Iron Maiden August 3, 2013 O2 Arena London, England Maiden England European Tour 2013
Disc 1: 01. Ice Shelf (Intro) (0:21) 02. Moonchild (5:44) 03. Can I Play With Madness (3:35) 04. The Prisoner (6:05) 05. Two Minutes To Midnight (8:11) 06. Afraid To Shoot Strangers (6:46) 07. The Trooper (4:05) 08. The Number Of The Beast (5:25) 09. Phantom Of The Opera (7:37) 10. Run To The Hills (4:06) 11. Wasted Years (5:12)
Disc 2: 01. Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son (12:17) 02. The Clairvoyant (4:45) 03. Fear Of The Dark (7:35) 04. Iron Maiden (6:54) 05. Churchill's Speech (0:36) 06. Aces High (5:08) 07. The Evil That Men Do (4:23) 08. Running Free (8:25)
Well, folks, thanks to a fabulous FOH sound at my seat, a fabulous souding raw recording, and some amazing remastering work from our Portugese mate, the first of Maiden's two nights (and the second-to-last-night of the Euro 2013 tour) at London's O2 Arena is finally here.
Though Vitor did an info file for the download, I thought I'd share some background as to how the recordings of these two nights came about. They nearly weren't recorded at all! This may be lengthy, but hopefully it'll entertain ye all for 10 minutes or so, too! :-) This is an edited email i sent just sent to an old taper friend in the US:
...the first of two nights of Iron Maiden at the O2 Arena in Loooondooooon, innit!? Of course the fucking 3 day no-sleep party i had before flying to London didn't make me feel gig fit, but a few pints in the Crobar, and a few more in the venue did help! It's a wonder an airport dog didn't sit down next to me by whatever remnants of naughtiness may have been left as residue on my jacket from the three day hoolie!
So, I gave the raw WAV file to this first night to this dude... who is the most diehard Maiden fan on Earth-especially for his thirst for Maiden recordings. Well, he did some post-production on my original WAV file and did an awesome job. The whole show needed to be louder, as i recorded it a bit low due to circumstances, and he fixed that and didn't sacrifice any audio quality either. I just tape shows-i have no idea about all those post-production programmes folk use-they look so complicated with all the buttons! I find them too intimidating to even learn. But this dude, as well as making it louder, you can actual hear some kinda muttered talk from Bruce Dickinson onstage that to me was inaudible on my original WAV file! The guy did a stellar job. I would have assumed some kinda hiss or digital artifact would manifest by making it so much louder in post-production. This dude made it way louder. I can hear it really well on my iPod in a noisy street now. And no artificial artefacts added. I expected some hiss at the very least. But nothing. Like I say, he did a stellar job.
As an expert on Maiden bootlegs, he said it is one of the best quality Maiden AUD recording from the whole 2013 tour so far. And this was before he got to work on it! I was inordinately pleased to hear a compliment like that!
As to the show itself, unbeknownst to me, some of the wires had broken where they enter the mic capsule in my external mics. I COULD NOT think why i was getting no signal. I got to my seat very close (we're talking a few minutes, TOPS, before Maiden came onstage), and i could not figure out why i was getting no signal to the recorder! In the nick of time, i remembered my Edirol R09HR DOES HAVE internal mics! I totally forgot about them. I used them once to tape Ollie Cole solo in a club in Dublin in 2008 or something, and just never used them because I've had the same external mics since 2001 and i always use my externals and had convinced myself they were indestructable because they've travelled so far and lasted so long. Thank fuck i remembered the built-in mics! I was in first tiered side seating but in the back row of it. I quickly did a manual recording setting, put my satchel under my seat, and put the recorder on the satchel to eliminate potential vibrations from the floor. I had no shirt pocket to put the Edirol in and i didn't wanna hold it all night! So it was on my bag, on the floor, but my seat was flipped up (it should be banned to sit at a Maiden gig!) and i had no-one sitting to my left. You will NEVER be able to tell the recorder was on the floor-the FOH sound was fucking LOUD!
This gig sold out in no time (12 mins officially) but i got my good single seat about 45 mins into the sale and the audience were LAME! Maiden are an East London band, the venue is in East London, but it is a massive room-a huge guestlist probably....(the likes of you and I know a lot of musicians and have been on a lot of guestlists, and we both know how big guestlists aren'tusually full of fans and can ruin a potentially great show) but that should not be the reason in a room that size. And it's not that i was in tiered side seating when i usually tape from upfront.. i didn't feel disassociated from the gig because i wasn't on the floor. Bruce is a master at stage craft-like our Glen-he can make the dude 2 miles away feel like he's looking right at him, yanno?) Buuuuuut, on the recording, Dickinson does his "Scream for me London/O2/England" schtick waaay more often than usual at a gig. Not only that, but even more unusually, and on more than one occassion at this show, he says: "Scream foooor meee!" and the response was obviously poorer than usual because he'd follow it with: "that was bullshit! Screaaaam for me!" He always works the stage, works the audience, works the gig, but he doesn't usually have to REALLY WORK THE AUDIENCE. They are usually already with him, yanno? Not this night. The band played hard, but Nicko the drummer's timing is getting poorer each tour. Speeding up mid-song in a part that isn't supposed to be, and shit like that. I went to the outdoor Malmo, Sweden show on July 10 and cringed at some of Nicko's tempo changes. And i know FUCK ALL about drumming. The band did not phone it in either. I just can't figure out what either A) what was wrong with the audience or B) what was wrong with Bruce that HE felt the audience was lame. And he obviously did.
Great gig otherwise. Night 2 (August 4) had an amazing audience-the difference in audience enthusiasm between the two nights.was STRIKING! Never seen it happen to a band doing 2 nights in a row in the same venue before. Unfortunately, i could not locate a stealth mic on a Sunday in London-even on Denmark St. I was GA standing on the floor so i bought a shirt that day with a breast pocket to put the recorder in to tape the show. The quality of night 2 is murky due to this, which is a shame: the last night in the band's home town of the European leg of the Maiden England tour (based on the 1988 Seventh Son of a Seventh Son tour, or, as that '88 tour was named: "Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour"). If one of my recordings of these 2 nights had to be substandard, i'd choose night 1, because night 2 was a better audience and the band played better. Oh well.
That 1988 tour was always my fave tour of Maiden's. Never in my wildest dreams did i think they would reprise it and i'd get to see it! And not once! 3 times. Outdoors, indoors, floor and elevated! All the ways. A dream come true!
