Powerslave

Following the success of Piece of Mind, the band released Powerslave on September 9, 1984. The album featured fan-favourites "2 Minutes to Midnight", "Aces High", and "Rime of the Ancient Mariner",the latter based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem of the same name. "Back in the Village" followed up on an earlier hit "The Prisoner", both based on the television show starring Patrick McGoohan.
The tour following the album, dubbed the World Slavery Tour, was the band's biggest to date and consisted of around 220 shows over 13 months. Many shows were played back-to-back in the same city, such as in Long Beach, California, where most of the recordings were made for their subsequent live release Live After Death. The tour was physically gruelling for the band and they took a 6-month break when it ended.