In the spring of 1981 Iron Maiden were on tour for their second album Killers. Check out this live performance from Germany, filmed at the start of singer Paul Di’Anno‘s last tour with the band.
With the arrival of guitarist Adrian Smith to replace Dennis Stratton in late 1980, Iron Maiden came much closer to achieving their goals. Teaming up with producer Martin Birch the band would swiftly record and release Killers, the album that saw the creation of the classic Iron Maiden sound.
Dave Murray, Steve Harris and Adrian Smith on stage with Iron Maiden on the Killers tour in 1981. (Photo by Loopyworld.)
Smith would join a line-up consisting of bassist Steve Harris, guitarist Dave Murray, singer Paul Di’Anno and drummer Clive Burr. The Killer World Tour would take Maiden around Europe, North America and Japan. Before the tour started, actually a couple of weeks before the album was released, Maiden filmed this TV live performance at the Beat Club in Bremen, Germany on 22 January:
This video is a 32 minute edit of the full show, a version of which might be available somewhere, somehow, out there on the internet, possibly also in better quality than this video. The full setlist for the TV taping was:
The Ides Of March (intro)
Prowler
Charlotte The Harlot
Wrathchild
Remember Tomorrow
Transylvania
Running Free
Innocent Exile
Sanctuary
Killers
Another Life
Phantom Of The Opera
Iron Maiden
The video was aired in April 1981, shortly before Maiden visited Japan. On 23 May they recorded their Nagoya performance for what would become the Maiden Japan EP, their last release with Di’Anno.
In September 1981 Di’Anno was replaced by Bruce Dickinson, and Maiden never looked back.
Iron Maiden in 1981, left to right: Steve Harris, Clive Burr, Adrian Smith, Dave Murray and Paul Di’Anno.
Maiden Revelations 
By the way, in september 2018 Beat Club uploaded better quality (not hd but definitely the best possible version I have ever seen anywhere) full show from Maiden, but it was only available for some time (I can’t recall exactly) but then it disappeared for some strange reason.
This is the channel that Beat Club has: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYyFEZ-3Hy4pdLFctDtRu3w
And here was the real full (for the first time ever) setlist of the show:
[00:00:22] Ides of March (from tape)
[00:02:10] Prowler
[00:06:05] Charlotte the Harlot
[00:10:19] checking mental state of audience
[00:10:44] Wrathchild
[00:13:50] Remember Tomorrow (1st try)
[00:15:18] remember audio engineer lessons
[00:18:07] Remember Tomorrow (2nd try)
[00:23:42] Transylvania
[00:27:40] Running Free
[00:31:10] Innocent Exile
[00:35:23] Sanctuary (1st try)
[00:39:33] Killers
[00:44:45] Another Life
[00:48:30] Phantom of the Opera
[00:55:51] Iron Maiden
[01:00:06] Sanctuary (2nd try)
These was couple mistakes there, the power runout in middle of Remember Tomorrow and the guys had beer and waited while the situation got solved.
Too bad the tape ain’t there available anymore, but have to look and see if i has been uploaded by anyone else..it was exciting to see this show at last in full but with great quality. Hope to see it again someday somewhere.
I found it here
Great snapshot of Maiden at a point where they were poised to go from great to world beating. Shame the crowd don’t seem particularly engaged!
Thanks for the link! “Shame the crowd don’t seem particularly engaged!” Exactly! The audience lighting is so faint, it’s hard to make out the crowd. Granted, Beat Club was a TV show – maybe they audience members were instructed not to do much except some polite clapping? There reaction is the polar opposite I had of seeing Iron Maiden live in Germany three times between 1983 and 1986. Once was on live TV: the 1983 “Rock Pop” festival in Dortmund! B)
I’m jealous! You must have seen them on the World Piece, World Slavery and Somewhere in time tours?? My first time seeing them was on the X-Factour in Leeds. Still loved it though and held eye contact with Dave Murray at one point during the gig, can you imagine how excited I was. Looking up old Maiden videos led me to this gem:
Which I’d not heard before and is definitely of interest. Who’d have thought Purgatory started off as a reggae number??
Bremen is the same place and show as Beat Club, which was venue where plenty of other bands visited aswell.