Iron Maiden Live Albums Ranked Worst to Best
· Ultimate Classic RockNo metal band has mastered the art of the live album quite like Iron Maiden.
The metal veterans have remained one of the biggest bands in the world for nearly half a century by supplying their fans with a constant embarrassment of riches, both onstage and in the studio. Each tour boasts an epic stage production and unique set list, and in most cases, fans can expect a live album (sometimes with a video accompaniment) to recap the latest installment in what Bruce Dickinson has described as the band's "theater of the mind."
Maiden has also made no bones about wanting to challenge themselves and their fans. While one can expect a handful of requisite classics — "Run to the Hills," "The Number of the Beast," "The Trooper" — to appear on most of their live records, the sextet has also made it a point to feature a healthy dose of its latest studio offering on most accompanying live albums, especially in the 21st century.
A lesser band would struggle to pull off this maneuver without sending fans flocking to the bathroom or reaching for the skip button. But Iron Maiden has always regarded their contemporary work with the same respect as their time-honored classics, compelling their fans to do the same. That's why, on the following list of Iron Maiden Live Albums Ranked Worst to Best, several of their highest-ranked entries include a wealth of new material, mixing seamlessly with decades-old songs.
Note that we've only included the band's 13 officially released full-length live albums on the following list, so goodies like 1981's Maiden Japan EP are absent. But that's the great thing about Iron Maiden: When you're ready to explore further, there's almost always more official and bootleg material available to quench your thirst.
13. 'A Real Live One' (1993)
Featuring material exclusively from Somewhere in Time, No Prayer for the Dying and Fear of the Dark, A Real Live One would be a hard sell for a casual Iron Maiden fan no matter what. Factor in its dreadful production and uninspired performances, and you've got a virtually irredeemable album that should've been left on the cutting room floor.
12. 'A Real Dead One' (1993)
Released seven months after A Real Live One, A Real Dead One is a marginal improvement over its predecessor if only because it comprises songs from Iron Maiden through Powerslave. Still, it suffers from the same abysmal production and rushed, sloppy performances. Maiden later reissued both albums as the joint A Real Live Dead One, making them even easier to ignore.
11. 'Nights of the Dead, Legacy of the Beast: Live in Mexico City' (2020)
With a dynamite set list and spectacular, multi-act stage show, the Legacy of the Beast tour had all the fixings for a killer live package. Unfortunately, Nights of the Dead: Legacy of the Beast: Live in Mexico City isn't it. By any other band's standards, the performances here are still top-notch, but Bruce Dickinson sounds winded and off-time in spots, and the spotty production highlights little of the rhapsodic crowd energy inside the Palacio de los Deportes. Furthermore, most of these songs had already been featured ad nauseum on Maiden live albums spanning decades, making Nights of the Dead a set for completists only.
10. 'Live at Donington' (1993)
Why Iron Maiden felt compelled to release three live albums in one year is anyone's guess, but Live at Donington gets the jump on the Real Live Dead One duology by presenting a single concert — 1992's Monsters of Rock festival — in full. The band's best late-'80s and early-'90s material mingles with earlier classics, but the mix is still shoddy (the bass is about 250% too loud) and the performance lacks the spark that characterizes Maiden's best concerts. "I promise you, there will be another British tour," Dickinson declares, but it's easy to hear why he was soon on his way out.
9. 'Death on the Road' (2005)
Dance of Death might have been a slight downgrade after Brave New World's triumphant return to form, but Iron Maiden's live show suffered none for it. Death on the Road picks up right where Rock in Rio left off, with the band once again barreling through several long-form epics off its most recent LP. The deluge of seven-to-10-minute songs weighs down the album's back half, but "Dance of Death" and "Paschendale" are impressive feats of technicality nonetheless, while "Hallowed Be Thy Name" and "Run to the Hills" sound as vital as they did in 1982.
8. 'En Vivo!' (2012)
Maiden once again challenges fans by stuffing En Vivo! with six of the 10 tracks off its accompanying studio LP, The Final Frontier. While that album gets bogged down by its own meandering complexity, its choice cuts blend seamlessly with golden-age classics and post-reunion highlights here. The band is characteristically on fire, Dickinson's voice is in peak form, and the sterling production plants listeners in the heart of Santiago, Chile's Estadio Nacional, making En Vivo! another engrossing latter-day triumph.
7. 'The Book of Souls: Live Chapter' (2017)
The logical question upon pressing play on The Book of Souls: Live Chapter is: How the hell do these guys keep pulling this off? The Book of Souls marked Iron Maiden's first album since Dickinson's bout with tongue cancer, and the ensuing live set features six hefty new cuts, which are equal parts kinetic and sprawling. Dickinson's bellowing vocals require no grading on a curve, but his recent health travails lend extra poignance to his performance. Factor in some less-represented classics like "Children of the Damned" and "Powerslave," and The Book of Souls: Live Chapter is another victory, making a strong case that there's nothing this band can't do.
6. 'BBC Archives' (2002)
Comprising three live concerts and one radio broadcast, the two-and-a-half-hour BBC Archives features several performances with Paul Di'Anno at the helm, proving how crucial he was to Iron Maiden's early success. The 1979 Friday Rock Show rendition of "Iron Maiden" sounds positively bloodthirsty, while dual Reading Festival performances show how Di'Anno and Dickinson both capably handled the same material. The latter frontman sounds obviously sick in the Monsters of Rock 1988 set, but the way he works around his illness and marshals the crowd is still impressive. With guitarists Dennis Stratton and Tony Parsons and drummers Clive Burr and Doug Sampson also in the mix, BBC Archives is essential for any Maiden fan, shining a light on underrepresented but no less important chapters of their career.
5. 'Rock in Rio' (2002)
With Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith back in the fold, Iron Maiden reclaimed their heavy metal crown on 2000's Brave New World and asserted their dominance with the stellar Rock in Rio. Before a crowd of 250,000 rabid fans (the second-biggest show of their career behind 1985's Rio performance), Maiden tears through vintage and modern classics with savage precision and boundless enthusiasm. Dickinson's thundering vibrato is at its career best, and he revitalizes Blaze Bayley-era epics "The Clansman" and "Sign of the Cross." Maiden wasn't just rehashing old glories; they were soaring to new heights and entering the longest and most successful phase of their career.
4. 'Flight 666' (2009)
The Flight 666 documentary takes listeners behind the scenes of Iron Maiden's Somewhere Back in Time world tour, which revived their classic stage show for a new generation. The film is essential viewing for its epic stage production and amusing Ed Force One flying exploits, but the soundtrack stands on its own as a veritable greatest-hits package, featuring several stone-cold classics that Maiden hadn't played in decades, such as the epic "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." For some bands, revisiting classic albums and tours can be a sad reminder of how much time has passed. Maiden, however, plays with the same tenacity as 25 years earlier, daring young and old fans alike to keep up with them.
3. 'Maiden England '88' (2013)
The Seventh Son of a Seventh Son tour has gone down as one of Maiden's best, and with good reason. The resulting Maiden England audiovisual package — released first in 1989, then 1994, and finally 2013 in its complete form — captures the band at the peak of its powers, plowing through Seventh Son's knotty, progressive epics and early barnburners with equal aplomb. It also serves as an extraordinary swan song for Maiden's classic five-piece lineup, as Smith departed ahead of 1990's No Prayer for the Dying. The only knock on Maiden England '88 is the conspicuous omission of "The Trooper," despite it being on the album cover.
2. 'Beast Over Hammersmith' (2002)
With the newly instituted Dickinson at the helm, Iron Maiden was eager to prove themselves on the stage and in the studio. Recorded two days before The Number of the Beast was released, Beast Over Hammersmith shows a hungry band performing with brutal efficiency and infectious vigor. Dickinson electrifies Di'Anno-era classics like "Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "Killers," while the yet-unreleased Beast songs crackle with such intensity that it's obvious they're on their way to becoming classics. Beast Over Hammersmith captures Iron Maiden at that fleeting, inimitable moment in a band's career where they've got the songs and the chops to take over the world. All they've got to do is wait a little longer.
1. 'Live After Death' (1985)
And now, they've arrived. Live After Death isn't just Iron Maiden's best live album; it's one of the best live albums in rock history. The track listing is flawless, the band is firing on all cylinders, and Dickinson holds the Long Beach Arena audience like putty in the palm of his hand. Iron Maiden had officially entered their imperial phase, and Live After Death remains the live album against which all their others are measured. That they've even come close to this one over the years is a testament to their enduring brilliance.