Rock In Rio 2013: Maiden England World Tour (no label)
Cidade Do Rock, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil – September 22, 2013
DVD (1 hr 54 min) Intro, Moonchild, Can I Play With Madness, The Prisoner, 2 Minutes To Midnight, Afraid To Shoot Strangers, The Trooper, The Number Of The Beast, Phantom Of The Opera, Run To The Hills, Wasted Years, Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, The Clairvoyant, Fear Of The Dark, Iron Maiden, Churchill’s Speech, Aces High, The Evil That Men Do, Running Free, Ovation Fireworks
Iron Maiden has a long relationship with the Rock In Rio Festival, they have played it three times and thankfully for us all three performances have been documented in superb audio and visual formats. The band’s inaugural performance happened back in 1985 during the Powerslave tour and the 50 minute footage can be seen on the official Live After Death DVD reissue. The second time the band played the festival was during their 2000 Brave New World tour, this time they headlined the event and were documented on both DVD and CD officially released as Rock In Rio. The bands third and most recent appearance was during this years festival and finds the band on their retro tour dubbed Maiden England World Tour, a throw back to the epic 1988 trek that found the band in support of the Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son Tour and the resulting live video release called Maiden England.
Much of the festival was broadcast via the Internet and possibly on Brazilian television, the source for this release I am guessing is the former. It is complete in excellent quality and stellar sound and contains the bands complete performance. Just for shits and gigglers I threw it on my Sony Blueplayer and in on the 50′ TV to see what it would look like, and the results were excellent as well, while not a blueray the picture was crisp and clear and sound was great. From time to time there are some pop ups stating the band but they are small and do not interfere with the viewing enjoyment, and there is much to enjoy! Maiden circa 2013 is an older and wiser Beast but there is still much blood coursing through its veins, and fingers. It seems like the Brazilian audiences and their love of great music always push the band to their best performances.
While the tour was based upon their 1988 trek, this current set list is more of a celebration of the band’s catalog up to the Seventh Son record but also includes 2 songs from the epic Fear Of The Dark record (I say record because that is what I used to buy back then). Set highlights for me is the haunting “Afraid To Shoot Strangers”, an absolute killer track from Fear Of The Dark that I have not heard live for some time and when I saw them last summer in during the American leg of this tour I was simply blown away. “Phantom Of The Opera” never fails to deliver, Bruce gives the song a more dramatic feel with his stage movements. Eddie makes his first appearance during “Run To The Hills” dressed as a revolutionary type soldier, towering high above the band there are some great shots of him from in back of Nicko that includes the massive audience.
He makes his second appearance in the guise as the scholar towering above the stage during “Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son”, a song that would slightly alter his appearance by adding a long coat and changing his hair to, well for lack of a better description looks the band The Misfits. The spoken word section is cool, with The Count making and appearance on the keyboards and Bruce high up on the stage reciting the story by candle flame. “Fear Of The Dark” delivers, the massive audience does their typical scat styled chants during the opening notes prior to the vocals, and when Bruce starts singing the audience naturally follow, he even changes the lyrics to “Rock in Rio in the dark” which garners a huge ovation. There are also great shots of Steve Harris and the audience jumping up and down, even on such a large scale Maiden connects with audiences like no other band.
Eddie makes his final appearance in the icy wasteland of “Iron Maiden”, this time as the disembodied monster on the Seventh Son cover, complete with the seventh son struggling in the womb, very dramatic indeed. It even gets more badass when fire appearance on top of Eddie’s ‘Ed. The event concludes with a massive fireworks display, the audience stay and cheer throughout, making a fitting conclusion to an excellent concert, or better described as an event.
The packaging is simple yet effective, clam shell style case with a full color insert with Rock In Rio and Maiden England graphics, the back cover has a cool live shot of Eddie as well as individual band members as well as a track listing. If you have a clear case there is a great shot on the inside of the band playing their signature “Iron Maiden” song. The menu is simple, you can choose to play all or select individual songs and is easy to navigate, the menu also has a clip of “2 Minutes To Midnight” to enjoy while making your choice. With Maiden already releasing the old 1988 Maiden England DVD, I doubt we will see an official release from this tour, this is an excellent alternative.
2 Comments
Chambau, valid point on Bruce’s vocal’s not being “up to past performances” and the other not having as much energy onstage. The guys in Maiden are all in the mid to late 50’s so they do not have the same vocal prowess or ability to encompass the large stages as they once did. Last time they played Rock in Rio was 2000, 13 years ago and the fact is they have slowed down a notch, that being said they still play at a very high level and for a man of 55 Bruce dickinson still can still bring it. Best thing about these DVD’s is you can go to you tube and judge yourself. If I did not like the less restrained performances of some of my favorite bands I would not go see Priest, Maiden, Rush, and Sabbath, all who have slowed down a bit in the past decade.
I’m still skeptical about ordering this title despite its great sound and picture !!??). Yes, the show was broadcasted by Brazilian television and I also attended the concert in Curitiba, 2 days after Rio. In both cases, the band seemed tired. Bruce clearly saves his voice in an ususual way and the other members move much less across the stage as we regularly see. Also, the sound on the TV broadcast was not top notch. A friend of mine, who is a huge Maiden fan and follows the band in most of internet web sites told me last week that tha band gave up releasing officially the Rock In Rio show as they were not happy about their performance.