Scream For Me Long Beach!

Scream For Me Long Beach! Scream For Me Long Beach! The Iron Maiden

"We shall go onto the end. We shall never surrender"

-Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 4 June 1940

Considered one of the pioneers of the new wave of heavy metal, the band from England had made a name for itself over the past 50 years. Forming in 1975 in Leyton, East London, Iron Maiden like many other bands started out playing local live shows. The band went through many members, with one constant being Steve Harris, the original founding member. Eventually the got some traction and by 1980 were able to release their self-titled first album. Releasing an album a year for the next 4 years ("Killers", "The Number of the Beast", "Piece of Mind" and "Powerslave")

40 years ago, Iron Maiden went on their World Slavery Tour to promote their latest album "Powerslave". Lasting 331 days and performing 187 performances, in 26 countries, they decided to film two of their four shows at the Long Beach Arena in California and at Hammersmith Odeon in London. The resulting masterpiece is an 4 LP release of their first live album titled "Live After Death".

The album starts with a portion of the speech from Winston Churchill at the House of Commons speaking on their war with Germany during World War II. This segues into "Aces High", the opening track of "Powerslave". A great way to open after the mentioned speech. Continuing with the military/war themed songs we move into "2 Minutes to Midnight", again from "Powerslave". Bruce Dickinson belts out the track with an intensity like no other. "Go to war again, blood is freedom's stain/Don't you pray for my soul anymore/2 minutes to midnight/the hands that threaten doom". We move forward with the same theme in track 3, "The Trooper". Dickinson sings as if he is the soldier on the battlefield describing the horror he sees while the band plays the despairing tune. They bring the deadliness of war to life and do not glamorize it.

Hearing it live only strengthens that feeling.

"Here's a song off of "Piece of Mind", this one. Written about religion or what's in your car. Actually it's about opening a pair of curtains. This one's called "Revelations" this one!" Playing at a much faster pace than the studio version of this song, they keep it going at a frenzied pace of the opening songs. They continue with the "Flight of Icarus" at the same intensity as if you watched the entire tale unfold in front of your eyes.

Time to take a break? Not as fast but still hard hitting throughout the song we hear the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner".

The album continues playing a plethora of other now staple songs in their catalog including "Number of the Beast", "Run to the Hills" and "Wrathchild" to name a few. While the majority of songs were recorded in Long Beach USA, "Wrathchild" and a handful of other tracks were recorded at Hammersmith Odeon, London.

Growing up during Iron Maiden's early years was such an awesome experience. Although I had listened to Iron Maiden at friends houses, "Live After Death" was the first album (*cassette tape) I purchased from them. Some of their music videos were in regular rotation on MTV's Hair Bangers Ball program and if you were lucky enough to have cable TV (we had 3-4 local channels you could watch with an antenna until the early 80s). Cable TV was a luxury if you were lucky enough to have it in your house. Fortunately, my parents gifted this to our family. Radio was another issue. Because of the "Satanic Panic" of the 80s (look it up), a band that sang about the devil's mark of 666 would never be allowed to be played on air. Word of mouth in the mid-west and most of America is how you heard about Maiden. Outside of the amazing performances of these songs, the fact they had roughly 52,000 fans over 4 days for the recording of this says just how magnificent this band is. Iron Maiden paid their dues and continues on to this day with the Run For Your Lives tour celebrating 50 years together.

Written by John Loven Jr.

[see also: Allie Loven, John’s daughter]