What was Blaze like live?

chaosapiant

Ancient Marinade
I've seen some you tube vids, but I want to know from the Maiden faithful here what they thought of seeing Blaze with Maiden live in the flesh.  From the vids i've seen, he looks awkward at best, and i'm hoping to hear that he was a great frontman for Maiden, though I suspect he wasn't.
 
Saw Maiden play a gig in Dublin in front of about 800 people in 1996. Was a sad day. People say, "it must've been great seeing them in such an intimate setting". It would've been if Blaze had been in the least bit competent, he wasn't. Band were great but it wasn't gelling, everyone could see it except the people in the band or maybe they just didn't wanna see it, I don't know but I was stunned at how bad he was. Not that he wasn't trying, he clearly was trying and did care but you can't polish a turd. Terrible! Danced a fucking jig when they got Bruce and H back.
 
Blaze would have sung Bruce's songs better if he didn't try so hard.

On the live Maiden recordings I've heard with Blaze, it sounds like he's trying too hard to sing Bruce's songs and because of that, couldn't hit some of the notes. Judging from the studio albums and his solo stuff, he clearly is capable of hitting Bruce's high notes within his own octave range. The problem is that he tries to go an octave higher like Bruce which results in him missing the notes. If he would just stay in his range, he would do much better.
 
I never saw Blaze with Maiden, but I've seen him with his solo band several times.  He's a great frontman, almost as good as Bruce.  But, I guess it's possible he wasn't that good 15 years ago.
 
I saw him live twice, but only during his solo career. The first time was in a small pub, it was an acoustic gig, sometime in 2007, just him and the guitarist Rich Newport (who subsequently left the band), they played a 2-hour set and Blaze was brilliant, the whole gig was a sort of a resume of his career, he was talking about his days in Wolfsbane, Maiden and his solo band. He sang Wasted Years (said it was THE song he really wanted to play live while in Maiden), and we made him sing Como Estais Amigos which was also brilliant.

The second time I saw him was a "full" gig (w. Bermudes brothers, Jay Walsh and Larry Paterson on the drums), he was also very good, although on some newer songs he was yelling more than singing.

So, I guess that within his vocal comfort zone he performs really well.

As for his time in Maiden, I heard some of the bootlegs and I agree it was sometimes horrible. That's the band's fault for not wanting to tune down their instruments.
 
Never actually got to see him live with Maiden - but I had, in the past, saw him quite a few times with Wolfsbane. And he was a class act as a front-man with them.
 
My first Maiden show was in 1996 at a tiny club in Baltimore.  And while it was pretty awesome to have Steve Harris shoot his bass over my head, Blaze just wasn't that great.  His stage mannerisms were all sorts of odd and his vocals on anything but X Factor songs were subpar.  He was really trying and looked to be having a great time, but a perfect for Maiden in the live environment he was not.
 
I saw him twice.....for the two tours in Montreal and I thought he was very good.
Only song s I thought he wasn't all that great on were the trooper, the evil that men do and number of the beast.

I always thought his strongest 'bruce - era' songs were Afraid to Shoot Strangers and Heaven Can Wait
 
I've heard some great bootlegs from him as well, which is all good.  I'm more wondering what kind of stage mannerisms he had.  The few videos i've seen, he just kinda stands there and stares angrily at the audience, hunched over like a metal George Carlin.
 
chaosapiant said:
I've heard some great bootlegs from him as well, which is all good.  I'm more wondering what kind of stage mannerisms he had.  The few videos i've seen, he just kinda stands there and stares angrily at the audience, hunched over like a metal George Carlin.

His stage mannerisms were pretty much as follows-

Air drumming
saying "come on!" a lot
Some more air drumming
Awkward headbanging
Air drumming

I think he's got a good voice, but he looked totally out of his element and comfort zone with Maiden and understandably so.

That being said, he was a lot better on the Virtual XI tour.
 
Travis_AKA_fonzbear2000 said:
On the live Maiden recordings I've heard with Blaze, it sounds like he's trying too hard to sing Bruce's songs and because of that, couldn't hit some of the notes. Judging from the studio albums and his solo stuff, he clearly is capable of hitting Bruce's high notes within his own octave range. The problem is that he tries to go an octave higher like Bruce which results in him missing the notes. If he would just stay in his range, he would do much better.
I know this is supposed to be about people who have seen Maiden live, but I was hoping someone could give their opinion on this as well. I tried to start a new thread on it, but the mods thought it would be best in here so I would like it addressed if possible. Thanks.
 
Donner said:
His stage mannerisms were pretty much as follows-

Air drumming
saying "come on!" a lot
Some more air drumming
Awkward headbanging
Air drumming

I think he's got a good voice, but he looked totally out of his element and comfort zone with Maiden and understandably so.

That being said, he was a lot better on the Virtual XI tour.


I would agree with this 100%
 
I saw the band in 1995 during the x-factor tour and at a preety decent arena (for the Maien of that era) with a capacity of 6000 people (sold out of course) in Athens and it was the first time i was seeing Maiden live . I was impressed with how much better (and heavier) the x-factor songs sounded, God what a horrible production that very good album had. As far as Blaze go, he was decent most of the time except for 1-2 songs like "The evil that Men do " (i think , my memory isn't so good) where he sounded horrible. He had much energy on stage but didn't have  the grand presence of Dickinson and their setlist didn't do him any favours . The problem i think (both in the studio and live) is that Harris (who was the 100% of Maiden with the absence of both Dickinson and Smith) should have returned to something similar to the Dianno-era kind of metal and made albums and live setlists that suited Blaze better , i think.

Anyway TBH i dislike Blaze's voice , in general even in his solo work . He was a terrible choice for Maiden and another mistake made by Harris (who seemed to only make bad decisions after 1988).
 
I always wondered why they didn't do more Di'Anno era material with Blaze as those songs fit his range much much better.  Hearing Blaze attempt to sing The Clairvoyant was, well, let's just say I never want to hear that ever again.
 
Travis_AKA_fonzbear2000 said:
I know this is supposed to be about people who have seen Maiden live, but I was hoping someone could give their opinion on this as well. I tried to start a new thread on it, but the mods thought it would be best in here so I would like it addressed if possible. Thanks.

Here's what I think Trav. Asking Blaze to sing Hallowed, The Trooper etc was a great idea for the audition. I think anyone would agree that on the evidence of what we've heard, he just couldn't handle those songs. Now, if Maiden heard something in his voice that made them go, "I wanna record an album with this guy" then fair enough. However, they must've known he'd struggle with the Bruce era songs so the live set should've been tailored to suit his voice. Iron Maiden and Killers are two excellent albums and Blaze would've been a lot happier singing those songs.

Of course that means dropping, Hallowed and The Trooper etc. If Maiden weren't prepared to do this to protect Blaze's voice then they shouldn't have hired him. It may seem like suicide dropping live staples like Hallowed but on reflection, not dropping those songs exposed Blaze's weaknesses every single night. The lad lasted 2 albums before they dropped him like a bad habit and went running back to Bruce which brings me to my point, he NEVER should've been hired, he wasn't the right man to front Iron Maiden and regardless of how much people enjoy the two albums he made the simple fact of the matter is, if he was the right man for the job he'd still be there. He wasn't, isn't and never will be.
 
Bullshit. He was the right man for X-Factor, and he was the right man for Virtual XI. Live - Harris made a mistake with leaving songs as they were. Listening to Blaze singing the Trooper is a pain. It doesn't sound right, his voice is strained and you can clearly hear that he's having a battle with the song. Trooper was never the staple, it hasn't been played for the better part of the '80s. Change it with a song that isn't in E. For instance, Flight Of Icarus, in F#, Blaze could sing it with his lower register. He did a really good job on Afraid To Shoot Strangers. Drop Hallowed to D. Find out which well-known songs (and face it, there's at least 2 well known songs in general rock community from every IM album) can he perform in original intonation. Staples that have to be there - HBTN/IM, drop 'em down.

But no, Harris was determined to play the songs as they were, because he was afraid that it's going to change the Maiden sound. Ok, drowning down HBTN somewhat kills one of the song's elements...but singing strained and off-key kills it way more.

And Blaze wasn't dumped from Maiden. He couldn't cope with touring. They started canceling dates because of his proneness to allergy, etc.
That's got nothing to do with his live performances of older Maiden material. Half of U.S. leg of VXI tour was canceled. Two out of seven South America dates, too.
Right before the beginning of European tour (after that numerous U.S. cancellations), band and Blaze decided it's a no go. His live performances were bad and he couldn't keep touring. Iron Maiden, being a live band at first place...

With EHT already planned, Bruce heard that Blaze is essentially out at end of VXI tour, and said that he'd like him and Adrian to rejoin the guys for EHT.
With the massive energy on stage, brilliant live performances, and the whole atmosphere around the new lineup (especially the chemistry between three axes), they decided to record an album. The rest is history.
 
Just a word on his two albums. Love them or hate them, they were well played and Blaze is fine on them, if that's what you're into. But this thread is about his live performances.

So in actual fact, not bullshit. You agree he couldn't sing the songs in their original key. Where we disagree is the idea to "drop the songs down" to suit Blaze or have him sing old songs in his "lower register". Horrible idea. You'd KILL the magic of these songs and they'd sound horribly monotoned like most of the Blaze era stuff. There's a clip of Blaze singing Wasted Years (somewhere on this forum) with some band and they've dropped it down from E to D and it sounds HORRENDOUS.

Now, you state: "But no, Harris was determined to play the songs as they were, because he was afraid that it's going to change the Maiden sound. Ok, drowning down HBTN somewhat kills one of the song's elements...but singing strained and off-key kills it way more." I 100% agree with you which is just one of the MANY reasons Harris should never have hired him. It wasn't fair on Blaze and it wasn't fair on the fans either.

Blaze was unceremoniously dumped by Maiden. He was called into the offices and told "we wanna go in a different direction" FACT!

You post also has quotes like: "His live performances were bad and he couldn't keep touring." Again I agree 100% I'm not really sure why you think my previous post is bullshit, you basically agree with most of it.
 
I've yet to see a published source that says Blaze was unceremoniously fired. I have no doubt that's what happened, but I haven't seen a published source.
 
LooseCannon said:
I've yet to see a published source that says Blaze was unceremoniously fired. I have no doubt that's what happened, but I haven't seen a published source.

Well that's how Blaze tells it. He also had an interesting aside to the story. On his way into the meeting, he noticed a car in front of him with 666 on the license plate, freaky :)
 
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