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

efekåseo_suomi said:
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".
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Those stats are only relevant for a certain demographic and a certain time period, and are also artificially determined by algorithms. When the reputation of the song was defined the platforms didn't exist. There's no records kept of how often physical copies were listened to, shown on tv etc.
 
srfc said:
Those stats are only relevant for a certain demographic and a certain time period, and are also artificially determined by algorithms. When the reputation of the song was defined the platforms didn't exist. There's no records kept of how often physical copies were listened to, shown on tv etc.
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Hang on a minute, was there a time when Youtube and Spotify did not exist??
 
efekåseo_suomi said:
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".
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This one has a million views and is the actual real video that was out at the time, which Maiden never included on any video/dvd release or youtube upload. Hallowed Live had a similar video which has since been supressed, and is not one youtube either sadly

 
UpTheIrons said:
Last few shows I have attended there always seems to be a huge roar in the crowd when the backdrop for The Trooper comes down. Loudest crowd singalong is FotD though imo!
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Biggest respnse is the intro to Hallowed.

At least I want it to be. And I think it might be.
 
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srfc said:
Those stats are only relevant for a certain demographic and a certain time period
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GhostofCain said:
Hang on a minute, was there a time when Youtube and Spotify did not exist??
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Its been 30 years since the album came out and youtube has been around for 15 years. The fun part of statistics is trying to make sense of skewed data;) The demographic you are referering to would be 2.29 billion of the worlds population, so I'm sure the Youtube data is significant when messuring the most popular version of the song!

srfc said:
When the reputation of the song was defined the platforms didn't exist. There's no records kept of how often physical copies were listened to, shown on tv etc.
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The band itself was constantly criticised from the mid to late 90's. The lineup was not especially popular, media and journalists avoided them and they played mostly small shows by 1995. Not a great enviroment to build the repulation of a song. By 2018, A Real Live One was certified to have sold about 60 000 units in the UK since 1998.

www.bpi.co.uk

Ozzy Osbourne, The Ultimate Sin, Album - bpi

www.bpi.co.uk www.bpi.co.uk
 
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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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This is the version I got acquainted to back in 2003. I remember playing that song in the car of my superior apprentice once. Unlike me, he already went to a Maiden concert, and said that he totally loves the song. The audience was totally into it back in that version.
 
chaosapiant said:
If I'm not mistaken, isn't Fear of the Dark still, to this day, the "last" Iron Maiden song written to become a concert staple? I can't think of any song more recent to become a staple. And what I mean by that is songs that the band never, or rarely, doesn't play live.
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Well, you could say that but Blood Brothers has also become a king of staple
 
Luisma said:
Well, you could say that but Blood Brothers has also become a king of staple
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Yea, but Blood Brothers isn't played every single show or tour. It's a popular song, but not literally "we gotta play this every damn show" popular. I'm talking like Iron Maiden, Number Beast, Run at Hills, etc. It's the last song written at that level of live necessity. Even on the tours that feature particular time periods not inclusive of 1992, it's still in every damn setlist. Which isn't a knock because it hella works. It's just....damn....
 
I remember attending a show in 1995 after a four-year gap, having not seen any performances between 1991 and 1995. At the time, I was not that into Maiden, and I mistakenly thought Fear of the Dark and Afraid to Shoot Strangers were from The X Factor album, therefore considering the new album a masterpiece. The London crowd already loved those songs, which only added to my impression. It wasn’t until later that I realized which albums the tracks actually belonged to. Despite this, I believed Fortunes of War (I think I called it the new Hallowed by thy Name at the after party) and Blood on the World's Hands would also become classics that the band would play on many tours to come, alongside Sign of the Cross, Lord of the Flies, and Man on the Edge. How wrong I was.
 
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Starblind said:
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).
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Perfect answer. When I saw them in Paris in 1992, this song wasn't a particuliar stand out. Then, the amazing version on A Real Live One did a lot to improve its status.
 
I do find it odd that they refuse to drop FOTD (apart from the Early Days tour) and yet they dropped Hallowed. Fear of the Dark is great and works brilliantly live, but it is droppable IMO
 
It goes to show how important live performance can be for some songs. Fear Of The Dark in 1993, Writing On The Wall being the most recent example. The live environment also helped Afraid To Shoot Strangers. The Wicker Man is the song that could have become a live staple. The title track and Blood Brothers are the others from the album that are played on 4 different tours.

Fear is probably a bit more ''crowd-pleaser'' than Hallowed!
 
Christopher Baines said:
I do find it odd that they refuse to drop FOTD (apart from the Early Days tour) and yet they dropped Hallowed. Fear of the Dark is great and works brilliantly live, but it is droppable IMO
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Well, Hallowed was dropped because of reasons. It's not about which song is stronger. Fear and Trooper are huge songs live.
 
Kalata said:
It goes to show how important live performance can be for some songs. Fear Of The Dark in 1993, Writing On The Wall being the most recent example. The live environment also helped Afraid To Shoot Strangers. The Wicker Man is the song that could have become a live staple. The title track and Blood Brothers are the others from the album that are played on 4 different tours.

Fear is probably a bit more ''crowd-pleaser'' than Hallowed!
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"Hallowed Be Thy Name" is more of a copyright-lawyer-pleaser.
 
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