IRON MAIDEN TO RELEASE “THE BOOK OF SOULS: LIVE CHAPTER” ON NOVEMBER 17TH
Warner Music will release Iron Maiden’s The Book Of Souls: Live Chapter on November 17th worldwide [through BMG in the USA]. This live recording comprises 15 songs captured during “The Book Of Souls World Tour,” which covered 39 countries across six continents during 2016 and 2017, and was seen by over two million fans. The Book Of Souls: Live Chapter will be released physically in CD, deluxe CD & vinyl audio formats, with the concert film available to stream free online or as a digital download.
Produced by Tony Newton and Iron Maiden founder member and bass player Steve Harris, the album is based on this year’s set list and is a faithful record of the epic show, including six songs from ‘The Book Of Souls’, the band’s most recent studio album, along with many other classics and fan favourites.
Steve comments, “We spent a huge amount of time working on this as I wanted to get it as close to the Maiden live experience as I possibly could and to represent our fans from different parts of the world. This meant listening to literally hours upon hours of tapes from every show, to select material and construct a sound that would run consistently across the whole album and capture the excitement of a new country like El Salvador alongside such regular favourites as Donington or Wacken.”
Maiden manager Rod Smallwood adds, “‘The Book Of Souls World Tour’ was a huge undertaking, not least for Bruce who started the tour singing in public for the very first time since recovering from throat cancer. He also piloted Ed Force One, upgraded last year from a Boeing 757 to a 747 so we could go further and faster to visit some fantastic cities and fans all round the world. This year continued that excitement bringing us our most successful North American and UK tours ever. It was a very special tour in a great many ways so we felt we wanted to document it for both ourselves and for our fans. Steve has done an incredible job putting together this set from cities around the world and we’ve made sure the deluxe CD will be available in a matching book format to The Book of Souls release.
On top of all that the release will be celebrated by an event that is a Maiden first: a free live streaming premiere of the concert film, as a thank you to our loyal fans around the world. We hope that the global Maiden community will all enjoy coming together to watch this special event online. Many of you will be in it as there is footage from a whole host of the places we played on this momentous tour. ”
More details on how to take part in this one-off event will be available on IronMaiden.com shortly.
The Book Of Souls: Live Chapter track listing:
If Eternity Should Fail – Sydney, Australia
Speed of Light – Cape Town, South Africa
Wrathchild – Dublin, Ireland
Children of the Damned – Montreal, Canada
Death or Glory – Wroclaw, Poland
The Red and the Black – Tokyo, Japan
The Trooper – San Salvador, El Salvador
Powerslave – Trieste, Italy
The Great Unknown – Newcastle, UK
The Book of Souls – Donington, UK
Fear of the Dark – Fortaleza, Brazil
Iron Maiden – Buenos Aires, Argentina
Number of the Beast – Wacken, Germany
Blood Brothers – Donington, UK
Wasted Years – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The album will replicate The Book Of Souls original formats and be issued as a limited edition deluxe 2 CD hardcase Book, a regular 2CD album, a triple black vinyl LP and digital download in high resolution audio (48khz/24 bit) including Mastered for iTunes (MFiT) version. A digital download of the concert film will also be available to purchase following its free online premiere.
Awesome! I was hoping they’d document this Tour. Looking forward to hearing/seeing this show. Was a great Tour. Up the Irons
I saw this tour at the Los Angeles Forum! I thought the show was fantastic (except for Janick Gers dancing around too much. Why is he still in the band anyway????). There are a lot of varying opinions about Book of Souls, but I thought it was a great album. My only complaint is that I would like to hear more 4-6 minute heavy metal songs. Based on the last few albums, it seems that Maiden is transitioning to being more of a prog oriented band. Still great songs, but sometimes the songs lose my attention after a while….
They are gonna have their work cut out for them. Saw this tour twice in two different cities. The sound sucked. They have so much echo on Bruce’s vocals that the words are barely descernable. Even when the music had stopped it was hard to understand anything Bruce was saying. They desperately need I new sound guy.
I know it’s not the same guy but the drums also sounded like garbage on the Book of Souls disc. Completely flat and devoid of energy.
Lastly…..why is Janick still in the band??
I hear you guys about Gers. Last time I saw Maiden, I was on his side of the stage, and his presence really was annoying. He looked like a mashup of all of Chris Holmes’s appearances in WASP videos.
According to Eddie, the way the Maiden guys justify Gers is that he takes off some of the pressure of the other two guitarists and he does contribute to songwriting. I also remember when Bruce re-joined, he said that keeping Gers was one of his conditions.
I agree, Tyger. Janick’s presence is annoying. I actually enjoy it when rock and metal musicians get into their music while performing and headbang, do cool rock and roll moves, etc…but Janick prances around a lot more than Paul Stanley!
On the bright side, Janick uses a guitar cable to plug into his amps, so that somewhat limits his stage mobility….Can you imagine how much more annoying Janick would be if he used a wireless system and had freedom of the entire stage???!!! :o)
Janick is a great player, seems like a cool dude and I like that he “rocks” the 80s metal image with his hair, clothing and bullet belt…but I just can’t go for his stage presence.
I thought there was some great tunes on BOOK OF SOULS, but some of them were kind of repetitive. I saw a show on this tour, and Maiden were terrific as usual. I agree with Rattlehead’s comment that their last few albums have sometimes crossed into the progressive metal area, and I don’t think that is Maiden’s sweet spot. I am just glad that Maiden are still putting out new music and touring, so I won’t complain too much about that. And I do agree with some of the other comments about Janick Gers. He does add a lot of energy on stage (sometimes a little over the top), and he is a talented guitar player. But I don’t see what he adds to the band that Adrian Smith and Dave Murray don’t have. But, as long as the other guys in the band are okay with his presence, I’m fine with it.