IRON MAIDEN released "Live After Death" on October 14th, 1985 through EMI in Europe and Capitol in the United States, produced by Martin Birch, with the video following on the 23rd. The double album came from the World Slavery Tour — 187 concerts across 331 days, opening in Warsaw on August 9th, 1984 — with sides one to three taken from four nights at Long Beach Arena in March 1985 and side four from Hammersmith Odeon the previous October. The Egyptian staging built around "Powerslave," sarcophagi and a mummified Eddie, made it the ideal tour to document, and Derek Riggs' gravestone sleeve is among his best known. Both Kerrang! and Sputnikmusic have called it possibly the greatest live album ever made; AllMusic settles for easily one of heavy metal's best. Forty years on, that consensus has barely shifted.
