ROCK IN RIO

Oh what an interesting live video to watch! It's so rocking and so powerful! Rio de Janeiro has always been the best place to rock for most of rock bands - where thousand of crazy crowd in rock fashion and attribute flocked into the open stadium. When the DVD starts to play what I can see is the view of the venue shot from helicopter - with gigantic stage and great design. This is a wonderful rock concert DVD with practically no defect at all - it's so perfect. There are many reasons why this DVD is a perfect rock concert DVD.

First, the songs selection is truly great. It starts with new material from the band's "Brave New World" album. The show also captured songs from Jurassic period (like Bruce said it before the "Wrathchild") as well as new material. The selection favors not just die hard fans but for those who like to watch rock concert would love this concert as well.

Second, the band performance is great in terms of stage acts as well as musical quality they produce. "The Wicker Man" which also an opener of the album kicks off the show in a very energetic way. All members of the band: three guitarists (Janick Gers, dave Murray, and Adrian Smith), bassist Steve Harris, drummer Nicko McBrain and lead vocalist Bruce Dickinson did attractive stage acts. It can be seen clearly that each member contributes their virtuosity in each passage of the music, performed in rocking style. The song continues to "Ghost of The Navigator" and "Brave New World" from new material. After they played two classic materials, I could not believe that I could see the band plays "Blood Brothers" (my favorite track) brilliantly!

Third, the audio quality is superb in any channel or feature you select. The audio quality is very important to enjoy the show in its entirety as the music of Iron Maiden is hard and heavy. I just want to emphasize here that typical Iron Maiden studio album has relatively dry recording quality. But this DVD is having thick bass and excellent treble.

Fourth, picture quality and shooting angles are truly superb. The cameramen was quite active to shoot important stage act and how to shoot them in harmony with the music being played. The editing is really great.

Overall, this is a perfect rock DVD that anyone who claims as rocker must OWN this DVD. I have literally no complaint at all with this DVD in terms of performance and production. Everything is just perfect! Highly recommended! Keep on rockin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

I recently had the opportunity to watch this DVD twice. I have to say I was very impressed. Whilst I can not say that I am a huge Maiden fan, I have seen them live a couple of times and have a few of their albums.

The band play a variety of material from throughout their career, and with the whole concert from Rio lasting over 2 hours there is a feast of music for fans of heavier stuff to enjoy.

The camera work is great, the tracklist is superb, and the sound while very polished, is loud, loud, LOUD!! Great stuff. The other thing is that the atmosphere comes across so well, and makes this one of the best concert DVDs I've heard. The band, with the usual three-pronged guitar assault, are in great form from the brilliant opener The Wicker Man until the very end.

I have generally found concert DVDs on the whole to be a little disappointing. I am pleased to say that with Rock In Rio, this is definitely not the case. For fans of Iron Maiden particularly, and heavy rock fans generally, I have no hesitaion in strongly recommending this DVD.

Iron Maiden - Rock in Rio

The definite Iron Maiden live album!

Wowh, it doesn't get any better then this. Iron Maiden performing the best of the freshly crafted Brave New World material and the classics for an huge enthusiastic audience. All this is recorded and film very good and even the bonus-material is nice.

The two hour concert shows Iron Maiden in their last peak-moment during the great momentum of the comeback of old band-members Dickinson and Smith. The show is incredible with three very skilled guitarist, the always steady and sympathetic Steve Harris on bass, the crazy Nicko on drums and of course stage artist Dickinson singing and communicating very intensive. Dickinson knows the public and uses the instrumental parts to do acrobatics and get into contact with the public. The material is played perfectly, the multi- guitar-solo's are amazing and the feel of the whole concert is epical. This is metal raised to it's final level: Emotional moments, bombastic moments, both quiet and shrieking vocals, instrumental passages with depth and the best of artwork on stage. Even a living three meter Eddy enters the stage and is teased by guitarist Jannick Gers.

The setlist is very good, though I would liked to have seen a set with less 'classics' and more original Maiden epics. The public adores songs like The Trooper, Fear of the Dark and The Number of the Beast and these tracks give an energetic boost at any given moment. I myself am a little bit more interested in tracks like Dream of Mirrors, Blood Brothers, Sign of the Cross (very progressive track btw) and Hallowed be thy Name.

Conclusion. This is an epical document of the highlight of their career. The performance is outstanding and the atmosphere of the whole affair is great. The quality of the release is good and the artwork is nice. Four stars for the archives, but an essential to fans of the band and the metal-genre. A great dvd to get to know the band!

Look, I love Maiden as much as the next guy. The band plays and sounds absolutely fantastic here and are way more full of energy than anyone at their age rightly ought to be.

But really, let's get down to it... I don't know how on earth anyone can NOT notice how god-awful the editing on this dvd is. It's dizzying, disorienting and headache inducing. There isn't a single shot that lasts more than a second or two and I'm NOT exaggerating at all. It's unforgivable.

This, unfortunately, seems to be a common thing plaguing a lot of dvds coming out these days. I'm not sure why folks choose this editing style; maybe they're trying to make it "exciting" or reflect the intenseness of the music or something, hell if I know, but the shots change at such a lightning-quick pace that you can never really tell what's going on. There are better ways to do it. When I buy music dvds, i want to see the band actually *play*, that's exciting enough for me - wacky camera angles be damned (I'm looking at you, Yes dvds).

Check out some clips on youtube to see what I'm talking about before spending your money. if that's your thing, well, whatever, man. It doesn't jive with me.

I'd just stick with the CD release.