I remember receiving
\nA Real Live One<\/i> in the mail from my contact at Capitol
\nRecords back when I was the features editor of the college
\nnewspaper. I had been growing disillusioned with the direction the
\nband had been taking since
\nSeventh Son Of A Seventh Son<\/i> (yes, we still have to review
\nthat – patience, people, patience), and I didn’t find anything
\nworth celebrating on this particular disc. However, when
\nA Real Dead One<\/i>, the “brother” album featuring older
\nmaterial came out, I said to myself, “This is the disc they should
\nhave put out.”<\/p>\n
I finally got around to purchasing the Iron Maiden re-issues
\nfrom ’98, complete with multimedia goodies, and I have to correct
\nmyself about a few things. First,
\nA Real Live Dead One<\/i>, the combined album featuring both live
\ndiscs previously mentioned, is the album that Iron Maiden should
\nhave put out all those years ago – though even this setup needs a
\nlittle tweaking. (More on that in a moment.) Second, maybe it’s
\nthat I’m getting softer in my heart – or maybe it’s because I
\nsurvived listening to that pile of dog crap they called
\nVirtual XI<\/i>, but the post-
\nPowerslave<\/i> material featuring Bruce Dickinson doesn’t sound
\ntoo bad these days.
\n(Editor’s note: The 2002 re-releases on Metal-Is divides this
\nback into the two original albums. We’ll eventually review each one
\nas a separate unit.)<\/i><\/p>\n
The two discs still keep the older (read: pre-’85) material
\nseparate from the newer (read: 1986-1993) stuff – and that’s where
\nI would have made a change. So they combined two separate live
\nalbums into one package – fine. What I think they should have done
\nwas to mix the tracks together in order to try and re-create the
\nfeel of a real Iron Maiden concert. It also might have placated
\nthose who feel particularly passionate about a specific point in
\nMaiden’s history. I, for example, worship the
\nPowerslave<\/i> and
\nSomewhere In Time<\/i> albums, though I admit it’s been years
\nsince I listened to the latter.<\/p>\n
All of this said, now that these discs have had eight years to
\ngrow on me, I have to admit they’re pretty good. Dickinson,
\npreparing to take leave from Iron Maiden until his return in 2000,
\nsounds like he’s into the material, and is genuinely enjoying
\nsinging these songs to the European audiences captured on both
\ndiscs. (Why no American crowds? Just wondering.)<\/p>\n
And songs that I slammed back in ’93 from the
\nA Real Live One<\/i> disc turn out to have sides that I couldn’t
\nhave seen back then. Tracks like “Be Quick Or Be Dead,” “Wasting
\nLove” and “The Clairvoyant” show me that, despite my cynicism about
\nIron Maiden in that era, they indeed were cranking out some great
\ntunes. “Heaven Can Wait” could still be one of the band’s most
\nunderrated works ever.<\/p>\n
When it comes to the period covered by
\nA Real Dead One<\/i> (disc one in this set), Iron Maiden pulls
\noff some wonderful surprises. Whether it was dusting off the
\ninstrumental “Transylvania” or pulling a nugget like “Where Eagles
\nDare” from the depths of
\nPiece Of Mind<\/i>, Iron Maiden take some bold chances with their
\nselections here – and they strike gold almost constantly. That
\nsaid, you know that not everyone will be pleased with the
\nselections – namely because their favorite tracks didn’t make it
\non. (I personally don’t have any gripes with the first half’s
\nselections – though it might have been interesting to hear the band
\ndo “Wasted Years” or “Stranger In A Strange Land” from the
\nSomewhere In Time<\/i> era.)<\/p>\n
There are two bones of contention I will pick with this set –
\nand both, not surprisingly, come from the
\nA Real Live One<\/i> material. The first, “Can I Play With
\nMadness,” might have been a hit single for the band, but it remains
\none of the weakest songs that Iron Maiden ever recorded. I’d rather
\nhave heard “Moonchild” if they had to put something from
\nSeventh Son Of A Seventh Son<\/i> on the disc – and one-fourth of
\nthe tracks on disc two come from that album.<\/p>\n
The second is, arguably, the worst song that Iron Maiden has
\never recorded – “Bring Your Daughter… To The Slaughter”. Again, I
\nrealize it was a hit for the band… so what? Jesus, we’re the same
\npeople who made the fuckin’ “Macarena” a hit, proving we don’t
\nnecessarily have great musical taste. Let’s call making this a
\nchart-topping song a mistake on mankind’s part, bury the song, and
\nnever hear from it again. You know, kind of like what Iron Maiden
\ndid to Blaze Bayley. (Uh-oh, let the flame war begin.)<\/p>\n
\nA Real Live Dead One<\/i> does accurately capture Iron Maiden in
\nthe period leading up to Dickinson’s departure from the band, and
\nwhile it doesn’t have the natural flow of an Iron Maiden show, it
\ndoes capture the boys having some fun with the music. (If you want
\nthe flow of a show from this time period, go pick up
\nLive At Donington<\/i>… which is also in the “to be reviewed”
\npile.) Separate, these albums are admittedly a tad weak. Together,
\nthey highlight each other’s strengths.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5725],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-37040","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-iron-maiden","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37040"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37040"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}