HISTORY OF IRON MAIDEN: HEAVY METAL MEGASTAR III (1982 - 1989)

1982–1989: Heavy Metal Megastar

In September of the following year, the fifth studio longplay, titled Powerslave, appeared on the market. Decorated with a cover illustration by Derek Riggs referring to the realities of ancient Egypt. The album lasted over 50 minutes. technically refined, classic heavy metal, including two hit singles "Aces High" (UK Top 20) and "2 Minutes to Midnight" that are considered to be classics of the genre. However, the hallmarks of the group's new proposal were the title track based on an impressive, orientalizing riff and the over thirteen-minute-long, progressive suite "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", which Harris wrote after learning the work of the British poet, the precursor of romanticism in British poetry, Samuel Taylor Coleridge "Rhymes of the Ancient Mariner". Never before has a heavy metal band achieved such a convincing marriage of demanding themes derived from the literary tradition with heavy sounds. 

 

Thanks to compositions such as the aforementioned "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", the British band, together with the Canadian Rush, had a significant impact on the trend of progressive and technical metal. Critics were unanimous in their assessments, considering Powerslave not only the peak artistic achievement of British musicians but of the entire mainstream metal at that time. The album gained enormous popularity, reaching the number 2 bestseller position in Great Britain in the first week after its release, and was second only to the compilation album, which, according to the applicable criteria, should not have been included in the list. Years later, the mistake was corrected, giving Powerslave position 1 in the UK Album Charts. In the US, the album eventually reached number 12 on the Billboard 200, easily achieving platinum status. Within a year of its market premiere, sales of Powerslave exceeded the threshold of 4 million copies. Years later, the LP reached an estimated circulation of over 2 million copies sold in the United States alone, with labels from various distributors. The massive tour promoting this album (200 concerts played in 28 countries, over 13 months to almost 3.8 million
viewers) began with five instantly sold-out concerts in Poland, during which the British were the first ever Western performer, presented a full stage production. 

 

"World Slavery Tour 1984/85" was a great spectacle, the individual elements of which were based on graphics known from the promoted album. The stage resembled the interior of an Egyptian temple, topped with movable light ramps decorated with frescoes and paintings, which concealed over 800 spotlights, behind the musicians there were huge, panoramic backgrounds showing pyramids and their interiors, a number of pyrotechnic effects were used, a huge, extendable sarcophagus hiding Eddie - the Pharaoh and a several-meter tall mummy crossing the stage. The band also used a powerful sound system with a power of 152,000. watt. The equipment was transported in huge trucks. It was the first of many subsequent tours in the group's history, during which the so-called concert superproduction.

 

The concerts were very popular. In the People's Republic of Poland, overflow audiences gathered in halls with tens of thousands of seats each time. Five concerts attracted approximately 80,000 people, including outside observers (5 - 8 thousand each time). Officially, the communist authorities did not even give permission for such large audiences of young people to gather during evening concerts organized in various places in the country during just one week. The route paved the way for all subsequent large heavy metal events organized in Poland. During the group's first concert on the tour at Torwar in Warsaw, approximately 14,000 people gathered as spectators inside the facility and over 5 thousand in nearby parking lots and squares. 

 

Iron Maiden's first concert in Hungary attracted almost 50,000 people. The event was organized in the Budapest sports park. About 10 thousand spectators entered this performance without a valid admission ticket. The performance at the Yugoslav Sajam Exhibition Center gathered 25,000 fans. A total of approximately 160,000 people saw eight concerts in Eastern Europe. viewers, the group played in three countries. The British formation's good streak continued. In the UK, the 24-date tour sold out at a rapid rate, with New York's Radio City Music Hall selling out seven nights for a total of 60,000 people, and only problems with Bruce Dickinson's vocal cords forced the organizers to cancel two performances. For the first time in history, the Long Beach Arena near Los Angeles was sold out for four nights in a row (approx. 58,000 fans). These concerts, as well as four evenings at London's Hammersmith Odeon (capacity: 5,000 people), were filmed and recorded for an audio-visual publication.

 

The Eastern European tour was commemorated in a documentary film broadcast by MTV, Behind the Iron Curtain. A shortened version of it was included on the identically titled Iron Maiden VHS, which was very popular. The largest concert of the tour was a performance as one of the attractions of the world's largest music festival, Rock in Rio 1985, where the audience was (depending on sources) from 350,000. to over half a million people! Over a hundred concerts in the United States attracted one and a half million people. In October 1985, a double live album and an accompanying video entitled Live After Death were released, shot during the above-mentioned concerts at the Long Beach Arena in front of 58,000 people. The release was piloted by singles with concert versions of the songs "Running Free" and "Run to the Hills / Phantom of the Opera". The film became a global bestseller (number one on both sides of the Atlantic), just like the album, which reached position 2 on the sales charts in Great Britain and was in the Top 20 of the Billboard 200 in the United States. 

 

Years later, the album was considered one of the greatest concert albums of all time, permanently immortalizing both Iron Maiden's stage potential and the glory years of classic metal. The double album was the group's first release officially published by the state-owned Tonpress KAW label. The album was released in Poland almost three years after its official world premiere. The licensed version of Live After Death enjoyed enormous popularity, selling a record-breaking number of several hundred thousand copies.

At the end of 1985, the band was considered the most intensively performing band in the world, the best and the biggest heavy metal band in the world, too. 

The fifth studio album, as well as a spectacular tour, catapulted the musicians to the rock super league, allowing the quintet to take a worthy position once belonging to British titans of heavy rock, such as Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin. In the Public Choice (MJI) vote conducted at the end of 1985, Iron Maiden triumphed in the "Number One Rock Band" category in the USA, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, Finland, France, the Netherlands and Spain. The "World Slavery Tour 1984/85" portrayed the band at the peak of its abilities and was the largest undertaking of this type in the history of rock. At that time, the musicians have been second to none in the whole genre.