JUST IN 💎 Bruce Dickinson has released a brand-new song titled “Source of my death,” along with a terrifying music video that reveals his extremely..
Last night (May 16), the inimitable Bruce Dickinson kicked off the first night of his first solo UK tour for more than two decades at the Civic Hall in Wolverhampton. Buoyed by his magnificent album The Mandrake Project, the heavy metal hero stormed through a career-spanning 17-song setlist that brought together everything from latest single Rain On The Graves all the way back to Tears Of The Dragon from 1994’s Balls To Picasso. He even found room for a couple of covers – Frankenstein by the Edgar Winter Group and Mott The Hoople’s timeless All The Young Dudes.
Managing to encompass Bruce’s solo output into one show is no mean feat, but through cherrypicking his favourites from across six different albums, it’s more than enough to satisfy those who’ve been waiting to see Chemical Wedding in the flesh once again.
If you’re heading along to one of the sold-out shows on Bruce’s headline tour over the next week, here’s what’s in store…
Accident Of Birth
Abduction
Faith
Afterglow Of Ragnarok
Chemical Wedding
Many Doors To Hell
Gates Of Urizen
Resurrection Men
Rain On The Graves
Frankenstein
The Alchemist
Tears Of The Dragon
Darkside Of Aquarius
Encore:
Navigate The Seas Of The Sun
All The Young Dudes
Book Of Thel
The Tower
When Bruce Dickinson first joined Iron Maiden, he was still using a student train pass and unofficially
When Bruce Dickinson first joined Iron Maiden, he was still using a student train pass and unofficially living above a hair salon. He lived about 100 miles outside of London, where he’d travel to practice with the rest of the band.
About five miles down the road, he’d pass time drinking scrumpy — a hallucinogenic cider made from undesirable apples — at a pub in the village of Elmley Castle. The establishment was full of semi-conscious metalheads and had a large pentagram on the floor. About ten miles west was Bredon Hill — the storied location said to have hosted the last recorded human sacrifice. Thirty miles in the other direction was the birthplace of the notorious Aleister Crowley, the mythical occultist and walking satanic symbol.
In 1982, 23-year-old Dickinson moved to London to record the band’s first No. 1 album, The Number of the Beast. He thought he’d left behind the “paradise for lunatics” and moved on to big-city living. But during the recording of the album, winter gloom, murder, and the imagery of 666 still permeated the band’s consciousness. Dickinson, who’d just been through the wringer playing in the competing heavy-metal band Samson, was cocky when he first joined Maiden — even scoffing at the notion of an audition. But it only took 20 or 30 takes of a single lyric before famed producer Martin Birch put him in his place. “This is your whole life, summed up in two lines,” he told Dickinson, after watching him throw a tantrum in the studio.
“I thought, ‘I can sing this stuff,’” Dickinson says. “And yeah, physically, there was no question about it. But it was the emotional input of doing those lines. Nobody had ever called me on that before.”
The singer then approached the microphone and uttered the introduction to “The Number of the Beast,” one of the band’s most iconic songs to date. Dickinson later learned that Birch had used the same shtick on Ronnie James Dio and the rest of his heroes in Black Sabbath just two years earlier while recording “Heaven and Hell.” “Once that little light bulb goes on in your head,” he says. “You’ve just walked into a whole new universe.”
Along with countless others, this learning moment was crucial to Dickinson’s 35-year-career with Iron Maiden. Overall, the band has released 16 studio albums. They’ve played to legions of fans (upwards of 300,000 in Brazil) in more countries than most people could name. Their mascot, the demonic “Eddie,” can be seen touted by rock fans of all ages. Their statistical and economic impact on the genre of heavy metal may be outweighed only by their personal impact on fans in every corner of the world. If you ask any metal fan or critic, Iron Maiden is one of the biggest metal bands of all time. And while Dickinson, nicknamed the “Air-Raid Siren,” was not the original vocalist of Iron Maiden, he is highly regarded as one of the most dynamic vocalists in heavy-metal history — head to head with the likes of Judas Priest’s Rob Halford.
living above a hair salon. He lived about 100 miles outside of London, where he’d travel to practice with the rest of the band.
About five miles down the road, he’d pass time drinking scrumpy — a hallucinogenic cider made from undesirable apples — at a pub in the village of Elmley Castle. The establishment was full of semi-conscious metalheads and had a large pentagram on the floor. About ten miles west was Bredon Hill — the storied location said to have hosted the last recorded human sacrifice. Thirty miles in the other direction was the birthplace of the notorious Aleister Crowley, the mythical occultist and walking satanic symbol.
In 1982, 23-year-old Dickinson moved to London to record the band’s first No. 1 album, The Number of the Beast. He thought he’d left behind the “paradise for lunatics” and moved on to big-city living. But during the recording of the album, winter gloom, murder, and the imagery of 666 still permeated the band’s consciousness. Dickinson, who’d just been through the wringer playing in the competing heavy-metal band Samson, was cocky when he first joined Maiden — even scoffing at the notion of an audition. But it only took 20 or 30 takes of a single lyric before famed producer Martin Birch put him in his place. “This is your whole life, summed up in two lines,” he told Dickinson, after watching him throw a tantrum in the studio.
“I thought, ‘I can sing this stuff,’” Dickinson says. “And yeah, physically, there was no question about it. But it was the emotional input of doing those lines. Nobody had ever called me on that before.”
The singer then approached the microphone and uttered the introduction to “The Number of the Beast,” one of the band’s most iconic songs to date. Dickinson later learned that Birch had used the same shtick on Ronnie James Dio and the rest of his heroes in Black Sabbath just two years earlier while recording “Heaven and Hell.” “Once that little light bulb goes on in your head,” he says. “You’ve just walked into a whole new universe.”
Along with countless others, this learning moment was crucial to Dickinson’s 35-year-career with Iron Maiden. Overall, the band has released 16 studio albums. They’ve played to legions of fans (upwards of 300,000 in Brazil) in more countries than most people could name. Their mascot, the demonic “Eddie,” can be seen touted by rock fans of all ages. Their statistical and economic impact on the genre of heavy metal may be outweighed only by their personal impact on fans in every corner of the world. If you ask any metal fan or critic, Iron Maiden is one of the biggest metal bands of all time. And while Dickinson, nicknamed the “Air-Raid Siren,” was not the original vocalist of Iron Maiden, he is highly regarded as one of the most dynamic vocalists in heavy-metal history — head to head with the likes of Judas Priest’s Rob Halford.
