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DVD SET REVEALS IRON MAIDEN’S ‘EARLY DAYS’:
November 10, 2004
NEW YORK (Billboard) – Metal band Iron Maiden looks back at the formative stage of its career on the double-DVD collection “Part 1: The Early Days.”
Due Nov. 23 via Columbia, the package includes rare and unreleased live footage, TV appearances, five music videos and a new 90-minute documentary dubbed “The Early Days.”
Disc one rounds up the long out-of-print 1981 home video “Live at the Rainbow,” taped at the London club in December 1980. Forty-five minutes of footage are included from a 1982 show at London’s Hammersmith Odeon, while seven tunes are extracted from a 1983 headlining slot at Germany’s Rock and Pop Festival.
In addition to the documentary and a rare 1981 TV feature on Maiden from 20th Century Fox, disc two boasts 45 minutes of footage from a 1980 show at London’s Ruskin Arms from the band’s personal archive. Also featured are performances of “Women in Uniform” and “Running Free” from the U.K. TV show “Top of the Pops” and music videos for such classics as “Run to the Hills” and “Number of the Beast.”
“I have to say that I’ve really had a lot of fun recalling the early beginnings and we’ve managed to interview just about everybody who was ever part of Maiden from the very first lineup in 1975 through to the band that everyone knows now,” bassist Steve Harris writes on Maiden’s official Web site (http://www.ironmaiden.com).
“I found things I thought I had lost over the years, and sometimes the smallest thing can remind you of exactly why you started doing this in the first place and the struggle everyone went through.”
Iron Maiden has begun lining up 2005 tour dates, beginning June 25 in Paris.
Jonathan Cohen courtesy of Billboard