I won’t argue it has a more iconic line than yesterday’s Johnny Cash album, but for a kid growing up in the 80s in love with hard rock and heavy metal, there was no greater thrill than shouting out “Scream for me, Long Beach!” along with Bruce Dickinson. I may have discovered Iron Maiden through The Number of the Beast, but it was Live After Death, their live document of the 1984-85 Powerslave tour that hooked me as a fan for life.Practically a note for note execution of their greatest hits to date, everything from the cover artwork to the photos to the galvanizing me into the fan for life I am today.

It’s an album that even 40 years later I can hold entirely in my head, I listened to it so much as a kid. My bedroom as a kid was in the basement, a walled off section that was enormous, sporting a massive mirror that was the width of my dresser. I would spend hours with Live After Death on the record player, lights turned off and one of those ultra-violet fluorescent tubes lighting up both my blacklight posters (AC/DC, KISS, and a black panther) as well as the American flag attached to the broken pole I pretended was my guitar or my microphone, depending on which part of the album I was “playing” along to. When I’m listening and singing along to the albums in my car, I still will sometimes sing the small changes I remember from the live versions.

As fast as the album itself, you’d be hard pressed to pick a better selection of songs. Powerslave was an incredible album, dark and twisted and progressive with an ambition the previous albums only hinted at, and kicking the concert off with the two leading tracks from that album worked perfectly. “Aces High” still remains a career highlight, and “2 Minutes to Midnight” has always been for me one of their better rockers. The production is fantastic, Adrian Smith and Dave Murray’s guitar interplay never more pronounced and transparent, letting you really feel how tight a package they were. Steve Harris’s bass sits perfectly in the mix, and Nicko McBrain reminds with every hit he’s one of the best drummers to ever do it. As the concert rolls into a trio of cuts from Piece of Mind including the immortal “The Trooper” the band is on fire, every solo searing and every gallop commanding.

And Dickinson, now seated comfortably in the band after three stellar albums and having cemented himself as a metal god at the same table with Rob Halford earns his air raid moniker completely throughout Live After Death. Whether he’s growling along to Di’Anno tracks like “Wrathchild” and “Phantom of the Opera” making them his own (without taking away the fact that Di’Anno OWNS those songs lock stock and barrel, RIP) or letting his voice rise to the clouds on “Run to the Hills” (a song I never need to hear again, but if I do I want it to be the live version) he’s a revelation (joke intended).

For a band going on close to 50 years, with more live albums than studio albums at this point, it’s impossible to calculate the impact Iron Maiden have had on heavy metal. They continue to be one of the biggest bands in the world, despite heavy metal being largely relegated to the closet when it comes to popular music. For me they’re bigger than even that: without them, and without Live After Death in particular to sit with me and by my constant companion growing up, allowing me to get lost in it when things were unbearable I literally would not be the person I am today.

Even if I never have to hear “Running Free” in any incarnation ever again.