I have never listened to Iron Maiden in my entire life. Call me lame, misinformed, or lucky, but before last night I just hadn’t gotten around to it. As I sat down to watch their newly released 1985 World Slavery Tour concert film, Live After Death, I had no idea I was getting my self into what would be a wild, wild, ride.
The movie opens as the camera pans a sold out Long Beach Arena. The year is 1985, Ronald Regan has just started his second term, the Cold War is at its peak, and 13,000 kids are fucking stoked to see Iron Maiden. A fragment from a Winston Churchill speech plays over the loud speakers as the lights close in on a British flag hanging over where the band will play. The energy and anticipation is impalpable, as the band takes the stage, which also happens to be a giant pyramid. At first, I must admit, I was not impressed. As the band started their set with “Aces High”, I was under whelmed and couldn’t get past their neon spandex, the fact that the lead guitarist bore an uncanny resemblance to Jon Cusack, and singer Bruce Dickinson’s unreal crotch bulge. As the first song ended, I began to jump to negative conclusions before all of my doubts were put to rest.

To introduce the next song, Dickinson yelled, in what I would find to be his signature style of transition into every song, “Long Beach, it’s two minutes to MIDNIIIIIGHT!” The next song appropriately titled “2 Minutes to Midnight“ was a real doozy, with the band running around doing all of the expected metal moves and Dickinson slinking around like a rabid beast while weilding his mic stand like a sword. As I continued to watch the movie, with all of his bounding around, air punching, kicking, and weird gesturing, his stage presence started to remind me more and more of Sonic’s mascot, Squatch. Now that I had settled in, I was actually starting to have some fun watching this thing! The song “Rime of the Ancient Mariner“ was introduced by Dickinson as being a thirteen minute jam about the recreational use of marijuana. It started to drag a little bit after minute nine or ten, as I listened diligently for drug references, and imagined Ichiro smoking a huge blunt. My day dream was interrupted when out of nowhere the band dropped into a melodic breakdown as smoke poured over the stage and a giant spaceship prop came down and hovered over the band. That’s more like it! This is what a metal concert is supposed to be like!
After a while, the song launched into a most triumphant ending with guitar solos that Bill and Ted would have been envious of. The next couple songs “Powerslave“, “Number of the Beast“, and “Hallowed Be Thy Name“ involved firey pyro technic explosions, Dickinson wearing an owl mask (awesome), a man in a mummy costume bounding on to the stage, piggy-back rides shared by band members, and the crowd going absolutely nuts. As the band closed their set with what I found out is their typical last song, “Iron Maiden“, the giant sphynx head hanging over center stage split in half. Out of the crack came an even bigger mummy, except this time a puppet, that danced over the band as they left the stage.
During their “Thanks for being such a great crowd, Long Beach“ banter, as they came out for their encore, I started to feel like a teenager in 1985! These men in tights we’re tough guys! You could even consider them rock and roll super heroes! Think of all the groupies they we’re hooking up with, think of how hard they must have partied every single night! I was starting to see how kids looked up to them and all of the other heavy metal bands that we’re so popular at the time, and started to think I might look okay in their outfits, if given the chance. The three songs in the encore consisted of more cocky swagger, “crowd pump-ups“, crotch flaunting, and operatic Eddie Vedder yarls, than the entire set before it combined. As the last song “Sanctuary“ came to a close, and the movie ended with a very 1980’s still frame of the band in their last epic moment on stage, I couldn’t help but feel like I had missed the boat. I even felt a little bit cheated that I wasn’t born a few years earlier so that I could have fully experienced Iron Maiden, and heavy metal in general, when it was is in its prime. I do give this movie credit though, by picking what many people believe to be their best shows ever in the best era of their time as a band, this video is a time capsule of their legend. Whether you were there in the 80’s and love the band today, liked them then but only listen to the Arcade Fire now, or like me, had never listened to them at all, Live After Death captures and brings us back to the magic that was an Iron Maiden concert.