Was Fear of the Dark a crowd-pleaser in the 90's?

efekåseo_suomi

efekåseo_suomi

Ancient Mariner
I was listening to the Talking Maiden podcast the other day and the guys were discussing FOTD. Nesbit said something along the lines of Fear of the Dark being popularized thanks to the Rock In Rio version. For those who attended Fear of the Dark Tour, Real Live Tour, The X Factour, Virtual XI World Tour or the Ed Huntour, did the crowds react as strong to Fear of the Dark compared to songs like Hallowed or 2MTM? Or was it just another "recent" song to the crowd? Did the Rock in Rio album change the way the crowds reacted to Fear of the Dark right away drastically? Was it a clear difference between The Ed Huntour and the Death on the Road for example?
 
I think the song became huge right away with live performance. But the Finland performance on A Real Live One and Live at Donington (both audio and live) performance did help it to spread to everywhere. It was the beginning of audience participation and sing a long's becoming the norm in metal concerts. audience started to do more of these and the bands put more potential singalongs to their compositions. (even metallica's memory remains - marianne faithfull's part could have been influenced from this) and that thing Argentine audience did during symphony of destruction, cheering me-ga-de-th me-ga-de-th was sth grew from this (imho).
 
Completely forgot in my earlier post that the version on Best of the Beast is of course taken from A Real Live One. The fact that they opted to include that live version on the compilation rather than the studio version is probably indicative of the song being elevated in the live environment even in that era.
 
It was the strongest song of the album and in that tour in 92 around Europe. And Donnington was the proof how the crowd received as an instant classic. It was the 93 live single from the A Real Live One and the videoclip from Donnington along the Live at Donnington 1992 VHS and most played in Headbangers Ball than Hallowed be thy name videoclip. They have been played in every tour since 92. Rock in Rio give it another push.
 
efekåseo_suomi said:
I was listening to the Talking Maiden podcast the other day and the guys were discussing FOTD. Nesbit said something along the lines of Fear of the Dark being popularized thanks to the Rock In Rio version. For those who attended Fear of the Dark Tour, Real Live Tour, The X Factour, Virtual XI World Tour or the Ed Huntour, did the crowds react as strong to Fear of the Dark compared to songs like Hallowed or 2MTM? Or was it just another "recent" song to the crowd? Did the Rock in Rio album change the way the crowds reacted to Fear of the Dark right away drastically? Was it a clear difference between The Ed Huntour and the Death on the Road for example?
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The song was made a crowd pleaser by the band way before RIR. When they released the live version of the song as a single, they even went and took the crowd singining the intro portion from another show, "clean it" and stuck it in the beggining of that version to incite fans to sing it like they do today.
 
It was a crowd pleaser from the start. Just listen to the crowd's reaction on A Real Live One (Helsinki). Plus, I seem to remember it was on youngsters' "harder" radio shows upon release (e.g the French "Fun Radio fait du bruit").
 
srfc said:
The Fear of the Dark version from A Real Live One is the definitive version and was big at the time it was released. I had mates who hated Maiden in general, i.e. including the classics, who loved it.

Rock in Rio popularising it is a load of shite.
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If you search Fear of the Dark on youtube and then sort after number of views (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=iron+maiden+fear+of+the+dark&sp=CAM%3D), the versions in order of popularity are as follows:

Fear of the Dark studio version: 88 million
Fear of the Dark studio version: 74 million
Fear of the Dark The Book Of Souls: Live Chapter: 49 million
Fear of the Dark En Vivo version: 28 million
Fear of the Dark Stockholm Rock in Rio version: 26 million
Fear of the Dark Stockholm 2018 version: 25 million
Iron Maiden Live At Donington Park 1992 version: 16 million

The upload of Fear of the Dark from A Real Live One with the most views only has about 87 000 views. It would be interesting to know the Spotify statistics too. I think I have to disagree on it being "the definitive version".

UpTheIrons said:
The live version on Best of the Beast (from Helsinki, 1992) still has a great deal of crowd participation, so it seems like it could well have been an instant hit with the fans.
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Maiden has a history of editing live versions. I think the most obvious example was Bayleys Evil that Men Do version of the Futureal single. And I think FotD of Rock in Rio had some edits in it. Is it possible they did this for the Helsinki version of FotD too?

Christopher Baines said:
I must admit at the time i didnt thinm it stood out as being a song theyde play on nearly every tour for the next 30 years. Sounded great live but so did Afraid to shoot strangers. I think the 93 single gave it lift off at first. I remember all the metalheads at school taking about it when it was released live.
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Very interesting! I was under the impression that Afraid to Shoot Strangers and Fear of the Dark revived about the same reaction in the 90's. The obvious difference came later when they played both back during the Maiden England 2013-2014 tour!

Flaming Blimp Crash said:
Right, AtSS stopped getting played after 98. They kept playing Fear.
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So according to the same logic, the song Iron Maiden is their most popular song because it has been played since that first show in 1976?

Flaming Blimp Crash said:
They had enough faith in the song to release it as a live single in 93 as well.
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The Blaze Bayley version of Best of the Beast sure has a massive response from the crowd. But comparing it to the soundboard version of the same show it becomes clear that the released version was edited. I think a live version with Blaze Bayley signing Fear of the Dark could have helped his statue as the lead singer of Maiden at the time.
 
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srfc said:
The Fear of the Dark version from A Real Live One is the definitive version and was big at the time it was released. I had mates who hated Maiden in general, i.e. including the classics, who loved it.

Rock in Rio popularising it is a load of shite.
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Definitive version for me too. The singalong to the instrumental section has this inimitable "bounce" to it that the band hasn't replicated in any version on any live album since that one.

Also, isn't Rock in Rio where Bruce started sort of parodying himself with the exaggerated spooky laugh?
 
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