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Iron Maiden

Rock In Rio

Sony

Iron Maiden Rock in Rio was recorded January 19th 2001 at the Rock in Rio Festival in front of a crowd of 250,000 people. The two-hour set was shot using 18 cameras and was edited by Iron Maiden bassist and founding member Steve Harris. The two disc DVD contains the concert on disc one, and interviews, photo gallery, etc., on disc two. The stage production is, in the tradition of metal super group Iron Maiden, massive. The back of the DVD exclaims that this is “Maiden at its best, performing before their biggest show ever on the final date of their Brave New World Tour.” Now that Bruce Dickinson is back on vocals (returning from a fairly successful solo career), what we have here is an astounding concert preserving some of the best sounding live Maiden to date. However, that does not mean that there are no bumps in the road, but more on that later.

When I first heard the album Brave New World shortly after its release I’ll admit, I was not very impressed. It seemed kind of slow and I was really interested in hearing more heavy material at the time. Upon further exposure to the album at a later date, I began to see that Brave New World could, in some ways, be considered almost a part 2 in sound to Maiden’s great sounding and successful earlier record, Powerslave. A good way to think of Brave New World would be a cross between the Powerslave song “Rhyme of The Ancient Mariner” and the concept Maiden album Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. For me, a long time Maiden fan, they have never topped their 1985 Live After Death performance, CD/Video. For those who visit e-bay, the new Brazilian DVD release of Live After Death is available for cheap and plays on all U.S. DVD players, as does their release of Maiden’s great rock-u-mentary, 12 Wasted Years. I’ve heard live cuts from them since those old days, but the energy and quality always seemed to be lacking to me somehow. All that has now changed with the Rock and Rio DVD.

The Rock in Rio performance really is astounding and measures up to some of their best quality work. Has Bruce Dickinson’s voice changed? Hardly noticeable, if at all, in my opinion. There are so many trademark Maiden qualities in his unique voice that it’s hard to tell in some places if he does not prefer to do certain things or if his voice has just matured with more sustain at the expense of perhaps some minor high and low tones. Honestly though, he really does sound great. And he certainly is in shape, running around everywhere on stage just like in the 80’s. Now the short haircut he sports is something altogether different. Not that Bruce looks bad or anything, but plenty of people always thought that he had some of, if not the epitome of, the best Heavy Metal hair and look. That’s all gone for the moment, and so is the nice definition it always gave to his aggressive head movements and expressions on stage. But, his private life as a licensed airplane pilot probably has benefited I suppose. Everyone in the band looks good, and Steve Harris seems to have not changed at all.

The songs included on the disc are:

  • The Wicker Man
  • Ghost Of The Navigator
  • Brave New World
  • Wrathchild
  • 2 Minutes To Midnight
  • Blood Brothers
  • Sign Of The Cross
  • The Mercenary
  • The Trooper
  • Dream Of Mirrors
  • The Clansman
  • The Evil That Men Do
  • Fear Of the Dark
  • Iron Maiden
  • The Number Of The Beast
  • Hallowed Be Thy Name
  • Sanctuary
  • Run To The Hills

    Over all, the Maiden guys provide a fairly good selection of songs for their set, though I think they could have easily left off a song or two from the period without Bruce, and in their place have put a song or two from Maiden’s great sounding Somewhere in Time album. Nothing from that album even appears on the disc! That is certainly a grave disappointment, yet all of the performances here are spectacular (though Bruce was certainly over dramatic in his introduction of “The Evil That Men Do”).

    As for some of the bumps in the road, interestingly enough, they all seem to revolve around guitarist and close personal friend of Steve Harris, Mr. Janick Gers. I, for one, don’t want to pick on the guy like some people do. He’s been in Maiden now for a Decade or so and seems like a nice enough guy, he does appear to be able to generally hold up his own musical end just fine. However, his flashy solo that appears on the disc (if it could even be called a solo) would be laughable if it were not for the fact that he was not trying to be humorous. Immediately after he finished, Bruce just looks straight into the camera close up and raises an eyebrow! Janick has a lot of flashy moves (some of which are genuinely cool looking, but more so than Maiden needs in my opinion) and seems a lot more suited for playing in a band where he is the only lead guitarist in the spot light. Here, in Maiden, he can become kind of a distraction at times. The only real major complaint I have about Janick is what Steve Harris did and/or allowed on the editing floor for this DVD. With six people now in Maiden, that means a lot less camera time can easily happen. Here, it is painfully obvious that Janick got a lot more time on camera than he needed, and guitarist Adrian Smith (who’s been in the band nearly forever) was obviously shorted. This does not seem to be the first time something like this has happened to him either. But, he’s a real trooper.

    But it all seems to work out in the end. And, any genuine Maiden trooper would be very pleased with Rock in Rio.

    -Lorn