Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson takes fans behind the scenes on ‘Legacy Of The Beast’ tour
Iron Maiden have shared a mini-documentary from their recent ‘Legacy Of The Beast’ tour, taking fans inside the mammoth shows’ production with the band’s frontman, Bruce Dickinson, as their guide.
The video, titled ‘Behind The Scenes With Bruce’, is split into two parts and runs for a total of around 18 minutes. The first part opens with Dickinson’s workout routine and a quick check of some equipment, before he walks the the cameraman through the band’s backstage setup and rider.
He details the various changeovers that take place throughout the concert itself – like frequent breaks to drink warm water, a costume change into his “storytelling cloak”, and the momentous section of the set where the band perform ‘Sign Of The Cross’ – offering a rare glimpse of Dickinson navigating set pieces and working with the band’s crew to initiate them.
At one point in the set – after Iron Maiden perform ‘Sign Of The Cross’ and move onto ‘Flight Of Icarus’ – Dickinson wields a custom suit with flamethrowers embedded into the arms. “Sometimes I get a few burns on my hands,” he quips, noting that he’ll occasionally have to blow himself out. From there, Dickinson launches into “the most manic change of the evening”, a detailed costume setup executed between songs.
In the second part of the video, Dickinson goes into detail on “the strange world that I live in – this funny little hobbit world behind the stage, which is all dark and dingy and things like that, with, like, plastic capes and flamethrowers…” He mentions a unique process he employs to calm down between songs (so that he’s not inadvertently singing aggressively during a slower number) whereby he does breathing exercises into a towel.
From there, he runs through the remainder of the show’s costume changes and set pieces, explaining that the show’s grand crescendo – a skit in which Dickinson appears to blow himself up with a comically large TNT detonator – stemmed from an accidental moment at an earlier show, when the singer stood over a pyro cannon as it was let off.
Have a look at both parts of ‘Behind The Scenes With Bruce’ below:
Iron Maiden’s ‘Legacy Of The Beast’ tour ran from May to October of this year, with a total of 140 shows on the itinerary (making it their biggest run since the ‘World Slavery Tour’ in 1986-87). The band will follow it up next year with the ‘Future Past’ tour, kicking off in Slovenia at the end of May, then rolling through Europe and the UK.
Dickinson is surely hoping that fans at the upcoming shows will be more behaved than some that attended the ‘Legacy Of The Beast’ tour; along the jaunt, he was forced to physically remove a stage-invader, and called attendees out for smoking weed in the crowd. While fans have nevertheless stuck with him, one noted hater of Dickinson’s is Sharon Osbourne, who recently chewed him out in an interview as a “fucking asshole” who is “jealous of Ozzy”.
Meanwhile, Iron Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain revealed earlier this month that he was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer in 2020, but has since beaten the condition.
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Ellie Robinson
NME
