Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Iron Maiden: En Vivo! Blu-ray Movie Review

To boldly go where no band has. . .well, you get the idea.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 29, 2012

Would Phileas Fogg have been a rock star had he been alive in current times? Jules Verne’s legendary hero, the lead character of Around the World in 80 Days, seems in a way to be the perfect paradigm of a touring musician, hopping from continent to continent, touching down to sample the local culture, and then taking flight again to some new exotic (or maybe not so exotic location). Verne’s book is actually referenced by Iron Maiden’s manager Rod Smallwood who talks about the logistical nightmare of planning a tour, but states one of his inspirations was Fogg and his travels, and the he wanted to see if he could book the band on a world tour that would come in under that vaunted eighty day timeframe. In fact Iron Maiden’s Final Frontier World Tour release managed to come in under seventy days, and yet the boys still managed to touch down on several continents and play venues as disparate as Transylvania (spooky!) and the locale where this new Blu-ray performance was captured, Santiago, Chile. Iron Maiden takes the stage in Chile’s enormous (actually an understatement) Estadio Nacional before some 50,000 fans in a high octane show which was evidently captured by some 22 HD cameras as well as an Octocam which flew above the proceedings for a bird’s eye view of what was going on. It’s kind of interesting to contrast the recently reviewed Alter Bridge: Live at Wembley. Both discs offer arena rock with some fairly traditional bells and whistles, but (and Alter Bridge fans are sure to contest this assessment) as much as Alter Bridge ”assumes the position” of a bunch of touring Rock Gods, there’s little doubt that Iron Maiden seems to actually be “living the dream”, something perhaps made more believable (for want of a better term) by dint of the fact the band has been around for decades thrashing through high energy tunes and perfecting its stagecraft.

Usually it’s the band that like to play with all of its bells and whistles, but if the evidence given by Iron Maiden En Vivo! is any indication, it’s actually the filmmakers who caught this live performance with its battery of cameras. This is yet another incredibly “busy” live concert video full of split screens, manic editing and vertigo inducing shots taken from high overhead that threaten to require Dramamine from less “stable” viewers. (The video actually comes with a warning that Epileptics prone to strobe effect induced seizures should not watch it.) It seems to be almost de rigeur for some concert video directors to try to inject (unneeded) energy into their product with some of these gimmicks, but in the case of a testosterone fueled band like Iron Maiden, it just comes off as overkill more often than not, and actually distracts from the band’s performance on more than one occasion.

The performance itself is generally excellent, with some especially fine work from guitarists Dave Murray, Adrian Smith and Steve Harris. Nicko McBrain is his usual bombastic self on drums, and while Bruce Dickinson does his best, he seems overwhelmed, at least in the mix, buried at times beneath not just the band but probably even more so by the raucous audience, which insists (admittedly at Dickinson’s own urging a lot of the time) to sing along. The huge environment of the Estadio Nacional also results in some kind of funny unexpected side effects, like when the audience attempts to clap along with “The Talisman”, only due to the lag in the soundwaves reaching the furthest extremes of the audience, a sort of “wave” effect starts to happen, ultimately leading Dickinson to help everyone find where the beat needs to be.

The set list here might be either reassuring or problematic based on any fan’s given predilections for what Maiden tunes they like or don’t like, but the band decided on documenting this particular performance since they felt overall it was one of their strongest outings musically during the entire Final Frontier tour. The stagecraft here is typically hyperbolic, with lots of lighting and other effects, as well as a special cameo appearance by Eddie, in a somewhat “new and improved” (supposedly) state. This is a fun and hugely energetic performance by the band which might have been more enjoyable without the quick cut ethos, not to mention the split screen shenanigans, that director Andy Matthews decided to bring to the project. Sometimes less is more, though too often in the world of rock ‘n’ roll that age old adage is largely forgotten.

Iron Maiden’s set list for this concert includes:

1. Satellite 15

2. The Final Frontier

3. El Dorado

4. 2 Minutes To Midnight

5. The Talisman

6. Coming Home

7. Dance Of Death

8. The Trooper

9. The Wicker Man

10. Blood Brothers

11. When The Wild Wind Blows

12. The Evil That Men Do

13. Fear Of The Dark

14. Iron Maiden

15. The Number Of The Beast

16. Hallowed Be Thy Name

17. Running Free

Iron Maiden: En Vivo! Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Iron Maiden En Vivo! is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal Music Group with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Though there was evidently a battery of 22 HD cameras capturing this concert, the somewhat disappointing fact is a lot of this high definition presentation is on the soft side, especially a lot of the far range shots, including some of the Octocam shots taken from high overhead, where fine detail all but disappears and we're privy to little more than inchoate blobs bouncing around in the distance. Even some of the midrange shots here are on the fuzzy side, with little of the fine detail ardent videophiles are going to be expecting. Some of the footage does pop quite nicely, including an upstage camera shooting over McBrain's shoulder toward the audience, as well as some of the onstage cameras which are able to get really up close and personal with the band members. Colors are generally quite good, though shadow detail is just as often negligible. Once again some of the intensely saturated stage lighting effects, notably some in blue and red, lead to a quasi-posterizing effect and as usual when the cameras face lights that are aimed squarely at the lens banding is clearly in evidence.

Iron Maiden: En Vivo! Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Iron Maiden En Vivo! features three audio options, a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, an LPCM 2.0 mix and a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. The two lossless mixes are quite good, with certain caveats. This is an incredibly noisy concert due to the almost unimaginable amount of people in attendance. It's therefore next to impossible to get away from the impinging sounds of the crowd, which include pretty much nonstop screams, yells, and singalongs, not to mention out of synch clapping. This gets to be fairly problematic in a number of places where Dickinson simply can't be heard adequately over the roar of the crowd and the aural onslaught coming from the band itself. These issues aside, which may in fact have more to do with the mix than anything, both lossless tracks provide sterling fidelity that is especially impressive in the all important low end. The 5.1 track is suitably spacious, though the crowd noises tend to be more in evidence on it than on the LPCM 2.0 track.

Iron Maiden: En Vivo! Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Beast (HD; 1:27:51). This feature length documentary is a really interesting look at just how huge planning for a world tour like this Iron Maiden outing really is. A lot of technical issues are explored, including fitting their specially equipped plane with everything it needed to transport the band and all of its accoutrements around the world. This includes copious interviews with the band and various members of their management and crew. This is an unusually interesting and worthwhile piece that all Iron Maiden fans should get a big kick out of.


• Satellite 15. . .The Final Frontier Promo Video (HD; 5:01) is a great short that melds Iron Maiden with science fiction and outer space.


• The Making of Satellite 15. . .The Final Frontier (HD; 6:07) gives an overview of the eight week production of the short.


• The Final Frontier World Tour Show Intro (HD; 4:39) presents the opening which is seen in dribs and drabs (and split screen) in the actual concert footage.

Iron Maiden: En Vivo! Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Iron Maiden En Vivo! probably would have been more enjoyable had it not had so many distractions like the split screen elements and especially some of the quick cut editing style. It's hard to concentrate on a band when you don't know exactly where to look (as in the split screen elements) or indeed aren't even able to look (as in the quick cutting elements). On a purely musical and performance basis, though, this concert shows the boys are still in great shape, musically speaking, and crank out high energy rock with the best of them. The immensity of this venue means there's probably a little more audience participation than die hard fans who only want to hear the band will like, but overall this is a fitting document of one of the great rock bands of the past several decades kicking it into high gear and then staying there (with a couple of breathers). The supplements here are quite good, and while video is a little lackluster, audio (despite some mixing issues) is fantastic. Recommended.