Iron Maiden’s Live After Death is undeniably one of the greatest live albums of all time - and it’s currently available on Amazon at a reduced price of £35.06.
The heavy metal legends celebrate their 50th anniversary in 2025 with the Run For Your Lives tour - in which they will be performing classic songs from their first nine studio albums.
As singer Bruce Dickinson tells Classic Rock: “We’ll be presenting things in such a way that people will be blown away - not just by the music, but by the whole spectacle!”
Fans are already speculating about which songs will be in the setlist for the Run For Your Lives tour, but pretty much everyone agrees that they’ll have to play Run To The Hills, 2 Minutes To Midnight, The Trooper, The Number Of The Beast, Hallowed Be Thy Name, Flight Of Icarus, Phantom Of The Opera, Running Free and the band’s calling card Iron Maiden.
All of these classics are of course featured on Live After Death.
The album was recorded on the band’s World Slavery Tour, a 13-month marathon which began in August 1984 and ended 331 days and 189 shows later in July 1985.
The stage show was based on theme of ancient Egyptian mythology that inspired the title track and the cover of the band’s then-current studio album Powerslave.
A four-night stint at Long Beach Arena in Orange County, California in March 1985 would – along with earlier shows at London’s Hammersmith Odeon – provide the basis for the Live After Death album.
As bassist Steve Harris told Classic Rock: “We wanted to record all of [Live After Death] from Hammersmith, but we ended up recording three sides from LA because by that time we were just playing that bit better.”
The World Slavery Tour helped turn Maiden into one of the biggest metal bands of the decade, but at a cost. The punishing tour schedule pushed the band members to their mental and physical limits, almost bringing the group to an end.
“That tour fried everybody,” Harris said. “Bruce in particular. Christ, he had to get up and sing six nights a week for 13 months, and that took its toll. Our schedule then was insane. It wasn’t like anyone twisted our arms, we were totally up for it, but perhaps we took on more than we could deal with.”
Bruce himself recalled: “At no point on the tour did we ever get to the point where anybody hated each other. We held that end of it together very well. Because we all realised what each of us was going through, and if someone threw a wobbler – which we all did at some point – it was, ‘Shall we leave the room and let him wreck the place and come back later?’ Because everyone was going through it.
“But it was the first time I really thought about leaving. I don’t just mean Maiden, I mean quitting music altogether. I really felt like I was pretty much basket case material by the end of that tour, and I did not want to feel that way.”
If that tour was a test of human endurance, what came out of it was a legendary double-live album comparable to such classics as Deep Purple’s Made In Japan, UFO’s Strangers In The Night, Thin Lizzy’s Live And Dangerous and Kiss Alive!
So if your old copy of Live After Death is worn out - or you've never heard this masterpiece - now’s the time to grab a copy.
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