Rating: 
Summary: Killer.
Review: A hugely enjoyable dvd, but not recomended for the casual or first time fan. Of course, thats probably true of much of Maiden's catelogue. Like Richard Wagner or Stanley Kubrik or Tom Waits, Iron Maiden is an acquired taste--although certainly well worth the time. This is basically a documentary covering the making of Maiden's seminal Number of the Beast, if you haven't figured that out already. All the key songs and major players are featured. For the price of admission, you get Bruce doing a little skit off the Prisoner TV show, Martin Birch at the boards fiddling with the mix of Run to the Hills, and Adrian Smith--just him and his Fender--fudging through incredible renditions of NotB and Children of the Damned. Also featured is an excerpt of Hallowed Be Thy Name live at Rio that is absolutely killer. This installment of the Classic Albums series easily outclasses similar entries dedicated to Priest and Metallicker. Its well worth your time and hard earned dough. --b
Rating:
Summary: Killer.
Review: A hugely enjoyable dvd, but not recomended for the casual or first time fan. Of course, thats probably true of much of Maiden's catelogue. Like Richard Wagner or Stanley Kubrik or Tom Waits, Iron Maiden is an acquired taste--although certainly well worth the time. This is basically a documentary covering the making of Maiden's seminal Number of the Beast, if you haven't figured that out already. All the key songs and major players are featured. For the price of admission, you get Bruce doing a little skit off the Prisoner TV show, Martin Birch at the boards fiddling with the mix of Run to the Hills, and Adrian Smith--just him and his Fender--fudging through incredible renditions of NotB and Children of the Damned. Also featured is an excerpt of Hallowed Be Thy Name live at Rio that is absolutely killer. This installment of the Classic Albums series easily outclasses similar entries dedicated to Priest and Metallicker. Its well worth your time and hard earned dough. --b
Rating: 
Summary: ATTENTION: MUSICIANS/ENGINEERS
Review: About 90% of these reviews are misleading! I was looking for an insight to a classic album especially when I saw Martin Birch (a God!) was involved. But Birch only soloed a couple of tracks in one or two songs and did nothing else! It started off cool with Martin and Bruce talking about how Bruce had to do take after take of the opening to number of the beast but the insight stops there. The interviews are nice(thank-you for the subtitles!-friggin brits!) but it's really a video on Iron Maiden and how this album achieved such great success for the band. If you wanna see a producer AND the band explain an album, buy Judas Priest's classic dvd on British Steel-thanks to Tom Allom. Get the "History of Iron Maiden-Part 1" instead of this dvd!!
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Buy This if You're Expecting a Concert
Review: All I can say is that whoever decided to put this DVD out, my hat's off to you. I have been a fan of Iron Maiden since around 1987. They are in my opinion the best hard rock / heavy metal band of all time. This DVD tells some of the story behind what many would say is their most popular album, "The Number Of The Beast". It has band interviews, and footage of Adrian Smith (the -in my opinion- best guitar player in the world) jamming out some of the classic riffs from the album. Also featured is some footage of the "Rock in Rio" DVD. All in all, this DVD ROCKS!
Rating:
Summary: The One For You And Me!
Review: All I can say is that whoever decided to put this DVD out, my hat's off to you. I have been a fan of Iron Maiden since around 1987. They are in my opinion the best hard rock / heavy metal band of all time. This DVD tells some of the story behind what many would say is their most popular album, "The Number Of The Beast". It has band interviews, and footage of Adrian Smith (the -in my opinion- best guitar player in the world) jamming out some of the classic riffs from the album. Also featured is some footage of the "Rock in Rio" DVD. All in all, this DVD ROCKS!
Rating:
Summary: Very Cool Documentary
Review: Amazing collection of interviews with the band members who recorded the "Beast" album. Including Clive Burr, who has been in the shadows for the last couple of decades. Funny moments, very interesting insights on how the songs came up, and a lot of cool curiosities about the band and the Beast tour. Adrian playing "The Number of The Beast", "Children of Damned", is awesome!
Rating:
Summary: Very Cool Documentary
Review: Amazing collection of interviews with the band members who recorded the "Beast" album. Including Clive Burr, who has been in the shadows for the last couple of decades. Funny moments, very interesting insights on how the songs came up, and a lot of cool curiosities about the band and the Beast tour. Adrian playing "The Number of The Beast", "Children of Damned", is awesome!
Rating: 
Summary: A Few High Spots; Not much insight
Review: As the second viewed of my first two "Cassic Albums" DVD's, this one falls flat. The humour is unquestionable quite British and some of it quite good as are some of the stories of the tour, the number of the beast, etc. Overall though, this DVD falls a bit flat. Editing: Overall: Well done. However, many of the transitions between scenes are very abrupt. While the consumer should not expect nice and neat fadeouts, many of the extra interview scenes are almost sophomorishly curtailed. Content: Lackluster. Even as a fan of some 20 years ago, I found the insight into the construction of this album lacking a great deal. There are numerous, well-placed concert scenes, but they do little to advance the story of more than a few tracks. Moreover, the imbedded concert footage would be something any hardcore fan would own anyways. While the back cover would suggest, "Producer Martin Birch takes us though the original multi-track tapes...." this is only true for a very few, very short snipets of the disc. The one other tape I have seen in this series is FAR more indepth in this regard. The back cover further describes how, "guitarist Adrian Smith contributes exclusive acoustic guitar renditions of "Children of the Damned" and "The Number of the Beast (NOTB)," this is equally misleading: While Adrian plays the intros (and most of the body to NOTB), most of it is not visible, the screen framing is poorly done, and the editing very disappointing. One is led to believe that insight into how the band wrote and recorded this album would be forthcoming but fails to deliver. High Spots: Adrian and Dave onstage together for "Hallowed Be Thy Name (HBTN)." Evolution of IM after the firing of Paul and the hiring of Bruce. "The Twin Guitars." Probably a must have for the hardcore IM fan due to humourous content and silly background info on a DVD. For the casual observer or behind the scenes voyuer, this DVD is probably one to skip. You won't get much behind the scenes and most of the humour will be lost and boring. For the engineer/producer/guitarist, don't expect much; there's really nothing new here. Most guitarists probably know most (if not all) of the licks and the engineer/producer won't get any new insight.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Insight into a Great Album
Review: Being a huge Iron Maiden fan, I decided that since I didn't have enough money to purchase the ROCK IN RIO DVD, I would go ahead and buy the cheaper Maiden DVD which was a 50-minute documentary on the making of their all-time classic third album THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST. It was part of a music series called "Classic Albums" and I thought it would be cool to see how this heavy metal milestone came into place back in the early '80s. This is a very insightful DVD, filled with great interviews, never-before-seen concert footage, some cool bonus material, and a rich, detailed history to boot. I look at NUMBER OF THE BEAST now in a new light than ever before. The program traces Maiden's beginnings in the late '70s up to their breakout success with BEAST in 1982. We see early concert footage in the clubs with original lead singer Paul Di'anno, decked out in leather-clad gear; how Maiden became one of the "leaders" of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (and how they detested it); Paul's exit from the band and Bruce's arrival after leaving his own band Samson; incredible commentary on the writing and recording process of the album; and the lasting impact the album has had. As much as I loved the insight and detail, what really impressed me about the interviews was the humor. For example, during the segment for "The Prisoner," it cuts to the set of the "village" where the original Prisoner TV show was filmed, and there you see Bruce decked out in the same outfit Patrick McGoohan wore on the show. Other funny bits occur when the band and their manager Rod Smallwood discuss the backlash NUMBER OF THE BEAST received in America. Bruce says that one guy went so far as to carry a huge 25-foot cross (the same cross Jesus carried, you see) as a means of protest in front of the venue. Smallwood then talks about how people started burning copies of the album, and then decided to smash them instead with hammers because "the fumes of the Devil's music" would poison the atmosphere. Hilarious stuff. The bonus materials are also very good. We see extra, equally detailed interviews that were cut out of the final program; two shots of Adrian Smith playing the riffs for "Children of the Damned" and "The Number of the Beast"; a poignant message from Clive Burr thanking the fans for their support with his struggle with MS; and the performance of "Hallowed Be Thy Name" from the Rock in Rio concert (that was the best). Overall, this is a well-made, interesting, and humorous short little portrait into the world of Iron Maiden. This is a dedication to one of heavy metal's finest.
Rating: 
Summary: bigger than the devil
Review: clasic albumns is very informative especially to those that missed out on the Twelve wasted years video.It was really cool to see Adrian and bruce back on video talking about the good ole days,and no sign of that stinker jannick jers [take your poser stage presance and go on].The dvd had so much extra footage,at this price it's a steal.There's a sneak prevue of the soon to be relised video from Rio,recorded in 2001.we get to see hallowed be thy name which sounds really good and gets you very excited for whats to come. all in all if you're maiden fan buy it.
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