This week we’re back to 1988 and the celebrated Maiden England tour. This live set comes from two shows at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, England. The shows were played at the end of November and then put together for a live video and audio package, though we get into some interesting stuff when it comes to the album’s release dates.
This was originally offered on video form in 1989 – even on LaserDisc, the vinyl-sized CD precursor to the DVD. It was not released in audio form until 1994, when a CD was issued. However – neither of these initial packages were the complete show, both omitted the encore. In 2013 the set was re-released in complete form both audio and video, and officially on vinyl for the first time. This coincided with Iron Maiden’s tour through 2012 and ’13, which was a recreation of the Maiden England package with a few setlist tweaks.
I know most people who see this will likely know what I’m about to say, but I do want to offer a caveat to anyone who maybe isn’t all that familiar with the Iron Maiden timeline or release windows – this live set I’m discussing is from the 1988 tour, despite being released in 2013. This is not a live set chronicling the 2012 and 2013 tour – there is no official live material for that tour cycle. I could see where someone new to looking at all of this could be easily confused by it.
The line-up here is the band’s classic era roster – The Captain Steve Harris on bass and bandleading, Bruce Dickinson at the mic, the guitar tandem of Dave Murray and Adrian Smith, and Nicko McBrain on the drums.
We do have another compare and contrast feature here – the cover art for the different versions was changed. Up above I’ve actually posted the original 1989 cover art, a badass image featuring a leather-clad Eddie flying over a concert crowd on a motorcycle. It’s a pretty iconic image of Eddie, no doubt about that. The 2013 reissues saw modified art, with Trooper Eddie in his redcoat uniform leaping on a horse over a cannon. The more recent cover art was done by artist Hervé Monjeaud, while the original cover and other associated artwork in the reissue was courtesy of Eddie’s iconic artist Derek Riggs. The newer art is very worthy by all means, but that original Riggs image is just massive stuff.
Let’s do the usual thing – look at the tracklist, then jump into the sounds and highlights.
Moonchild
The Evil That Men Do
The Prisoner
Still Life
Die With Your Boots On
Infinite Dreams
Killers
Can I Play With Madness
Heaven Can Wait
Wasted Years
The Clairvoyant
Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
The Number Of The Beast
Hallowed Be Thy Name
Iron Maiden
This is all from the Seventh Tour Of A Seventh Tour, which obviously was in support of the album Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son. This set kind of reads like one of the reunion-era set lists, in that you get six songs from the current album, maybe a few hidden gems, then a grouping of obvious hits. Given that Seventh Son… is my favorite Maiden album, you won’t hear me complain about it being the focus of this package.
We get a good assortment of songs from Seventh Son… here. The singles are here, as well as Infinite Dreams, which would be a single released from this set. We also get the epic and amazing title track, which is a massive treat for a live performance and not one the band busts out all of the time given that now they have a billion epic-length songs to choose from.
We do get a couple of more out of the way songs from the earlier days here in The Prisoner, Die With Your Boots On and Still Life. The latter especially hasn’t been featured in too many other places. The Prisoner and Die With Your Boots On had a bit more representation in other live releases but it’s always nice to hear them again.
The prior album Somewhere In Time gets a bit of representation here, with the obvious single Wasted Years and then Heaven Can Wait, which gets a fair bit of live play. It’s a shame the album didn’t get a ton of play live before 2023 but stuff happens, I guess.
The other songs are a fair collection of the obvious songs Maiden would play live. Killers was a live staple in the early days, and the three encore songs are ones that aren’t getting cut at a Maiden gig. Well, one would, but we’ll get to that next week.
There is a glaring omission on this set – The Trooper was not played. It seems really weird that it got cut for this tour. The song was in the set for earlier tours the same year in other parts of the world, I don’t know why they chose to cut it here. I haven’t watched the documentary of this time period in many years so I don’t recall if it was brought up on there or not. But the song’s absence does stand out.
As for the sound quality – this is good, in parts very good and in others it feels maybe a bit “off.” I don’t know if the band was out of sync early or if the thing just wasn’t mixed entirely right but there is a bit of odd sounding stuff in the first few songs, this does seem to fade as the set goes on. This isn’t the band’s best sounding live album but it’s not unlistenable by any stretch. It doesn’t require being a superfan or a great deal of effort to get into, but it does sound a hair lesser than other live albums.
Talk of sound quality does require a look at the vinyl – the official vinyl release is on picture disc. Now, I’m not an audiophile by any means, but yes, there is surface noise on the vinyl of this that does pick up on playback. I think it’s even more noticeable here than other picture discs I’ve played where I’ve had very minimal noise. The CD and streaming offerings of this album do sound better.
Overall I do feel like this is a worthwhile live album. It does have a few faults but it’s a great set and it captures a tour from my favorite era of the band. It might be tough to call this one “essential” but I feel it’s worth it.
Next week it’s back to the reunion era as we’re nearing the end of the list here. It was Maiden’s first album in five years, Bruce’s return from a cancer scare, and an epic song was left off the set due to legal wrangling. All that and more in seven short days.
The Iron Maiden Live Album Series
Maiden England ’88 (you are here)
The Book Of Souls – Live Chapter
Nights Of The Dead – Legacy Of The Beast Live In Mexico City
The Crooked Wanderer 