The End Of An Era

In January 1990, Iron Maiden started to work on No Prayer For The Dying.  For the first time since  1983 there was  a personnel change – The Classic Maiden line up was no more  . Adrian Smith revealed that he did not know if he could still give Iron Maiden 100% effort and left the band.

Janick Gers had worked with Bruce Dickenson on one of his solo albums and was asked if he wanted to join Maiden.  He accepted and the recording of the Fear Of The Dark Album continued.   This album was recorded in England, for the first time since Number Of The Beast.  The album was released on 1st October 1990 and debuted at the No. 2 spot (UK Chart).

Maiden had not been  on tour for 2 years and could not wait to get out and play live again.  The No Prayer On The Road tour started at a gig in Milton Keynes on 19^th September 1990.  The stage set was back to basics but this did no harm to the performances at all.  Janick made it even better with all of his enthusiasm and on-stage antics. Fans in Japan and Australia missed out due to the outbreak of the Gulf War. The tour came to a premature end in March 1991 at Salt Lake City.

For the '90s Maiden decided that it was time for Eddie to change his image.  For Fear Of The Dark Melvyn Grant's drawing of Eddie was used.  The album was released on the 11th May '92 and debuts  No. 1. At the beginning of June the Fear Of The Dark World Tour opened.

Once again Iron Maiden were asked to play at Donington on 22nd August at the Monsters Of Rock. This time they knew what to expect and  so were not effected by nerves as much.  The stage was spectacular featuring many Eddies from different album covers including Fear Of The Dark, Somewhere In Time and Live At Donington 1992.  The  show was all filmed for a live video and taped for the live album, which of course was Live At Donington 1992.The tour ended on November 4th and the band flew home.

Blaze In Bruce Out

In March 1993 Bruce left Maiden.   With a young family and several side projects he thought that something had to go. They released two single live albums instead of one double like Live After Death.  A Real Live One featured newer  Maiden material whereas A Real Dead One featured older songs. Fans would then had a choice of purchasing either the one from their preferred era or both.

The band advertised for a replacement for  Dickenson.  Thousands of tapes and CDs were sent in – some good and some not so good.  Once the Real Live Tour was completed the band got to work on finding a suitable replacement.

Blaze Bayley,  a member of Wolfsbane, was chosen to replace Bruce. Iron Maiden had seen Blaze in action in 1990 when Wolfsbane was the support band on their tour and so knew how capable he was..

Once all the hype of  Blaze's joining the band had died down they started to rehearse.  For the new studio album a new producer was brought in to replace Martin Birch. Since 1980 Birch had been the producer for  Maiden but from the mid 1980s he had been in semi-retirement only producing for them.  He had decided that he was going to retire completely. Harris shared the producer's chair with Nigel Green, who had  been involved with the albums Killers and No. Of The Beast.

The album took over a year to complete as everything was made just right.  It was titled X-Factor and was released in October '95.  The  X Factour opened with venues in South Africa and Israel.  The gigs in Beirut did not go ahead due to the Lebanese government withdrawing their visas.  Instead Maiden flew home to the Most Wanted  for MTV.  The X Factour continued in Slovenia , Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Czech Rebublic and Poland. The Brixton show was great and the best on the tour.  Just before Christmas the band played in  Western Europe and then on to South America Canada and Japan in early '96.Iron Maiden headlined the "Monsters Of Rock" festival held in Sao Paulo stadium.

Best Of The Beast was released later  that year which included many classic Maiden songs like Can I Play With Madness, The Evil That Men Do and The Trooper.  Newer releases and a new studio track called Virus were also incuded. The songs  are all remastered and they are as good as ever.

A single CD and a double CD version were released.  Both are great and so buy which ever one you want.  You won't be dissapointed.

1998 brought  the release of a new studio album called Virtual XI, released on 15thMarch. The album is pretty good but lacks the enthusiasm of earlier Maiden albums.  At the same time an Iron Maiden game started  production, which was called Ed Hunter.  After the Virtual XI tour Blaze Bayley was tired of the band and he left starting up his own band, Blaze.

The Classic Line Up Re-United

Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith rejoin Maiden.  Yes the classic line up was back and with an extra guitarist.  The release of the Ed Hunter game was an opportunity for Maiden to do a tour.

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