Iron Maiden: Maiden England

The Seventh Tour Of A Seventh Tour 1988. Maiden's biggest stage production yet! An ice cave with pyro a plenty to help capture the theme of the album. This has to be one of the best Maiden shows about. A really well captured keep sake of the '88 tour. The basic but effective filming helps keep you right in the thick of the action. An awesome (but edited for the release) set is on offer with the likes of Wasted Years, Still Life & Die with your boots on making a nice return to the set. The new material comes over really well too. Along with Live After Death, this really is ready for the DVD treatment soon. Its hard to believe that this tour was nearly 20 years ago! Eeek! They still wore spandex then and Bruce had long hair! Well worth getting for the collection. It shows how big they were back in the mid/late 80's... before grunge took over the world! Definitely up there with LAD... the only noticeable negative is that Janick had yet to join the band so the live antics are a little low key compared to anything from Donington '92 onwards. Still a superb gig.

My toddler was obsessed with Sooty when we saw this and was demanding we watch that instead.. and then as if by magic, someone threw Sooty on stage. I'm now convinced she can control the universe, as if that wasn't already totally clear. Nice to see this era of Maiden live, the sweeping Seventh Son slightly belied by a very late 1980s vibe (Smith's hair is genuinely offensive) but there's a warmness to it especially with the crew leaping on stage to sing in chorus at one point and the aforementioned Sooty escapades that can't be doubted.