This double-disc set captures what was going on with Iron Maiden back in the mid-’80s, when they were touring behind their Powerslave album.

Disc one holds footage from a four-night stand at the Long Beach Arena in 1984, and it’s easy to see why the band sold out every night – singer Bruce Dickinson and his crew are at the top of their game as they rip through a set that begins with “Aces High,” “2 Minutes to Midnight” and “The Trooper.”

Before playing “Revelations,” Dickinson goes on a bit of an obscenities-laden rant about how Iron Maiden had been unfairly pegged as a satanic act by much of the American press.

“Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” inspired by the classic Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem of the same name, is performed in its entirety; before the band launches into the 13-minute epic, Dickinson tells the crowd that Coleridge was high on marijuana when he wrote the poem (Coleridge was in fact hobbled by drugs most of his life.). Documentary and concert footage shot at various tour stops in 1985 make up disc two; locations include San Antonio, the Rock in Rio blow-out in Brazil and most interestingly, footage from Eastern Europe in a segment cleverly titled "Behind the Iron Curtain." The documentaries are well-edited and they forego using lots of party footage or tomfoolery in favor of letting the band talk a little – a nice opportunity to catch a breath after clanging around in the metal.

Grade: A

Live After Death is currently available.