Metal Music Blog

Last week I proudly announced that I have got one music DVD in my hands and I am going to watch it. Well, I didn’t do it last weekend because I had no time. Today I watched the DVD, which is called Bruce Dickinson Anthology. This blog post is a review of that particular DVD.

Bruce Dickinson Anthology includes three DVDs, from which the first two DVD’s are recordings from live concerts and the third one includes promotional videos. DVD package includes also a small booklet in which the tracks are listed with few pictures and short descriptions of each DVD.

Bruce Dickinson Anthology DVD sucks. It is much worse than I expected. I have been a fan of Iron Maiden since the early 1980’s and I have always worshiped Bruce Dickinson as a singer, but I must say Dickinson’s solo career material is boring. Bruce still has his voice and he is as skillful as with Iron Maiden, but songs are just boring. So boring that I found myself fast-forwarding the DVD’s and jumping from track to another before the opening chords had been completed. Oh man, I am really disappointed with Bruce Dickinson Anthology.

The first DVD of Bruce Dickinson Anthology is a recording from live concert at Country Club in Los Angeles, August 1990. Dudes start the concert with pretty funny overkill intro. Even though the time is 1990, those guys really look funny with their leather jackets, tight pants and tank-top T-shirts. Music is just boring. No hooks, no nothing. Bruce tries to scream here and there and keep up some kind of “rock & roll”-feeling. I find only two tracks interesting and good. Those are Son of a Gun and Winds of Change. Bruce’s voice sounds great and I feel like singing together. Good, good stuff, but only two tracks in the whole concert. Camera work in this concert is just poor. So poor that I don’t want to say anything more about it.

The second part of the first DVD is a recording from a concert in Skunkworks tour in Spain, 1996. Camera work in this recording is a lot of better than in the first gig. One can see that cameramen in this concert are pros. The way they shoot and the angles and much better now. Looks good. Even though camera work is better, music still sucks. Ok, I find it a bit more interesting than in the Tattooed Millioner tour, but I am still missing the great hooks, long-lasting melodies and awesome rhythms of Iron Maiden. If I compare this stuff to Iron Maiden’s Seventh Son or Somewhere in Time albums.. No. In fact I cannot even compare this to those classic albums. Not at all. There are two good songs in this gig, just like in the previous one. Those are Tears of the Dragon and Prisoner. As you probably notice, Prisoner is Iron Maiden’s song. As I listen to Bruce singing Tears of the Dragon, I am impressed. That man has a unique, powerful and real heavy metal sound. Anyhow, it looks like Bruce Dickinson is nothing without Iron Maiden, and together they are kings of heavy metal.

Hey Bruce! Get back your long hair! In the second DVD short-haired Bruce Dickinson performs a gig in Brazil, 1999. In nice years Bruce has developed much and his music sounds much better than in the first DVD. With this second DVD I find myself listening more and more. I don’t fast-forward that much anymore and I don’t skip tracks. Dickinson’s music contains more melodies and more interesting hooks, and guitars sound much better than in the first DVD. The reason for much better stuff is probably Adrian Smith who plays in the band of Bruce Dickinson. Gates of Urizen sounds pretty good with its melodies and drumming. While Killing Floor starts with a nice blues guitar, Laughing in the Hiding Bush brings back the great operatic singing style of Bruce Dickinson. Yeah! I like this.

Third DVD of Bruce Dickinson includes promotional videos between 1990 and 2005. Well, it is the same stuff with 24 higher quality pictures a second. The video for Tears of the Dragon is cool. I like it. Bruce sounds damn good in this piece of good old heavy metal. Accident of Birth is also pretty good. Man of Sorrows is a great ballad. Great guitars, very nice operatic vocals.

In the end of the third DVD you can watch Bruce Dickinson talking about Biceps of Steel and Tyranny of Souls. Well, nothing interesting for me in those.

Although there are few interesting songs and videos in the DVD’s, Bruce Dickinson Anthology is mainly boring. Those few good ones are not enough to make this DVD package interesting enough. I would not buy it. I like Bruce Dickinson with Iron Maiden, not as a solo artist. I have listened to Iron Maiden so much that every time I hear Bruce Dickinson, I expect something as great as Iron Maiden. Oh boy, those were the days when Iron Maiden released Seventh Son of the Seventh Son..

This post was written by Headbanger and its original location is in Metal-Music-Videos.Com blog. For more great metal music articles, please visit Metal-Music-Videos.Com!