Description

Limited double album in a nice tri-folded digipack cover

Resurrection At Hammersmith features a great cover artwork and a recording from Hammersmith Odeon in London, England on the 12th of October 1984 during the bands most beloved tour. The concert itself is a superbly played show, the last of a four date run at London’s famous Hammersmith Odeon. All four concerts were professionally recorded for what eventually became the Live After Death record, the London recordings made up side four with a couple tracks being released as B-sides. Unfortunately the recording has a layer of noise that is attributed to heavy handed mastering and or use of a poor source. After Churchill’s Speech the band storms the stage with the double salvo of Aces High and 2 Minutes To Midnight, the hometown crowd warmly greets the band and they respond with a very tight and high level of musicianship. Bruce introduces a song about a British Soldier and the band storm through a thundering version of The Trooper, the audiences sings along to the opening line You take my life I’ll take yours too…. The interplay between Dave Murray and Adrian Smith is almost symbiotic in nature. The set list is well structured and because they were recording specifically for the live album they left open spots to change songs out, lucky for us. This recording features the only know live version (from the World Slavery Tour) of Murders In The Rue Morgue. Bruce introduces the songs We have a surprise for you and the eerie opening notes of the song are played. This song was officially released as the B-Side to the Running Free single (who can forget the cover, the live shot of Bruce and Steve, one of the few single to not have band mascot Eddie gracing the cover). The next song is Phantom of the Opera, one could probably consider this the first of the Harris epics. The middle section is beautifully played with harmonizing guitars and Harris’s bass played note to note perfection. The second epic of the evening is Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the band excels with its progressive structure shows the influences of early Genesis and Yes. A shame that the middle section is marred by the metallic noise so prevalent during the quiet sections. The instrumental Losfer Words is filled with melodic and fast paced time signatures that is not as memorable as Transylvania or Genghis Khan but is well played live and its great to hear (there is an officially released live version found on the B-side of the running Free live single). Then comes a the demonic laughter that leads to Powerslave, the title track written by Bruce Dickinson is classic Maiden both musically and lyrically. Live it shines through, visually featuring Bruce with his bird mask on (just look at the cover) his first stage at adding a theatrical touch to his performance. A Dave Murray guitar solo follows, clocking in at 3 minutes it begins with a flurry of notes and ends with some Hendrix like bombing raid noises. The rest of the concert is fast paced metal in its more perfect form, The Number of the Beast starts the end and is quickly followed by Hallowed Be Thy Name, the beginning sounding strange and almost distorted. Curiously the song is followed by 22 Acacia Avenue, the continued saga of Charlotte The Harlot before the main set comes to a close with Iron Maiden. The bands signature song is introduced by teacher Bruce going call and response with the audience in spelling the song out, unfortunately the recording levels a now more quiet leading even more to the white noise levels. The evenings concert finishes with three standard encores; Run to the Hills, a ten minute version of running Free complete with audience interplay and finally Sanctuary. As I stated earlier a truly fantastic concert. The bonus tracks are from two days prior, the recording is good to very good and more distant from the stage but clear and very enjoyable. The songs do not suffer from the metallic noise that ruins the rest the majority of the release. The versions of Children of the Damned and Die with Your Boots are the versions that were used for the official Live After Death record and its cool to here them from a different perspective. The packaging makes this release, beautifully adorned with pictures from the tour and graphics relevant to the era (I love the shot of Eddie looming over the stage as Dave Murray is captured with his guitar in mid air ala one Ritchie Blackmore). If you can live with the annoying metallic noise any Maiden fan would totally enjoy this release.

Track listing:
1. Aces High
2. 2 Minutes To Midnight
3. The Trooper
4. Revelation
5. Murder In The Rue Morgue
6. Phantom Of The Opera
7. Flight Of Icarus
8. Rime Of The Ancient Mariner
9. Losfer Words (Big Orra)
10. Powerslave
11. Guitar Solo
12. The Number Of The Beast
13. Hallowed Be Thy Name
14. 22 Acacia Avenue
15. Iron Maiden
16. Run To The Hills
17. Running Free
18. Sanctuary
19. Children Of The Damned-live at Hammer Odeon 10th of October 1984
20. Die With Your Boots On- live at Hammer Odeon 10th of October 1984