in Rio and Nights of the Dead)

chaosapiant said:
I can't fathom anyone thinking that Fear of the Dark either doesn't sound good or has a bad drum or guitar sound. The entire album is just an absolute monster of sound. The drums are heavy and sharp, the guitars and also heavy as fuck. That opening riff of The Fugitive is almost up there with Montsegur as some of the heaviest shit they did. It's also the album where, for better or for worse, they tried new things that they'd never really try again. That 70s hard rock vibe on some songs and some of the jagged riffing on tracks like The Apparition. It's not their best work, but it's adventurous and a fantastic driving album.
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Well I can't fathom the opposite.

The Fugitive opening sounds heavy because of Harris, not because of guitars.

The Apparition for me, another perfect example of failure of production. The verse guitars should be heavy but they're not. The heavy palm muted accent, after 'on my own', is copy-pasted guitar part that has more volume than the others. The whole song is a nod to heavy groove style Pantera was using (check out the harmony part 1, it's similar to Cowboys From Hell riff), but without any sonic impact.
 
Zare said:
Well I can't fathom the opposite.

The Fugitive opening sounds heavy because of Harris, not because of guitars.

The Apparition for me, another perfect example of failure of production. The verse guitars should be heavy but they're not. The heavy palm muted accent, after 'on my own', is copy-pasted guitar part that has more volume than the others. The whole song is a nod to heavy groove style Pantera was using (check out the harmony part 1, it's similar to Cowboys From Hell riff), but without any sonic impact.
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Not to me though :)

I never ever thought Maiden would nod to anyone except their 70s roots, and definitely not to Pantera, I don't think.

I just relistened to those parts. The Fugitive is drum heavy and together with the guitars has this heavy intro feeling, but it's the drum sound that was elevated significantly compared to many other Maiden records.

That guitar part is a deliberate effect in my book and no production mistake, it adds a feel and accent as you said, but nothing else.
If you listen to the album closely, even the guitars are well balanced and mixed very well, much better than anything they released in the 90s for sure.

At least this is how I view it (or listen) :)
 
Here's the thing though, outside of subjective experience of the music, Bruce Dickinson openly accused Steve Harris of using Maiden's record sales to pay back his private 'barnyard' studio, and was thoroughly dissapointed with the end product, left the band with this being one of the factors, and did not return to the band until Harris specifically agreed to hire a producer and a proper studio.

One of the things you get with big studios is their repository of equipment that you might use, together with appropriate acoustics, because big studios are big. In Making of AMOLAD, the side room Smith used for his own space is half the size of the entire Barnyard studio.

Even if Harris knew how to get the big ass guitar sound, he'd be limited to what he had in barnyard.

McBrain intentionally dumbed down the drums to leave more space for guitars on VXI but big guitar sound never happened.

Listen to Accident of Birth, the drums are basic and in the pocket, yet they sound better than VXI, while the guitars are in another universe. Because Roy Z knew what he was doing.
 
A Real Live Dead One
OK so two things. First, I know that A Real Live One was released and recorded in 1992, but I’m listening to these as a set. Second, I know some of you may be scratching your heads at my decision to only cover this for the FOTD era. The truth is, if I wasn’t working with a deadline, I could easily spend a whole week on the 92/93 period. This might be the best documented period of Maiden in terms of official releases and pro-recorded material. You’ve got Live At Donington, A Real Live Dead One, and Raising Hell alone as far as official releases go. Then there’s a whole host of pro recorded footage from both tours available on YouTube. This was a big tour for Maiden. Between festival appearances, the band’s first major South American tour, and Bruce’s departure, they were receiving a lot of coverage. I went with this album because of the song selection, it represents the best of both tours in terms of the repertoire. With that being said, I’m open to talking about anything Maiden did during these two years, so if you all have bootlegs you want to discuss or want to talk about Donington or Raising Hell, I’m all for it!

Unfortunately, this isn’t really known for being Maiden’s best period as a live band. Bruce announced his intentions to leave the band ahead of the A Real Live Tour and his performances on the tour were spotty, to say the least. Furthermore, maybe it had to do with them being distracted, but frankly I don’t think the band sounded that good as a whole. Tempos are all over the place, they’re missing hits in songs they should be able to play in their sleep like Number of the Beast and The Trooper. All of that is exemplified in this live collection. I’m honestly not sure how Steve Harris managed to pick some of these performances as the best out of an entire tour. Maybe he wanted to really go for the warts and all angle, but some of these songs are extremely sloppy. They don’t represent Bruce’s worst performances, but as a whole the band doesn’t sound great on a lot of these tracks. The sound quality is about on par with a high quality bootleg, although I would take the 1990 Wembley soundboard over a lot of these even.

The setlist for the A Real Live Tour is pretty interesting. This is Maiden’s first “nostalgia” tour. They weren’t promoting an album (although the stage and set is still Fear of the Dark heavy), and they took the opportunity to dig out some old classics. Songs from the Di’Anno days like Prowler and Remember Tomorrow hadn’t been played in years. Those are nice surprises, and I actually think this particular performance of Remember Tomorrow is the highlight of the entire collection. It is just a shame that on the whole these songs are not played very well. Especially since there are few official live recordings for them. Fortunately, they revisited a lot of these tracks on The Early Days tour and played them much better, but unfortunately they never released a live album for that tour. The Real Live One side is primarily from 1992, which was a better tour, but still there are pretty iffy performances and recordings. Honestly I think these songs are just played too fast for them to sound good. The band doesn’t sound tight and Bruce is constantly out of breath.

As I mentioned with Fear of the Dark, the band is clearly in a transitional stage. They’re gearing up for a lineup change, Harris’ approach to the live album is a prelude to the way he would handle the remainder of the 90s in the studio, and on the whole it seems clear that the band just needs a break.
 
When I'm doing a bit, I often say that Raising Hell is the best Iron Maiden performance. But without doing a bit, it's so fascinating. This is clearly a band that is exhausted with each other, the looks Bruce gives the small crowd and the gimmicks he's been thrust into is incredibly telling.

But yeah, you can feel it. Live At Donington is good, but ARLO/ARDO are just bad, among the worst live stuff Maiden has ever released.
 
Mosh said:
The Real Live One side is primarily from 1992, which was a better tour
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And that's ultimately the problem. Neither are great but ARLO is substantially better than ARDO. And that's because a lot of the tracks on ARDO were recorded on the A Real Live Tour which was specifically booked to record more old tracks to flesh out ARDO but no one had foreseen that Bruce would announce he was fucking off before the tour. Some fucking awful versions on that Where Eagles Dare and 2 Minutes to Midnight spring to mind.

Saying that I really like Transylvania, Sanctuary and Hallowed from this album, and the b-side Wrathchild should have been on the album big time. The b-side Wasted Years is terrible though and explains why it's not on ARLO when it should have been a shoo in for that time period.

The problem with this period is the tempos are almost "going off the rails" speed. Sometimes they stayed on the tracks resulting in great versions, sometimes they didn't.
 
Mosh said:
A Real Live Dead One
OK so two things. First, I know that A Real Live One was released and recorded in 1992, but I’m listening to these as a set. Second, I know some of you may be scratching your heads at my decision to only cover this for the FOTD era. The truth is, if I wasn’t working with a deadline, I could easily spend a whole week on the 92/93 period. This might be the best documented period of Maiden in terms of official releases and pro-recorded material. You’ve got Live At Donington, A Real Live Dead One, and Raising Hell alone as far as official releases go. Then there’s a whole host of pro recorded footage from both tours available on YouTube. This was a big tour for Maiden. Between festival appearances, the band’s first major South American tour, and Bruce’s departure, they were receiving a lot of coverage. I went with this album because of the song selection, it represents the best of both tours in terms of the repertoire. With that being said, I’m open to talking about anything Maiden did during these two years, so if you all have bootlegs you want to discuss or want to talk about Donington or Raising Hell, I’m all for it!

Unfortunately, this isn’t really known for being Maiden’s best period as a live band. Bruce announced his intentions to leave the band ahead of the A Real Live Tour and his performances on the tour were spotty, to say the least. Furthermore, maybe it had to do with them being distracted, but frankly I don’t think the band sounded that good as a whole. Tempos are all over the place, they’re missing hits in songs they should be able to play in their sleep like Number of the Beast and The Trooper. All of that is exemplified in this live collection. I’m honestly not sure how Steve Harris managed to pick some of these performances as the best out of an entire tour. Maybe he wanted to really go for the warts and all angle, but some of these songs are extremely sloppy. They don’t represent Bruce’s worst performances, but as a whole the band doesn’t sound great on a lot of these tracks. The sound quality is about on par with a high quality bootleg, although I would take the 1990 Wembley soundboard over a lot of these even.

The setlist for the A Real Live Tour is pretty interesting. This is Maiden’s first “nostalgia” tour. They weren’t promoting an album (although the stage and set is still Fear of the Dark heavy), and they took the opportunity to dig out some old classics. Songs from the Di’Anno days like Prowler and Remember Tomorrow hadn’t been played in years. Those are nice surprises, and I actually think this particular performance of Remember Tomorrow is the highlight of the entire collection. It is just a shame that on the whole these songs are not played very well. Especially since there are few official live recordings for them. Fortunately, they revisited a lot of these tracks on The Early Days tour and played them much better, but unfortunately they never released a live album for that tour. The Real Live One side is primarily from 1992, which was a better tour, but still there are pretty iffy performances and recordings. Honestly I think these songs are just played too fast for them to sound good. The band doesn’t sound tight and Bruce is constantly out of breath.

As I mentioned with Fear of the Dark, the band is clearly in a transitional stage. They’re gearing up for a lineup change, Harris’ approach to the live album is a prelude to the way he would handle the remainder of the 90s in the studio, and on the whole it seems clear that the band just needs a break.
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The ARLO version of Fear of the Dark ruled back in the days. It's one of the best versions for that song as for the live feel. It's a varied set, I liked it. Very bad production though, Martin Birch kept NPFTD and FOTD above water, this is where Steve is on the loose and his production disaster starts and lasts until...well...let's say until BNW ;) ARLO is much better than ARDO. ARDO has a very cool cover, actually I think it is very underrated. The Live at Donington show was much better, if you listen to the MTV coverage, they sounded very good, they should have captured that sound as is, while the production on the album is again very bad due to Steve's messing around. As for the live feel, that's another good show though, I had the double cassette with the original stripped down cover.
 
Arrakis said:
The ARLO version of Fear of the Dark ruled back in the days. It's one of the best versions for that song as for the live feel. It's a varied set, I liked it. Very bad production though, Martin Birch kept NPFTD and FOTD above water, this is where Steve is on the loose and his production disaster starts and lasts until...well...let's say until BNW ;) ARLO is much better than ARDO. ARDO has a very cool cover, actually I think it is very underrated. The Live at Donington show was much better, if you listen to the MTV coverage, they sounded very good, they should have captured that sound as is, while the production on the album is again very bad due to Steve's messing around. As for the live feel, that's another good show though, I had the double cassette with the original stripped down cover.
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Yes and Yes.

ARLO Fear of the Dark is still the one for me, and I don't understand the issue with the cover of ARDO some people have. Is it the best cover? No. But it's one of the few after the SSOASS era that Riggs drew that actually looks like Eddie. ARLO cover is atrocious but doesn't seem to get as much stick. Is it because Eddie is a DJ, is that it? DJs trigger some people or something? Not Metal enough?
 
srfc said:
Yes and Yes.

ARLO Fear of the Dark is still the one for me, and I don't understand the issue with the cover of ARDO some people have. Is it the best cover? No. But it's one of the few after the SSOASS era that Riggs drew that actually looks like Eddie. ARLO cover is atrocious but doesn't seem to get as much stick. Is it because Eddie is a DJ, is that it? DJs trigger some people or something? Not Metal enough?
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Riggs totally lost it in the 90s as we know it. ARLO looked strange even back in the days, the color choices are not the best either. ARDO is indeed an exception, the only one that is close anything he did for them in the past. Just listening to FOTD from ARLO, still one of the best version, I remember the video for it was all over the TV channels back in the days.
 
srfc said:
Also, for those of us of a certain vintage, here's the rare, now suppressed, real video of Fear of the Dark Live

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Yes, it's important that we are talking about the Helsinki version that is on ARLO, with the Live at Donington video footage. The sing it Helsinki part is legendary.
 
I agree with the general opinion considering these live releases. However, here's some of my own notes.

Live at Donington
An ok live album! Good performance and a solid, relatively varied set. It's more consistent and slightly better sounding than the Real Live/Dead ones, which gives it bit of an edge over them. It doesn't have the curiosity value of the Real Dead One set though and not all of the performances manage to top Real Live One by that big of a margin either, so the gap isn't exactly terribly huge. This live album is just much better live album in comparison to the mentioned two, as it's one, consistent concert with quite a good flow. Very good performance but it just doesn't sound too good. So yeah, ok-good live album. Not much more but definitely not any less either.

A Real Live One
The first half isn't that exciting and it's not helped by the messy sound. It's not like sound is the biggest asset of the Donington live, but especially the first two tracks sound quite messy and "unclean." The performances are mostly alright, though especially The Evil That Men Do & Tailgunner sound very tight and while a bit rough and raw, the intensity and energy is great! They might even surpass their Donington equivalents! Crowd noice is quite prominent here, which gives certain songs some kick (I kind of appreciate how Be Quick or be Dead really EXPLODES here), but it's just another element that makes the sound, production & mixing choices of the album seem... well, it's very, very live. For better or worse. Probably leaning towards the latter, this time.

There are three songs from Helsinki, which could all very well be placed right after each other, but Heaven Can Wait from Italy sort of breaks that small attempt at an actual concert flow. Granted, given that the songs are picked from different cities, it all sits together fairly well. A lot of Finnish fans have told stories of that show. The Helsinki Ice Hall had a concert capacity for around 6000-7000 attendees, or something along those lines, and it was only half-full on that show... so yeah, the probably was bit of a decline in terms of general interest. Anyway, for a crowd of 3000-3500 people or something, they make some good noice. Fear of the Dark sounds great; I think it's a much better performance by Bruce than, say, the Donington version and the band really delivers too. It'd benefit from a bit more massive sound though, as it admittedly sounds a bit thin. But as far as performances on these albums go, I think The Clairvoyant and Fear of the Dark from Helsinki, along with The Evil That Men Do (Brussel) & Tailgunner (Lausanne) are among the highlights of this particular era of live releases. Other than that, it's relatively weak live album for Maiden, albeit some of the performances are quite intense and while not too clean, it's an interesting counterpart to the Donington release.

A Real Dead One
Packed up with oldies, the song selection is quite interesting. The performances are... just that, too. And not entirely on a wrong way! A bit more carefully produced Donington live suprasses most of the performances on this record when it comes to setlist staples. Especially guitars on The Trooper (another cut from Helsinki), for example, sound very thin, even when compared to the Donington release. The most interesting element on this record, which gives it a huge curiosity value, are the deep cuts. Transylvania, Prowler and Remember Tomorrow return to the set after quite a long break and especially the last mentioned sounds quite good. Granted, a bit beefier sound wouldn't have hurted, but it's quite nice to listen to every now and then. With Iron Maiden (yeah, another one from Helsinki) - which actually sounds quite good on this album - and Running Free also featured here, A Real Dead One covers a significant amount of the first album material! Especially if you count Sanctuary as well. Prowler doesn't sound shit, but it's not super exciting either. It's a song that needs a bit more ballsy and rough take, not this semi-aggressive-walk-on-a-park approach. Where Eagles Dare is another interesting curiosity. Far from the best performance even from that tour, but also far from the worst. It's quite ok, but that's the thing... quite ok, with this kind of a sound, just isn't very good altogether. Where as Real Live One managed to put up some interesting takes on songs shared with the Donington set, A Real Dead One loses in that game - with the possible exception of Iron Maiden and ABSOLUTELY FEROCIOUS performance of Hallowed Be Thy Name. The album has it's edge with the mentioned deep cuts, but the card isn't played too well, as the picked performances are closer to mehhh/ok than outstanding and the overall sound isn't exactly a feast to your ears either.

So, altogether, Live at Donington offers very consistent, overall quite good performance you can actually listen to. A Real Live Dead One thing has more of a curiosity value and some outstanding cuts here and there, but it's altogether too unclean and tiring.

Raising Hell
Never owned this, but I've obviously seen it on YouTube. It actually offers some of the most clean, although clinical, performances from this particular era. Probably due to being done in that kind of an environment, but anyway. It's interesting how Bruce seems... I'm not sure if he's being very clinically and professionally unenthusiastic, or if he's... yeah, actually giving a fuck here? He was obviously over and done with Maiden at that point, but it almost seems that he's paying his respect here by actually giving rather solid, even if not mind-blowing performances. And at the end of Iron Maiden, it seems he's even moved a little bit... :) So yeah, another interesting curiosity from this era. The (band) performances are actually better than they're sometimes given credit for, but one or two obscure songs among the cut-short FOTD set would've made this more interesting and significant curiosity, retrospectively looking anyway. Now it's just a very clinical, albeit ok, take on already well-documented selection of songs with added magic & horror show. Ehhh.

Stale, but in a very different way than the other live releases from the same era.
 
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I like all live albums from that era, there are some deep cuts and crowd was great. I dont have problem if band sounds sloppy because it is a live album, I like that natural atmosphere.

Still way more better than this artifical crowd that was inputed in Mexico album.
 
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Balls to Picasso
Bruce Dickinson was having such an identity crisis in the 90s, that he made this album 3 times. You can hear a lot of the outtakes on the deluxe version (which I’m skipping this time around) and they do a lot to highlight how much he was struggling to find a song. A struggle that would continue for the next few years. Also, if you listen to those scrapped songs, it becomes pretty obvious that Bruce made the right call to go another direction. The Peter Gabriel thing just didn’t really work for his voice or writing style. It would take a couple more albums to figure this out, but Bruce is best when working in the Metal zone.

Reading about this album on paper; the several failed first attempts, the baggage with Maiden, it’s pretty surprising that Balls to Picasso turned out as good as it is. This isn’t just a passable album, not just stronger than No Prayer and Fear of the Dark, but it’s a great album in its own right. No comparisons needed. Bruce is totally in his element as a writer and performer. He’s moving away from the rasp, although you can hear that he hasn’t quite figured out how to adjust his style to get the best use out of his aging voice. The more operatic moments aren’t quite reaching the heights that we’ll hear later. The lyrics are way more captivating than what Bruce had been recently contributing to Maiden. There are some questionable spots, but on the whole the material is very captivating.

Then there’s the band. Teaming up with Roy Z was probably the most fortuitous thing Bruce did outside of joining Maiden. Roy Z’s ability to take a modern approach to Metal guitar and adapt it to more “classic” singers is extraordinary. The stuff he comes up with is way outside what you’d hear from Maiden, but it’s familiar enough for what we’ve come to expect from Bruce. It’s the perfect middle ground. The South American influence in the percussion and rhythmic ideas is super refreshing. Also the sound is just so crisp and pleasant to listen to. I highly recommend everyone pay extra attention to the production to hear what Metal drums should sound like. And it’s not just Roy Z, the whole band sounds awesome. Incredibly, this was only a small taste of what this collaboration had to offer.
 
Did you touch on Tattooed Millionaire and I missed it?

I really enjoy the sound of Balls to Picasso. Unlike the rest of Bruce's albums, it sounds very 90s. I don't exactly know what Tattooed Millionaire is supposed to be, but it's fine, you know? But Balls is just...it's just the sound I'd expect in 1994. That's the only way I can put it.
 
LooseCannon said:
Did you touch on Tattooed Millionaire and I missed it?

I really enjoy the sound of Balls to Picasso. Unlike the rest of Bruce's albums, it sounds very 90s. I don't exactly know what Tattooed Millionaire is supposed to be, but it's fine, you know? But Balls is just...it's just the sound I'd expect in 1994. That's the only way I can put it.
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Yes, paired with No Prayer: https://forum.maidenfans.com/threads/the-maiden-years-1994-balls-to-picasso.71817/page-5#post-922107
 
I've been listening alive at the marquee lately. The performance is fantastic. It is the best live performance Dickinson did up to that date, hands down. I remember several periods where I've been digesting this live album on a daily basis in the last 20 years. Dickson's guitar work is awesome, he can play metal riffs very well, the rhythm section is super tight. Again I must give props to Dickson because filling Roy Z's shoes is no small feat.

The low point of the album is in the overly commercial Shoot All The Clowns. The rest is pretty much great. Bruce does try to rap there for a moment, it's not bad it's not good, it's unremarkable part of a mediocre attempt to do something in the rebooted Aerosmith way.

Criticism about the album would be repetitiveness of Cyclops, missed opportunity to enrich the song with tribal drums and industrial sounds, sometimes weakish guitar production mostly shown in Hiding Bush (where we can compare against the live sound in 1997 which was more effective IMO). Production is good for what it is, we're left wondering how album would sound with full on metal approach if Roy Z was in charge.

The second disk has No Way Out with Roy Z and Breeding House with Skin(?). Breeding House is something he did while still in Maiden, it's a good song, with some provocative lyrics but there is nothing standing out there. No Way Out may be indicative of how Roy would do things if he was at the helm, but it's not a final product by any means. I'm not even sure Tribe plays on that song, drums seem programmed.

Certainly, the production seems very roomy, which lends itself to album's grooves very well. While the more layered heavier guitar approach would maybe hamper that feeling.
 
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