The album was recorded during the band’s massive World Slavery Tour in 1985
Iron Maiden’s Live After Death is the definitive chronicle of the band’s mid-’80s peak, captured on the marathon World Slavery Tour and released on October 14, 1985 (audio), with an accompanying home-video edition arriving nine days later. The double LP draws primarily from the group’s four-night stand at Long Beach Arena in California, March 14–17, 1985, with the original vinyl’s fourth side sourced from London’s Hammersmith Odeon across October 8, 9, 10, and 12, 1984—performances recorded without the crutch of studio overdubs per the band’s “totally live” ethos. The concert film was directed by Jim Yukich and focuses on the Long Beach shows. Together, the album and video bottle the band’s most extravagant stage presentation to that point: an Ancient-Egypt set of sarcophagi, towering backdrops, mummified Eddie, and torrents of pyro, all in service of the Powerslave era’s high-drama heavy metal.
The context for Live After Death is the punishing World Slavery Tour, a 331-day trek that racked up roughly 187–189 concerts between August 9, 1984 (opening in Warsaw) and July 5, 1985 (closing in Irvine, California). Maiden hauled their full production into the Eastern Bloc—then a rarity—while the sheer scale of the routing left the band physically spent and, by their own account, in need of a lengthy recuperation before starting Somewhere in Time. That exhaustion and momentum are audible: Bruce Dickinson tears into “Aces High” after the now-legendary, licensed “We shall fight on the beaches” Churchill speech intro; the rhythm section of Steve Harris and Nicko McBrain drives epics like “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” and the Murray/Smith guitar team threads melody and muscle throughout. The result is less a stopgap than a victory-lap document of a band that had just conquered arenas the world over.
Commercially, the album was a major success. In the band’s home country it debuted at No. 2 on the Official Albums Chart the week of October 20, 1985, only kept from the summit by George Benson’s Love Songs. In the U.S., it became Maiden’s highest-charting release to that point on the Billboard 200, peaking at No. 19 (chart dated November 16, 1985). Certifications followed, including RIAA Platinum in the United States and multi-platinum honors in Canada. The enduring appetite for the set was underscored by later reissues, including a widely praised 2008 DVD that restored the full concert and bundled a deep historical documentary.
Critically, Live After Death quickly took its place among the all-time great metal live records. AllMusic has long regarded it as “easily one of heavy metal’s best live albums,” and PopMatters likewise hails it alongside Motörhead’s No Sleep ’til Hammersmith as one of the genre’s benchmarks. Over time it’s also been framed as “the last great live album of the vinyl era,” a capstone to an age when double-LP concert sets served as both tour souvenir and myth-making machine. The audiovisual production amplifies that legend: editing that showcases the band’s precision rather than obscuring it, and a mix that preserves the athletic gallop Maiden made famous on stage.
The album’s visual identity sealed its iconic status. Derek Riggs’ cover—Eddie erupting from a graveyard in a lightning storm—folds in a lattice of Easter eggs and continuity nods to earlier sleeves, and became one of the most recognizable images in heavy music. Inside the grooves, the sequencing tells a story: a first act fueled by speed and flash (“Aces High,” “The Trooper,” “2 Minutes to Midnight”), a mid-set deep-cut feast (“Revelations,” “Powerslave”), and a finale that stitches Maiden’s then-short but mighty history into a sing-along parade (“Run to the Hills,” “The Number of the Beast,” “Running Free”), with Long Beach crowd-participation practically a co-star. In subsequent decades, the Live After Death template—big-room pacing, theatrical staging, and audiophile-minded live capture—has shadowed not only Maiden’s own later concert releases but also the way metal bands think about documenting tours at their apex. Four decades on, it remains a touchstone: a live album that doesn’t just record a tour, it defines an era.
To celebrate the iconic album’s 40th anniversary, Iron Maiden are reissuing the record as a limited edition 2-LP colored vinyl. The album will be release globally on 28 November, and on December 12 in the United States. Check out the product image, plus a link to pre-order below.
Iron Maiden – Live After Death [EMI, 1985]
Fans can pre-order now HERE