I think that my reservations against live albums are pretty well known, but there are some exceptions, like ICED EARTH’s ‘Alive In Athens’ and, well, now more than definitely IRON MAIDEN’s ‘Rock In Rio’, very well the best live album I have ever witnessed, now even visually.
I don’t think that I really have to write anything about IRON MAIDEN anymore, for decades they’ve been among the best that Heavy Metal has had to offer and this DVD is just another manifesto for the fact that MAIDEN simply rule big time, because ‘Rock In Rio’ is extremely impressive, in all possible ways.

Spanning the whole career of the British Metal-legend, this double DVD has a setlist that is brimming with classics from the beginning of ‘The Wickerman’ to the closing ‘Run To The Hills’, everything captured in a brilliant sound quality that many bands could only dream of achieving in a studio recording, but for that you can read Vinnie’s review of the CD, just that here we get treated with an even better sound, in 5.1 Dolby Digital and even Digital Theatre Sound.

To see this concert is what sends countless shivers down my spine, 150.000 enthusiastic fans celebrating the band as if there was no tomorrow, singing loudly, cheering, clapping, waving, jumping, everything that you could dream of as a band. And how impressively the whole event has been captured visually, with 18 cameras, on two camera booms, cameras on rails (that Bruce uses as a mean of transportation more than once), from a helicopter, on instruments, so the only word to really describe this is ‘breath-taking’. And the band, too, is in fantastic form, delivering a freshness and energy that belies their age and does not cease to amaze.

I won’t go into the details of the single songs, because, hey, look at the track list and start to dream of Heavy Metal heaven, I do not know, how this one can possible be topped, an instant classic, fantastic in sound and vision…

And as if that was not enough yet, we are even graced with a second DVD, full of goodies. So we have a documentary of the South American tour, single feature interviews with all members, where they show some day off activities (Nicko and Dave playing golf, Bruce fencing and in a flight simulator, Adrian fishing) and them talking about their beginnings and how they see their status now, an ‘one day in the life’-documentary, an exclusive photo diary of Ross Halfin plus some more hidden goodies, so tons of highly interesting stuff here as well.

So, there is NO excuse not to get this one (unless you do not have a DVD-player, but ‘Rock In Rio’ would be worth getting one, trust me!), because the sound and visual quality is more than impressive and the bonus material is great as well, so you know what to do! (Online December 26, 2002)