The live set this week explores a box set released in 2002, but the material itself goes back to the earlier days of the band. The first material is the BBC Archives, which serve as a compilation of a few different early Maiden gigs. This is also the only official full-length live album to feature someone besides Bruce Dickinson singing, though Bruce is also on this one too.

This set was released as part of a 6-disc box set called Eddie’s Archive. The set was released in 2002 and reissued a bit later as the first edition was limited and people were clamoring for it. 4 of the 6 discs featured previously unreleased live material while the other 2 discs were a B-sides compilation. This live set and the B-sides comp are only on offer physically in this box as of now. This is digitally available on streaming services, so no one has to hunt down a collectible box set to hear this stuff.

And, as I was dumb and never bought the Eddie’s Archive box when I had plenty of opportunity to 20 or so years ago, this is the one live Maiden album I don’t own in physical form. I’ve only heard this stuff in bits I’ve played off YouTube or wherever over the years. Now, the Eddie box is not actually horribly expensive, it did not spike in price the same way some other rare Maiden offerings have. I may pull the trigger on one as this is one of my big collecting regrets. It’s always possible this live set gets a vinyl press at some point since it never has and the other live set from the box got one last year, but we won’t know until we know.

This does have some cover art, it is Eddie tearing up a BBC building. Pretty cool stuff. This one has a whole bunch of songs so I also snagged a pic of the back cover for easy reference to the tracklist.

Today’s live set has 4 separate gigs on it so I’ll be breaking each thing down by section.

BBC Radio 1 Friday Rock Show – November 14, 1979

Up first is a 4 song set Maiden did for the BBC. This was just before Maiden signed their record deal with EMI and about 5 months before the release of the debut album. The band played songs that would all be on the record – Iron Maiden, Running Free, the instrumental Transylvania and Sanctuary (Sanctuary was not universally available when the album first released)

Looking through the line-up for this gig is pretty interesting. Steve Harris, the bassist and founding member, is of course around. Dave Murray is in on guitar and Paul Di’Anno is the singer. It is Doug Sampson on drums, who did figure on a few other early recordings but would leave the band before they set out to do the first full-length. Also on guitar is Tony Parsons, who was in the band for about two months, this gig was probably right before he was sent away. Mick Wall’s Run To The Hills biography mentions Parsons as a “temporary guitarist” and says not much more about him.

This is a really good sounding set, the material here doesn’t sound radically different from how it would be presented on the album. The band was pretty well primed at this point even with turnover in the second guitar position. The recording quality is very nice, no shock since it was a radio broadcast. It’s a neat little bonus find from the earlier days of the band, not a ton of stuff exists to document Maiden back then.

Reading Festival – August 28, 1982

We now jump ahead a few years and into the Bruce Dickinson era. This was the band’s festival set and is nearly complete, only a cover of ZZ Top’s Tush is left off. We are into the first “classic” Maiden line-up here, so Harris, Murray, Smith and Dickinson with Clive Burr on drums.

This is a pretty cool set to have, it’s the complete set from the day. It is not a 100% fine-tuned performance in terms of production, it is soundboard level stuff and the music is a bit noisy and all over the place. It’s not bad at all, it’s just not “mixed” or whatever and that may not have been a real option depending on source material anyway. It does document the performance pretty well as it probably sounded then.

Bruce is pretty powerful here, he really stands out in his performance and at a few points is almost too much of a human air raid siren over the rest of the music. He has a pretty funny and insightful rant between Run To The Hills and Children Of The Damned about the Satanic Panic surrounding Maiden at the time, he invites the Vicar of Huddersfield to shove his head into a toilet over comments made about Maiden.

The setlist is nice, at the time the band had 3 albums to work with so they did. It is very heavy on The Number Of The Beast, as 6 songs make appearances here. And, as usual, it’s worth mentioning that Hallowed Be Thy Name sounds especially awesome here. Overall this is a cool set to have for this fan-collectible release.

Reading Festival – August 23, 1980

Disc 2 goes straight back to the Reading Festival, except this time it’s two years prior. This means a different line-up, this is Harris, Di’Anno, Murray and Burr, also with Dennis Stratton on guitar. This is not a complete set, the band played 10 that day but only 6 are on this recording. I assume that CD length is the reason for the trimming.

This is a pretty good sounding set. It is a bit rough in spots in terms of recording quality, but still a perfectly listenable presentation. The more rough and tumble Di’Anno era stuff sounds fine in a less than sterling recording environment so it all pans out. The song list is good, nice to see Killers on there several months before the album released. Maiden were already playing their stuff a bit off the rails tempo-wise here so that was a thing from the get go, apparently.

There isn’t a ton of Di’Anno era live stuff out, just stuff scattered across a few EP’s and single B-sides. Other than this release, it’s all bootlegs for the band’s early years so it’s nice to have this as an official release, even if it’s not exemplary sound quality.

Monsters Of Rock – August 20, 1988

The final piece of this live offering is a selection of songs from Maiden’s headlining stint at Castle Donington in 1988. There are 8 songs presented here, whereas the band actually played 19 that day. It would take 2 CDs to cover just this set and also there’s no clue if the source material allowed for that, so we get a portion instead.

It’s also easier to truncate this since there is a full release to chronicle this tour – this is the Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour timeframe, so the Maiden England release does cover this material. It does seem more fitting to offer up some stuff from different time periods on this release rather than rehash the same ground again.

The line-up here is the band’s classic formation, with Harris, Dickinson, Murray, Smith and Nicko McBrain on drums. It’s also true that this is their current line-up sans Janick Gers.

Everything here sounds really good, it’s no shock that this is the best-captured performance of this release. It is a good selection of songs, a mix of stuff from the most recent album and stone cold classics were chosen here. Maiden are in top form here and this last portion of the live offering is a real treat to end on.

Overall the BBC Archives offer a very cool selection of material – the only real glimpse of Paul Di’Anno live material beyond early EP stuff, an early Bruce festival and then capping off with the prime performance in 1988. This isn’t the definitive live album by any stretch, nor was it meant to be. This is an offering to fans who always clamor for more and were given a very nice set spanning a few different portions of the band’s career, and some live stuff from band members who are long, long gone. This is exactly what it was supposed to be and it’s a very well-assembled offering. Even if not fully “produced,” it’s easily a good enough sound to fully enjoy.

Next week sees the other live portion of the Eddie’s Archive box, which oh by the way might be the greatest live set of the band’s entire career.

The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

Live After Death

A Real Live One

A Real Dead One

Live At Donington

Rock In Rio

BBC Archives (you are here)

Beast Over Hammersmith

Death On The Road

Flight 666

En Vivo!

Maiden England ’88

The Book Of Souls – Live Chapter

Nights Of The Dead – Legacy Of The Beast Live In Mexico City

The Iron Maiden Live Album Ranking

The Maiden Live Album “Wishlist”