I can't contribute any longer cause I don't have anything past Somewhere In Time.

seems I havn't missed that much

Fear Of The Dark I liked considerably better than NPFTD, still nothing great, but its at least ok. Afraid To Shoot Strangers, the title track, Fear Is The Key, Be Quick Or Be Dead, Childhood's End and Wasting Love are all pretty good songs. But most of the album still manages to fade into nothingness, and From Here To Eternity actually manages to be worse than Holy Smoke and Hooks In You from the previous record. When Bruce left he said Maiden had run its course, and at the time that sure seemed pretty accurate. This is the last tour I went to (which sucked ASS by the way), and last album I bought up until Brave New World came out.

As many have said, just an ok album. Along with NPFTD I play this very little and then I usually just listen to four or five songs. They showed they could still pen and play a good song but they seemed lifeless on parts. I really thought they might be dead after this one.

Fear of the Dark - much like FF, I felt brunt by No Prayer and didn't pick this up when it first came out. This is a HUGE improvement over No Prayer - the production is much better (but still sounds like it was recorded in a Barn, which it was). For Here To Eternity - cheesy song, does not sound like Maiden. Wasting love - not a big fan of that song, but the rest of the songs are good, including Fear Of The Dark, which with Hallowed By Thy Name and Iron Maiden is played at every show. Experience Fear Of The Dark live is a AWESOME - especially at the Mexico City show I attended.

Sadly, Iron Maiden stopped making albums until 2000 when they came back with Brave New World (Blaze who? lol!).

FOTD is the brother of NPFTD, imo. It's basically NPFTD part 2. And in my mind it is the weaker of the 2. Sure, there are excellent songs here too, like the title track (that is even better live, by the way), Afraid To Shoot Strangers, Judas Be My Guide and Wasting Love. But as a whole this album sounds uninspired. It is evident that the band had internal problems. But a Maiden going at half capacity is still better than most bands on full blow, so this is another (weak) 7/10.

As others have said it's definitely better than the previous album, but it still seems to me to be miles away from where they were with Seventh Son. There just doesn't seem to be as much inspiration here as previous albums.

No way... the two Blaze albums arent that bad. I'll talk about them when they are up.

Pssh. Virtual XI is the best album Maiden ever did.

FOTD is an improvement over NPFTD but still rarely gets played at my house, I consider No Prayer For The Dying and Fear Of The Dark to be the eunuchs of the Iron Maiden catalogue.

I'll be out of touch for a little while as well, I haven't even heard Brave New World (except for the live tracks on Rock In Rio). Dance Of Death was the first one I picked up after Bruce came back.

I never owned the Blaze albums, heard The X Factor once and hated it. Maybe if I feel brave I'll check them out on lala.com tomorrow.

Next up is a pair of live albums released in 1993, 'A Real Live One' and 'A Real Dead One' which served as farewell albums for departed vocalist Bruce Dickinson. They also helped Iron Maiden buy time til they decided there next move. 'A Real Live One' represents songs from 'Somewhere In Time ' to 'Fear of the Dark' and no songs that appeared on 'Live After Death' reappear on this release. 'A Real Dead One' has all the Iron Maiden standards.

Not much to say about these pair of live albums just to say they are not bad. Nowhere near as good as 'Live After Death' , song selection on the first release is hit or miss, and on the second disc no real surprises. Bruce Dickinson's voice sounds shot on certain songs but an good solid live albums but not nothing special.

This two albums were later combined and re-released as 'A Real Live/Dead One'

These albums always sounded very tired to me. It's amazing how quickly Maiden lost their "mojo" between the release of Seventh Son and No Prayer...it's evident on these live discs.

These albums are 2 documents of the second most dismal period in Maiden history, IMO. I used to have them both on CD eons ago, and loaded them off onto some poor shlub shortly thereafter. I wouldn't take these albums back if you gave them to me.

My buddy John has this image of Eddie tattooed on his arm.

That's about all I have to say about the subject.

Two TERRIBLE live albums, and yes this tour was just as bad. The only thing they have going for them is the cover art

Two crappy live albums to go along with two crappy studio discs. I'm just glad that I had quite a few other bands that I liked during this time period to take away the sting of this stuff.

Well this came out as I was just getting into Maiden so I dont think they were that bad. Definetly not as good as Life After Death, but it was the first time hearing Fear Of The Dark live and I would have to say this was the best live version of this song. The set lists were a little boring but hey at the time I never heard any of these songs live so it was fine to me.

So far only myself and PRD seem to enjoy the albums, again not great live albums but ok albums and so what enjoyable.

I agree with PRD. The version of Fear of the Dark, live from Finland still gives me goosebumps! What a killer version that is! Sure these recordings are not even close to being as good as Live After Death, but I bet you that they are more true to the bands live sound. Bruce sound a little uninspired at times, but as a whole I enjoy both discs well enough.

They are good live releases, but not spectacular like Live After Death or Rock In Rio. The band does sound a little tired, but no where as tired as that video they did with the death of bruce dickinson. Thankfully they showed they still have it with the later release of Rock In Rio.

Well I guess I'm in the minority when it comes to both No Prayer For the Dying and Fear of the Dark because I think the're both pretty good (certainly not their best but still....) and I also think From Here to Eternity is a cool song. I heard one of the live albums (I think it was A Real Live One) and wasn't impressed although I'm not a big fan of live albums.

After this I stopped buying Iron Maiden until Bruce's return. I heard Virtual IX and was not impressed at all so I ignored the non-Bruce releases.

Not being a live album guy, and with Maiden's stock at an all time low at the time, I ignored A REAL LIVE ONE and A REAL DEAD ONE when they were released. At the time I figured with Bruce being out of the band, those releases were just being thrown out there to fulfill their record contract and that they were going to be the last gasps from Maiden before their pilot light was turned off. Cool cover art on both of'em though, I must say.

Little did I know they'd be back stronger than ever after a bit of a rough patch (Paging Blaze Bayley...).

On to the next release 1993's 'Live at Donington' . I have never owned or heard this album, so I can't comment on it.

What I do know is that was released in U.K. in 1993 and not in the US til 1998. Also that is was released with two different covers since it was meant to be a limited release.

Anyone who owns this CD, comments would be welcomed.

This is the original cover.




and the reissue cover.