A REAL LIVE DEAD ONE

It would not be very fair to say that this live document of Iron Maiden's catalogue is the weak one; all the tracks are proving that Maidens are outstanding technicians, however, there is something that annoys me quite a bit, although I can not define what exactly. Maybe stupid Janick Gers' improvisations of his guitar solos, which unavoidably led every fan to think: Adrian Smith, come back! we miss you! Maybe it is omnipresence of keyboard tapestry played by Michael Kenney, Steve Harris' bass technician. Don't get me wrong, I love keyboards, but in Iron Maiden's case, they just do not seem to fit in the picture since the "Somewhere In Time" era. They are doing the job creating an atmosphere, but not making their music more "progressive". Or even interesting, to be very honest.

Maybe the selection of the songs from their catalogue. Oh, I forgot the mention that "A Real Live Dead One" consist of "A Real Dead One" with older tracks and "And Real Live One" with newer tracks. But you got the picture already, I guess. Anyway, the selection of songs is far from perfect. I know there is different opinions as many as different tastes, but personally I think that "Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter" is musical banality, and "Heaven Can Wait" contains surprisingly merry melody that is not fitting the lyrics.

The performances of the "Can I play With Madness" and "Wasting Love" stand out from the crowd a little bit (it's nice to hear the intro in French!)

I won't even mention the "Dead One"; not bad, but every fan will rather pick "Live After Death".

Overall, neither here nor there. Recommended for Maiden fans, a nice (but not the nicest) starter for Maiden-newcomer, but definitely not a masterpiece of progressive rock.