Live After Death (DVD)

Live After Death (DVD)

Iron Maiden

Universal Music, 2008

REVIEW BY: Mark Kadzielawa

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 04/05/2008

Live After Death is finally officially available on DVD!  What a trip down memory lane it is to see it again.  I still recall seeing the exclusive production of the Powerslave tour in 1984 as a freshman in high school completely under Maiden’s spell -- could life have been better at that moment?

Watching this disc, thing is obvious: it’s still very relevant, and it’s not looking dated.  I was afraid of that prior to watching this concert, but to my relief, it held up very nicely.  In fact, Maiden today is just as good as they were back in the mid 80s.

The actual show is very inventive and original. It goes along the Powerslave concept and features the same ancient Egypt setup. In some ways this could be considered vintage, as the production costs for such presentation today would probably be enormous. Many bands now are forced to scale their elaborate sets down due to financial reasons, but back then this was the norm. Iron Maiden always put emphasis on delivering a great show, employing a variety of visuals to accompany their music. When seeing the band, not only are you exposed to great music, but the presentation is excellent as well.  In my book, the Powerslave Tour was the best, and it hasn’t been topped yet.  On the other hand, Iron Maiden is a band that can just come out and play with no visuals because their material will always defend itself. 

This set comes with additional disc featuring some treasures that were long lost. Behind The Iron Curtain, which features footage of the band on tour throughout Eastern Europe in 1984, is featured here in its entirety, unlike the original video tape which was limited to thirty minutes or so; Rock In Rio ’85 is here, too, perhaps one of the band’s most sought after recordings. Most of the Rio concert is on this disc and the quality is finally good.  I’ve seen many bootleg versions of this show over the years, and though it was extremely exciting performance, the quality of the footage always left little to be desired.