Customer Reviews

Death on the Road

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

First off i am so pissed that these Cds arent released in the US until almost 2 months after the UK release, anyways. The album is decent and it was cool to hear some of their new songs like Rainmaker, Journeyman, Pachendale and Wildest Dream being played live, but i found that the quality of the music seemed to have been taken aside for releasing a live album that quick. Most of the music is too quiet and Dickinsons voice dramatically overshadows it. I know its a live album, and quality cant be as great as a studio CD, but i dont see why it has to sound like Live After Death(great album, but it was recorded almost 20 years ago). After all Rock in Rio is so much better and to be honest, Brave New World has better songs than Dance Of Death.
If the quality had been as good as Rock In Rio, then i would think twice about giving it 3 stars, but the only reason i could think of buying it would be to hear the Dance Of Death songs, which arent even played that great. I am a huge Maiden fan, whether live or studio and i was dissapointed with it.

Terrific! Great! That's what I thought when my new Iron Maiden double live cd arrived in the mail (I ordered it as an import instead of waiting an extra 5-6 weeks for it to be released here in the states). There has been news that Iron Maiden will release an official live set after every world tour in order to "beat the bootleggers". That's great, I'll buy each one. However, upon listening to "Death On The Road" I'm of two minds.

First, the set list is great and Maiden play like a band possessed, full of energy, aggression, and vigor. Unfortunately, the crowd noise, which Steve Harris insists be a constant throughout the live records, runs like a constant hiss above the music dampening the nuances and even obscuring some of the solos. I find this extremely annoying. This has been a problem with every live cd the band has done after the great "Live After Death", which legendary producer Martin Birch produced and engineered.

Please, 'Arry... for any more live releases, PLEASE understand that I'm much more interested in hearing the bands performance and not the constant roar of the crowd! As with any audio cd, the music is what counts, and it's irritating when one has to strain to hear it over the crowd. Keep the crowd noise DOWN on future releases and mic it up only in appropriate places. For lots of crowd noise, I can still listen to bootlegs... although I've heard clearer bootlegs from this tour. After all, if I wanted to hear a constant roar, I'd go sit by the Interstate highway and listen to the traffic.

Really, this is a 5 star record, but is marred by the refusal to mic down the crowd during the performances. Therefore, I can only see my way to giving it 4.

This is a decent live album. There are better live releases from this band out there... but if you like Dance Of Death, and want to hear songs from that cd performed live, pick this one up.

They left out a lot of good songs in my opinion, and why did they have to include "Lord of the flies"? That song sucks.

Overall a pretty good cd. If your a fan of iron maiden, you'll like it.

Live After Death, Live at Donnington, Real Live One, Real Dead One, Rock in Rio (and Maiden Japan)..... Good sound, same material including the Dance of Death stuff. No such thing as bad or too many Maiden live albums, but these guys are pushing it.

I was so excited about this disc, I ended up ordering it through Amazon-UK, and had it shipped to California (about 1-1/2 week delivery). Let me start by saying that it was a wise choice. The sound is very good but has some good and bad aspects to it. There is a lot of low end which tends to make the overall sound a little muddy. The guitars and drums are very clear, but Bruces voice can be lost in the mix. More important, however, is that this is a very raw live disc. It's energy level harkens back to the Killers and Beast On The Road era. In a word, this album is amazing. It's a real shame they bypassed the U.S. on this tour.

The standouts include "Dance of Death" which is comparable to "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son," in its technicality, only it's even more complicated. "Rainmaker" is also a great song live and boasts some great guitar work. "Pashendale" is also intense, with a great performance from Bruce. The inner sleeve shows a simulated battlefield, with Bruce decked out it a soldier's uniform. Most surprising is "Lord of The Flies" where Bruce really shows off the difference between his vocal abilities vs. Blaze Baily's. Let's just say it's a great improvement. Of the older material, "Killers", "Hallowed Be Thy Name", and "Fear of The Dark" all sound fresh. Again, great energy.

Whether if you are a fan of old or new, I highly recommend this disc. It is True to Maiden's form, and one of their best live performances. The disc reflects the same quality of show that they produced on Ozzfest, where as the reviews put it, they stole the show. Take that Sharon!

This is a very good Live CD. The Balance is so good that it feels like you are right there in Dortmund, Germany.

Top Notch Job, a must for any true Maiden Fans

Yeah, once again there's live versions of the songs Maiden plays every show. And? Why is this a bad thing? It sounds terrific. Would the people complaining rather have a mini-release of just the new stuff live? Its an entire concert, and Maiden has several songs you will hear live every time. The old stuff still sounds great, and with the 3 guitar lineup I think it sounds even better than prior recordings of the older material.

The new stuff is what this release is all about though, "new" meaning material from Maiden's most current studio release, the material from Dance of Death.

This stuff just sounds amazing live. Paschendale is quite possibly the best song the band has ever recorded, and it will blow you away here. Wildest Dreams kicks it off in grand style, then after some vintage songs they kick into the title song of their last release, Dance of Death. Can I use the word "amazing" enough here? Probably not. Right from there it goes into an excellent version of Rainmaker. A brief journey back to 2000 for Brave New World and then Paschendale live. Again, just amazing. Iron Maiden has always been tight live, but this is just ridiculous. Paschendale is a powerful song just on the cd, but live? Amazing. Then after a painful reminder that Blaze Bayley used to be in the band (Lord of the Flies) they pound out No More Lies, another great version of a solid song. The last new song is the first encore, Journeyman. This song was Maiden's first attempt at an acoustic song and it was a winner on the cd, but it just takes off live.

All in all a great recording of a great concert. As I mentioned, Iron Maiden has always sounded great live but the storytelling of the stage show as they play the songs is one of the many reasons to see them live. The dvd release of this concert can't come soon enough, I can't wait to see the theatrics involved with classics like Dance of Death and (especially!) Paschendale.

Again, I don't understand the complaining about duplicate songs from past live releases. Would you want to go see Maiden live and not hear Fear of the Dark, Trooper, etc? The new material alone is reason enough to get this cd, and to me the old material still sounds fresh because of the 3 guitar lineup now. This is definitely a must-have live compilation if you like metal or even if you just like outstanding live recordings.

"Steve Harris once again took weeks personally editing the footage and like Rock in Rio this means thousands of cuts right into the heart of the action."
Steve Harris needs to quit making thousands of cuts and let us viewers just watch the show without all of the cuts. Maybe focus on the stage as a whole. It gave me a freakin headache trying to follow the cameras when I tried to watch Rock in Rio. I think it's very, very annoying when the camera will focus on a member of the band, then every 2 seconds the camera moves to someone else. Steve Harris, stop with the damn constant cuts.

The dip in quality gets higher and higher. Poor sound and vocals by Dickinson and not very audible bass combined with awful song selection: all designed to rip off their fans. (And 2 cd's with just 16 tracks? Maiden's songs are not THAT long.) Yet another Maiden live album (4th in 12 years) ONCE AGAIN featuring Hallowed Be Thy Name, Fear Of The Dark, Number Of The Beast, Run To The Hills, The Trooper, Wrathchild and Iron Maiden. And since Maiden understand that the best musicians improvise and add something new to a performance *heavy sarcasm* I'm sure we're all delighted to hear these songs again! To add to the miserable selection from the Classic Iron Maiden Song Book we have five songs from the worst album in Maiden history: Wildest Dreams, Rainmaker, Dance Of Death, Paschendale and No More Lies. If you want to know what's wrong about these songs check out the Dance of Death review page.

Fact about Dickinson, he cannot sing Dianno era songs in the raw, rock fashion it was meant to be. Wrathchild, Iron Maiden are not meant to be sung in heavy metal operatic vocal style.

Lord Of The Flies and Journeyman are quite good here but otherwise the album is just terrible.