Flight 666: Concert (2 CD Edition) [Soundtrack, Live]

This may very well be the best Iron Maiden live album, and that's saying a lot. This is a band who have a lot of live albums, including the now classic landmark Live After Death and the triumphant return of Rock In Rio. While opinions may differ from mine, I feel this is one of the most enjoyable Maiden live releases. Here's why.

Ever since Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith returned to the band in 1999, I feel Maiden have never been stronger. The way the three guitars of Smith, Dave Murray, and Janick Gers have melded is something to behold. I really enjoy listening to the three-guitar version of Maiden, and once again producer Kevin Shirley has provided a strong mix where you can hear every nuance of those 3 guitars. Not to mention Bruce's vocals, Steve's bass, and Nicko's pounding! In other words, this album sounds great.

As for the track listing itself, it sure is great hearing all 13 minutes of Rime Of The Ancient Mariner once again. I never thought Maiden would ever play Moonchild or The Clairvoyant again either. Powerslave, Wasted Years, Heaven Can Wait...so many classics. As Steve Harris notes in the liners, some of these songs may never be played live again, so it's great to have this document. Some fans will wish there were more old tunes such as Flight Of Icarus or Running Free instead of songs like Fear Of The Dark. However...next tour, perhaps?

Worth mentioning, each song is taken from a different live gig from the Somewhere Back In Time tour (as in the movie, Flight 666). There's some fade-in and fade-out between songs. Don't let that bother you though.

After picking this up, make sure you pick up the DVD or Blu-Ray of the movie as well. Granted seeing it on my TV was not nearly the experience it was in the theaters, but you don't want to miss it!

Up the Irons!

This is the best Iron Maiden tour, therefore this is the best live recorded CD. Not only the greatest Songs but also great audio.

The soundtrack to the Flight 666 documentary is Iron Maiden's 9th official live album(count them: Live After Death, A Real Live One, A Real Dead One, Live At Donnigton, Rock In Rio, BBC Archives, Beast Over Hammersmith, Death On The Road, that's 8). It was recorded like the documentary during Iron Maiden's Somewhere Back In Time world tour of 2008-2009, all the songs here are from February to March 2008 from different cities and countries. Okay I know that the band has probably far more live albums then would be necessary and that we don't need more o them, but this one is really good. The band sound excellent for one and this particular live album is not like '"Death On The Road"(unnecessary) and "Rock In Rio" (which was great) where the band performs songs from the last album with classics, this one as did the tour, focuses only on the classic material. In fact the most recent song on Flight 666 is Fear of the Dark!

The band decided on this tour to play only the classics for fans who have never seen some of these live, this means no songs from any of the Blaze or the reunion albums. Yes I know, there have been too much live albums by Maiden but this one is great and better than you would expect. I like how the songs here are all classics and those 17 songs represent what I think is the best of the classic songs on 2 discs. They played some stuff I didn't expect them to like Wasted Years, Revelations, Moonchild, The Clairvoyant, Heaven Can Wait and Rime of the Ancient Mariner especially. I decided to pick this up along with the documentary of the same name (wonderful every fan HAS to see it) and was pleasantly surprised.

As for the songs themselves I particularly liked the versions of Powerslave in Costa Rice, Wasted Years in Mexico which has guitarist Adrian Smith singing at parts (a verse and the chorus) and Hallowed Be They Name in Toronto. The truth is I liked them all even if some songs get yet another live version. The song I liked the most was without a doubt Rime of the Ancient Mariner, hearing this powerful 13 minutes beast of a song live with this energy was fantastic. The band sounds tight; the guitars are mind blowing as always, Bruce is always a great singer and showman, Nicko provides great drumming once again and I'm always impressed by Steve harris, how he can still be heard with 3 guitarists in the band is beyond me!

I wouldn't say it is the best live album Iron Maiden ever released, I would give that honour to "Live After Death" (1985) followed closely by "Rock In Rio"(2001). The band sounds great and you just know by hearing this that they are still having fun after all this time and enjoy playing the classics to what has been a steadily young audience during their career as they said. One thing that kind of ruined it for me thought was how Bruce always says "Scream for me (whatever place it is)!". You hear it a little too often throughout Flight 666, Scream for me Costa Rica, Scream for me Toronto, Scream for me...enough! But I understand that it was live and how it gets a crowd going, it's just not as fun to hear on a live album repetitively. It's hard to rank it in a precise order in Maiden's live album department but it's a great live album, perhaps one too many for the band but a good one nonetheless, I found myself enjoying this more than I initially expected to. 4 stars.