Eddie's Archive

This is quite hard to find nowadays as it seems to be out of print, but if you ever manage to track a copy down, buy it pronto. This is a veritable feast of live material and studio B-sides from the greatest heavy metal band ever, so what's not to like?

There are three albums in this box set. BBC Sessions, which contains live recordings from the Radio 1 Rock Show in 1979, Reading Festival 1980, Reading Festival again two years later, and the 1988 Donington Monsters Of Rock headline set. Beast Over Hammersmith, a live recording from London's Hammersmith Odeon on the 1982 tour for Number Of The Beast, and Best Of The B Sides which collects the various odds and sods Maiden have put on the flipside of their singles over the years along with some unreleased material.

The main reason to get this box set is for Beast Over Hammersmith. This album deserves a standalone release, because it's just PHENOMENAL. Maiden have a well-deserved reputation as a great live band but even by their usual standard this show is off the scale. Bruce Dickinson had only relatively recently joined the band and he absolutely gives it his all - this is perhaps the greatest performance he's ever put on tape. He sounds manic, almost possessed and hits some absolutely unearthly screams during the higher parts of the songs. The rest of the band are no slouches either. The energy level is absolutely insane - I don't think I've heard many bands ever come close to this level of intensity in their live performances. With a setlist solely from the first three albums, you can't go wrong here and many of the performances on this album are THE definitive versions of these songs [the rendition of "Killers" is particularly good, as is a version of "Transylvania" which is extended in length with some seriously jaw-dropping guitar improvisation]. Only "Hallowed Be Thy Name" is not up to scratch here - it's better than the timid studio version but it's still not developed into the rip-roaring live monster it would become in later years. This is one of the best live documents ever released.

The other two albums pale in comparison to Hammersmith, but they're mostly good fun. BBC Sessions does what it says on the tin. The Di'Anno line-up performances are interesting although not essential, but for any Maiden fan they're enjoyable. The Reading 1982 set is another good performance but it's not quite up to the standard of Hammersmith.

However the Donington 1988 recording is a let down. Maiden's live performances went downhill in the 80s in intensity [until Janick revitalised them when he joined the band]. The 7th Son tour was by Maiden standards almost pedestrian in energy and performance levels, especially when compared to the manic intensity of Hammersmith, although as the Maiden England release showed the band could still put on a good live show despite the drop-off. But the Donington show isn't good. It's an inexcusable low point. The band don't sound like they're on it at all, and in some places they're clearly struggling to hold it together, especially Bruce. It sounds like the enormity of the occasion just got to them. By Maiden's standards of performance it's deeply lacking. Strangely, this box set therefore represents the peak and nadir of Maiden's live show in the 80s.

The B-Sides album is fun, although it doesn't contain that much in the way of outstanding moments. Of interest are some of the early Maiden tunes, such as "Burning Ambition" which was one of the first songs Harris wrote for the band. However a lot of the B-sides seem to be either novelty joke tracks like "The Sheriff Of Huddersfield", which are entertaining but don't have much replay value, or cover songs. Some of these covers sound OK, but Maiden's sound generally isn't that well suited to cover other bands' material, so a fair few of these songs aren't something you'll listen to that much. There's also one track called "Reach Out" from the mid-80s era which may or may not be a cover [I can't recall] but is flat out terrible regardless. The highlights here, perhaps unexpectedly, are from the Bayley era - The X Factor was one of the very few times Maiden recorded a surplus of material for an album, and two of the outtakes are presented here, "Justice Of The Peace" and "Judgement Day". While I'm not sure either song is up to the uniformly high standards of the material on The X Factor, they're both certainly good tunes ["Justice Of The Peace" has the makings of being a ferocious rocker, but the chorus isn't quite right]. It's a little odd that the other X Factor outtake "I Live My Way" isn't included here though.

So overall, an astoundingly good live album, a collection of BBC live and session recordings that range from very good to shoddy, and an assortment of odds and sods with a few gems buried in it. If it wasn't for the Hammersmith recording I'd hesitate to fully recommend this as a must-have, but Beast Over Hammersmith is officially available nowhere else, so if you see this on sale anywhere, buy it.

So, here we have "Eddie's Archive", a boxed set released on the market in 2002 in limited copies. I was lucky enough to get ahold of a copy of it through a website, but let's focus more on the content, shall we?

The content on this boxed set is more than you could ever ask. Well, maybe you could ask for b'sides of rarely played songs, but the pure quantity and quality of the material on display here makes up for it. And not to mention the extra bonus items such as the family tree, the ring and the glass that's bound to make yourself knock up a shot or two while listening to this.

And so the first CD on offer here is called "BBC Archives", and is basically made up of rare recordings from several events in the band's history. We are treated with a set of recordings from the Friday Rock Show sessions, which must be impossible to get ahold of outside of this box set. And what follows is recordings from the 1980 and 1982 Reading Festivals, and finally the CD is rounded off nicely with a set of songs performed on Donington in 1988 which includes gems such as "Moonchild", "Infinite Dreams" and "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son". The only minor complaint is that some songs are featured more than once on this CD, and ends up becoming a bit repetitive in the end

The second CD is entitled "Beast Over Hammersmith", which is a full live album released 20 years after its recording. This is the best CD in the set IMO. This could have been a legendary live album if it had been released earlier. The short parody of a The Police song in the middle of "Drifter" is also good fun.

And finally we come to an end with the third CD, which is called "Best of the B'Sides". The artwork for this CD is absolutely hilarious, as are some of the songs such as "Nodding Donkey Blues" and "Sheriff of Huddersfield". But there are also some live recordings featured, and some of which are quite rare. Quite simply, listen to the CD if you're feeling for a laugh or if you want to listen to rare live recordings that you can otherwise only find on youtube

Buy this set if you can get ahold of it, okay? Especially if you're a sucker for exclusive stuff.

The reunion of Iron Maiden’s classic line-up in 1999 revitalised its energy and has consistently improved its output, each new release being better than the last and the most recent album ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ matching the greatness of their classic period. EMI have taken full advantage of this resurgence of interest in the ageing East End boys, peddling endless live albums and best-of compilations each year and occasionally offering something genuinely original for the hardcore fans. The monstrous ‘Eddie’s Archive,’ released in 2002, is a compact and mostly-well-thought-out gateway to rare and classic ’Maiden material that was released alongside the appalling and unnecessary greatest hits collection ‘Edward the Great’ for the n00bies.

The Archive is itself a nice collectable piece, a metal box moulded with the face of the band’s ever-present zombie mascot Eddie, and includes three previously unreleased double-disc albums. Also included are a nice shot glass and a family tree of the band’s discography and changing line-up, which is especially helpful when viewed alongside the time-spanning ‘Best of the B’sides’ included here. Two of the albums are live, ‘The BBC Archives’ featuring material from 1979, ’80, ’82 and ’88, and the excellent ‘Beast Over Hammersmith’ capturing a single show in ’82. The final album collects together almost every B-side the band has ever recorded, saving penniless fans the trouble of collecting expensive 7” singles and allowing those who already have them all to save the wear and tear on the records, as well as insist that you really need to have the original artwork and everything or it isn’t as good, but secretly wishing they’d saved their money and waited for this.


PART 1: THE BBC ARCHIVES


The first thing that’s obvious when browsing the tracklist of these CDs is the repetition of songs, especially the titular ‘Iron Maiden’ which crops up a ridiculous four times; two times per disc. That’s because this is a collection of four archived shows from the 1980s, and that namesake piece either opens or closes all of them. The first four tracks stem from a Friday Rock Show session in 1979, allowing fans to experience the long- (and easily-) forgotten line-up featuring Tony Parsons on guitar. The rest of the collection comes from live festivals, arranged out of chronological order in order to fit them onto the CDs. The 1980 line-up, with Paul Di’Anno on vocals and Dennis Stratton on lead guitar, performs at Reading for the first six tracks of disc 2, while the mic is handed over to Bruce Dickinson (and the second guitar to Adrian Smith) for the 1982 Reading festival which occupies the last ten tracks of the first disc. The remainder of disc 2 jumps ahead to the 1988 Monsters of Rock festival at Donington with a similar line-up, although drummer Clive Burr had long been replaced by Nicko McBrain.

It’s great to have these shows from different eras placed alongside each other, but as you’ve probably just seen, the uneven time travelling is a little off-putting. It’s also a shame to consider just how much was left out, not only from the shows featured – the 1988 show was a little longer, as seen in the ‘Maiden England’ video release – but from the rest of Iron Maiden’s career. The Di’Anno material is suitably rare, but the 1982 concert could easily have been replaced with something from a later time, especially considering that the ‘Beast Over Hammersmith’ CDs in this same archive come from roughly the same time and feature all the same songs in almost exactly the same order. At least the 1988 material provides something of a relief from this nostalgia for the early days, finally granting an official live release for the songs from ‘Seventh Son of a Seventh Son’: ‘Moonchild,’ ‘Infinite Dreams,’ and the title track. The rest of this collection has been performed and re-released so many times as to be unnecessary, however rare these specific performances of those songs may be.


PART 2: BEAST OVER HAMMERSMITH


The most solid third of this collection, this really should have been Iron Maiden’s first live album way back in 1982, but was never released. Showcasing the band at the very start of their ‘classic’ period, recorded several days before the landmark ‘Number of the Beast’ album was released, this excellent concert features almost the entire album amidst the best songs from the first two albums, all given a new perspective with Dickinson’s operatic vocals. He hasn’t quite established the familiar air siren wail just yet, but that’s what makes this early material all the more interesting, especially when compared to 1985’s definitive ‘Live After Death.’ This remains the final recording to feature drummer Clive Burr. The concert was also recorded on film under the same title, and can now be found on ‘The History of Iron Maiden part 1: The Early Days’ DVD, which is also great.

The band’s early sound is captured perfectly here, as are the hints of the epic heavy metal monster Iron Maiden would become, with the lengthy classic ‘Hallowed Be Thy Name’ setting the template for pretty much every album-closing track forever afterward. Everything is played precisely, but with enough cute errors to authenticate the performance; it’s just a shame that the set-list here is almost exactly the same as that on the BBC Archives. Highlights include the cool opener ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue,’ the ever-reliable ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and the entire performance of the ‘Number of the Beast’ material, wisely omitting the two weakest songs and even performing the B-side ‘Total Eclipse,’ which was later added to re-releases of the album anyway, and as such finds no place in:


PART 3: BEST OF THE B’SIDES


The part of the collection that’s naturally the most valuable even for fans who own all the albums, but not the 7” singles, this collection of 31 non-album songs is arranged in precise chronological order across the usual two discs. The most noticeable problem comes in the omission of certain songs found on the old singles, such as the cover of Thin Lizzy’s ‘Massacre’ that would otherwise come towards the end of disc one. As the running time for each CD comes in with around 20 minutes to spare each, it’s likely that this was due to contractual problems, which is a shame, though nothing to get really annoyed about considering the wealth of material here. (In fact, even further B-sides have spawned from the two studio albums produced since this collection, already necessitating some kind of future re-release by those greedy geezers at EMI).

The new artwork features an old-school Eddie, though unfortunately not painted by the truly old-school Derek Riggs, mischievously displaying his wrinkly walnut b’side through the window of a tour bus for our appreciation. This is the bloke that knifed Margaret Thatcher to death on the cover of the 1980 single, so it’s nice to see that the years have seasoned his transgressions somewhat. Disc one encompasses the B-sides from the band’s first ten years, from the ‘Running Free’ single to ‘Infinite Dreams,’ while disc two covers the turbulent 1990s. The best thing about these B-sides are that they’re almost completely frivolous and pointless, whether they’re a silly comedy song, regurgitated live version or, as is most often the case, a cover song of a band Iron Maiden likes. This means that there’s no noticeable drop in quality between the two decades, unlike the substantial drop reflected in the band’s more bona fide material. The only immediate clue that the listener is being taken on a historical journey is the changing of vocals from Di’Anno to Dickinson and then Blaze Bayley, with Dickinson returning for the finale, though more attentive or familiar listeners will notice the sound quality alternately improve and degenerate as the band moves between ‘eras.’

It’s great to have all of these songs presented here in this chronological manner, and although it may anger real completists, it was a wise decision to exclude repetitions, such as the endless live versions of ‘Number of the Beast’ and ‘Drifter.’ The covers are mostly adequately performed, the source material ranging from dangerously popular to hopelessly obscure, and it’s nice to hear the band’s apparent influences even when the legacy is hard to see. The re-recorded versions of older studio material, the titles marked with a year, are all pretty unnecessary, as Dickinson doesn’t offer much to the Di’Anno songs. It’s always nice to see the infamous live version of ‘Remember Tomorrow’ surfacing in these collections, as this track was originally included on the ‘Maiden Japan’ E.P. when Di’Anno was still singing. The ‘Number of the Beast’ single subsequently featured exactly the same performance, but with Dickinson overdubbed in a feeble attempt to warm him to new fans. The good part comes at the end, when Dickinson’s ‘thank you’ is followed by one from Di’Anno that someone forgot to erase. The live tracks on the second disc are valuable as the only official live songs recorded with Blaze.

The most interesting tracks are those that were never released on albums, such as ‘Justice of the Peace’ and ‘Judgement Day’ from 1994 that would have made their way onto ‘The X Factor’ album if a CD could only hold more than 80 minutes of music. The self-satisfied comedy songs ‘The Sheriff of Huddersfield’ and ‘Black Bart Blues’ don’t invite repeated listens but can be quite entertaining, though Dickinsons’ Yorkshireman impression of record label boss Rod Smallwood really smacks of a cheap Monty Python imitation. The funniest B-side of all isn’t included here, either for reasons of time or taste: the classic ‘Mission From ’Arry’ from the ‘2 Minutes to Midnight’ 7”, a seven minute argument between Nicko McBrain and Steve Harris over an on-stage miscommunication secretly recorded by Dickinson, which ends with Harris discovering the tape recorder and exclaiming, in muffled audio proximity, ‘some c***’s recording this.’


The most disappointing aspect of Eddie’s Archive is its lack of diversity, epitomised in its inclusion of both the 1982 Reading show and the 1982 Hammersmith show that are almost exactly the same. The B-sides collection is really this archive’s saving grace, as the inclusion of live tracks with Blaze Bayley makes up for his lack of appearance on the archives, although there still seem to be enormous chunks of the band’s history completely left out. The recent release of ‘The Early Days’ on DVD has hopefully got this Di’Anno nostalgia out of everybody’s system, and I eagerly anticipate further instalments of ‘The History of Iron Maiden’ series. In 2002, Eddie’s Archive was collectable and problematic, but fairly complete. Five years later it’s out of date and fairly pointless, the original ‘limited edition’ print being predictably extended due to demand, as per usual.

If the BBC Archives are truly the only Maiden material stored in Radio 1’s vaults, this collection is forgivable, but still the weakest link in this box set (aside from the tangible extras, which at least could have been tackier). ‘Beast Over Hammersmith’ is a great live album that could stand alone, and the ‘Best of the B’Sides,’ although entirely fan-oriented, would also succeed as an independent product. There are lots of fans worldwide, that’s why they could ever make this ugly metal casket in the first place. EMI are sure to re-release this archive some time in a minutely revamped form, probably with a free badge or Eddie chew. “Up the Irons!”, or whatever.

Although I am very pleased with this set, I feel that it lacks a few things. But first of all, the case and packaging are outstanding, and it really looks very nice on the shelf. The shot glass is fun and the scroll is an improvement over the version of the family tree which was included with A Real Dead One 10 years back.

Now, on to the music itself. The highlight of this box is undoubtedly the Beast Over Hammersmith. This was the tour that was the real start of Maiden's reign as the best band in heavy metal, and being able to hear it 20 years later is a real treat. The setlist is wonderful, containing rare works like Total Eclipse, Another Life, and Children of the Damned, as well as Maiden's best-known songs like Hallowed Be Thy Name and the Number of the Beast. While some feel these songs have lost something over the years, this show demonstrates their power when they were new. Other highlights include Phantom of the Opera and Murders in the Rue Morgue.

The second double-cd features 4 shows originally hear on the BBC network, and while it is enjoyable, it can't touch Beast Over Hammersmith. The first bit, which is the best part, features 4 songs performed in 1979, with Doug Sampson and Tony Parsons, who were out of the band by the time anything official was released. Next we have the show from Reading 1982, which unfortunately has much the same setlist as the Beast Over Hammersmith. It is a wonderful show to hear, but given the wealth of Maiden live material, it would have been nice to hear some quality recordings of the Piece of Mind or Somewhere in Time album tours. The second disc of the BBC archives set also contains 2 shows. The first is Reading 1980, a worthy inclusion due to the presence of Paul Dianno. Live material featuring him is somewhat rare, and it's nice to have a professionally-recorded complete show. The second half of the disc is a selection of songs recorded in 1988 at Donington. I believe the only songs not included here can be found on the Clairvoyant single, so for all intents and purposes this show is complete. It of course sounds very good, and is fun to listen to, but here again I question the inclusion of this material in particular. The set is a stripped-down version of Maiden England, and I would have preferred something from another tour. Perhaps Maiden could have included some live songs recorded with Blaze? While it's true that he isn't their most popular ex-member, it seems silly to overlook six years of the band's career in what is supposed to be a retrospective.

The last double-cd contains the so-called "Best of the B-sides." I don't generally like best-ofs, because the songs I would include often don't coincide with the band's choices. Furthermore, most of this material has now been released 4 times, first on the original single, then in the 1st 10 Years boxset, next on the Castle 1995 re-issues, and now here. Sadly, the songs that aren't included are also the ones which are particularly hard to track down. The b-sides to Wasting Love, for instance, including unavailable anywhere else live renditions of Holy Smoke and the Assassin, are not included. The obscure b-side, I live My Way, is also not here, nor is the live rendition of Wrathchild, only to be found on the American Maiden Japan release. Thus, "Best of the b-sides" is in my opinion the weakest part of this collection.

Overall, however, this release is a nice way to bide your time until the next Maiden album is released, even though I can't help thinking about ways it could have been better!