IRON MAIDEN – Live At Beat-Club Germany 1981 / The Complete Show *HQ*

In the spring of 1981 IRON MAIDEN were on tour for their second album ‘Killers’. The Killer World Tour would take Maiden around Europe, North America and Japan. Before the tour started, actually a couple of weeks before the album was released, Maiden did performance at the Beat Club in Bremen, Germany on January 22, 1981, to be aired on local TV.
The TV broadcast was edited to 32 minutes including only a few of the songs performed – this “Live At Beat-Club Germany 1981 / The Complete Show” is indeed the complete over 1 hour performance, even including the fail take of ‘Remember Tomorrow’ due to power failure (the song was re-done in full next). This is the full show in its entirety, with a good sound quality.
The Killer World Tour was the last with Paul Di’Anno‘s in the band and he gives a great performance, and fortunately his voice is very high in the mix on this recording.

We kick things off rather characteristically with the taped “The Ides of March” heralding the band’s arrival onstage, and there’s “Prowler”. With Di’Anno and Clive Burr both in fine form, “Prowler” doesn’t get much better than this.

Next up appear one of my favourite songs from the debut, “Charlotte the Harlot”. It becomes clear here, as the band kick the energy up to 11, of the great hindrance that Wil Malone’s production on the debut was. Steve Harris is right. It didn’t even begin to capture their ferocity live. This song is a definite highlight of the show, no mean feat in a Maiden performance.
“Wrathchild” follows on, with the honour of being the first song of the show from their then still not released second album. An awesome rendition of the enduring Di’Anno era classic, there’s not much else you can say about any of Maiden’s performances of this song.

On the other hand, there is much to say about the performance of “Remember Tomorrow”, except, not much of it has to do with “Remember Tomorrow”. During the second verse there’s a most interesting sound coming through: the sound of a technical failure, and the band stop playing soon after, having a beer and mucking around with their guitars as the problem is fixed.
I’m so glad they left this interlude in. It shows a little bit behind the scenes and is a nice deviation from the main stuff, one that is not often shown, even on these full show sorts of things. Eventually someone decides to stop using up tape, and we cut to the start of the second go at “Remember Tomorrow”, which is done by the numbers in spectacular Maiden fashion.

With things definitely back on track the band plough into “Transylvania”. When it comes to instrumentals, Maiden really knocks it out of the park, and I do wish they’d done more. This performance is no exception. Now there’s thew single “Running Free”, and while Live After Death boasts the ultimate “Running Free”, Di’Anno and co. are no slouches and that’s reflected in probably one of this line-up’s best performances of the song.
Another Killers song, “Innocent Exile” is next. It’s done well, and as this is before the era of the twig-snapping bass tone, you get a nice full little bass workout from ‘Arry as the intro.
On “Sanctuary” Di’Anno mixes some lyrics up, a fun note.

Now here’s something interesting though: “Killers”. This show was recorded only 11 days before that release of the LP Killers, yet this version of “Killers” is the most experimental I’ve ever heard it. The intro and the guitar harmonies have a spacey feel to them and there’s even the changing up the lyrics for a couple lines. Di’Anno’s screams being mostly absent for most of the intro only accentuate this experimental vibe.
“Another Life” is the next song, one that was fade-cut halfway as the credits rolled on the original broadcast. Now it’s here in all its glory: a good, if perhaps almost filler song from Killers. It’s a fiery rendition.

This slight lull in awesomeness is immediately rectified with “Phantom of the Opera”. The original Iron Maiden epic, it was played at breakneck pace, a slight shame because “Phantom of the Opera” is one of the few songs I think isn’t better when done faster. That being said, it’s still a chunk of pure awesome no matter how you slice it.

Of course, now it wouldn’t be an Iron Maiden show without “Iron Maiden” and it wouldn’t be an awesome rendition of the song without Paul Di’Anno. The end of the show in spectacular fashion. Except that it’s not the end yet. They were recording for TV after all, so the band semi-encore with another rendition of “Sanctuary” to replace the muffed version from before.
And then it’s over. One hour’s worth of early classics and deep cuts by one the best metal bands on Earth.

01 – The Ides Of March (Intro)
02 – Prowler
03 – Charlotte The Harlot
04 – Wrathchild
05 – Remember Tomorrow (Incomplete – Power Failure)
06 – Remember Tomorrow
07 – Transylvania
08 – Running Free
09 – Innocent Exile
10 – Sanctuary
11 – Killers
12 – Another Life
13 – Phantom Of The Opera
14 – Iron Maiden
15 – Sanctuary (2nd Take)

Vocals – Paul Di’Anno
Bass Guitar – Steve Harris
Drums – Clive Burr
Guitar – Adrian Smith, Dave Murray

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