Once the tour to support the album started, the growing tension between lead singer Bruce Dickinson and the other members of the band, particularly Steve Harris, rose to unmanageable levels. Dickinson had grown weary of the constant touring and collaborative parts of being in a band, and following the initial success of his first solo album a few years before, “Tattooed Millionaire”, he had decided that that was the direction he wanted to head. Now, under normal circumstances, his resignation would have been announced by the band’s management, they would have gone their separate ways, and that would have been that. However, Maiden already had further dates booked throughout Europe to play, and Bruce agreed to stay on tour long enough to complete those shows so as not to cause any disruption. The problem now being was that Bruce’s resignation from the band had been announced, so everyone who went to those shows knew they were to be his last with the band. Years later, Bruce was quoted talking about that decision as follows:
"I thought it wouldn't be a problem to go out and do the shows at all ... but it wasn't a good vibe ... we walked out onstage and it was like a morgue. The Maiden fans knew I'd quit, they knew these were the last gigs, and I suddenly realised that, as the frontman, you're in an almost impossible situation. If you're like, 'Wow, this is really fucking cool tonight, man,' they're all gonna sit there going, 'What a wanker. He's leaving. How can it be cool?' Or do you go on and say, 'Look, I'm really sorry I'm leaving – not to put a damper on the evening, but I am quitting'? I mean, what do you do?"
The bad blood between Dickinson and Harris seeped out of this arrangement, with Harry later suggesting that Bruce only tried to sing well when there were corporate people watching who could help further his career, something that Bruce denied furiously, citing the previous quote as the reasons it may not have always sounded great.
The idea of this live album was that it was to be the first part of two live albums. This one was the “live” section, as in the tracks were all from the albums released since “Live After Death” in 1985. That meant a selection of tracks that had not been recorded and released as live versions, from “Somewhere in Time”, “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son”, “No Prayer for the Dying” and of course “Fear of the Dark”. As it turns out, the balance isn’t quite there. Only one song makes it from the “Somewhere in Time” album, that being the brilliant “Heaven Can Wait”, while five songs come from the latest album “Fear of the Dark”. In the long run you can’t blame the band for trying to promote their latest work, but I really must protest – indeed, have always protested – the inclusion of “Wasting Love”. I know it was released as a single, and as anyone who listened to my episode on the “Fear of the Dark” album would know, I have a morbid dislike for this song. And it takes up the room that any of a hundred other songs could have. Surely another track from “Somewhere in Time”. And, given that their headlining Donington gig from 1992 was eventually the third live album released of the band later in 1993, they certainly could have ditched it from this release.
There are some great songs here though, and some great live versions, though I am mostly picky with a lot of them. I think Bruce rushes the vocals too much in “Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter”. I think he sings “Afraid to Shoot Strangers” too softly (in fact, I think Blaze Bayley sang it better). But, on the other hand, it is the best version of “Fear of the Dark” live on any of the 72 releases it has been on since this one. The tone and mood is perfect, just as they recorded it. And “Tailgunner” is great here, a great song live. The recordings come from nine different nights on that European tour, so there is a good reason here that it comes across differently from that brilliant “Live After Death” album – and it does show. The cohesion is missing between songs, not in a setlist order, just individual songs taken from different locations on different nights, which perhaps leaves it a tad unfinished.
I had seen Iron Maiden live for the first time a few months before this album was released, a concert that was one of the biggest let downs of my music watching life. The sound was awful, Dave had a broken leg, and several members of my friend group were ‘out of sorts’ for various reasons. And parts of the set list were... not what I was hoping for.
That probably all bled a bit into my feelings of this album on its release. I was no doubt over hyped, expecting another “Live After Death” experience, or at the very least a “Maiden England” experience, the video of the “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” tour that had come out in 1989. And this definitely is neither of those things. Because the concept had been to break up the songs on this album and its follow up a few months later into newer songs and older songs, it meant that this was just a bunch of live songs recorded and then thrown together, with some form of a list between them. And, the lack of material from “Somewhere in Time” was definitely a part of that initial disappointment. So this album was played for its requisite time, and then it found its way back onto the CD shelves.
On having this back in the CD player for the last couple of weeks, I find that it is a good collection of songs, and a reasonable documentation of the band at that time. It isn’t great, it isn’t poor. As I have already noted, some versions of songs are great and others are better than average. So don’t get me wrong when I say this is an above average live album from a great band. But given it was the first of three live albums released by the band that year, and then the number of live albums they have released since, it is the plethora of the albums that harms this as much as the time itself did.
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