Bruce Dickinson on Seeing Iron Maiden for the First Time.
On Oct. 26, 1981, Bruce Dickinson played his very first show as the new frontman for Iron Maiden. The setlist featured 17 songs, including a cover, as fans in Bologna, Italy witnessed a historic night of heavy metal.
A range of factors contributed to the dismissal of Paul Di’Anno, whose street-ready voice graced Iron Maiden’s classic first pair of records. The singer was not committed to touring as heavily as the band desired and also struggled with consistency in his live performances as well as substance abuse.
Iron Maiden’s increasingly melodic direction and abandonment of the punk edge heard on their self-titled debut also led to a necessary change up front.
Prior to joining Maiden, Dickinson was the singer of hard rock/proto-metal outfit Samson, with whom he recorded two albums. Samson even shared the stage with Iron Maiden just a couple years earlier and Dickinson was mesmerized by the opening act.
In a 2024 interview with Record Collector, Dickinson looked back on the show where Iron Maiden opened for Samson, insisting that seeing them filled him with the desire to eventually front the group one day.
“We were headlining because our management had bankrolled the gig and said, ‘We want the top slot’ – although we didn’t really deserve it. That became obvious when Maiden came on because the whole place was rammed,” the singer said.
I’d heard rumors about how good they were and I thought I’d better see them,” he continued, “When they came out, I thought, ‘I’ve never seen Deep Purple, but this is what it must have felt like to see Deep Purple in their prime, rocking up a storm.’” Iron Maiden were so good that Dickinson saw a potential new path for his future present itself. “I remember thinking, ‘Good God, I’d love to front that band.’ And as soon as they finished playing, everybody in the venue left and we were headlining to about three people!
In 1981, when Maiden and Samson both played the Reading Festival, manager Rod Smallwood initiated the personnel change, pulling Dickinson aside for a private chat. “I was in a corner of a beer tent when Rod Smallwood approached me saying, ‘Let’s go somewhere quiet where we can talk.’ We walked out and stood, illuminated for all the world to see, under the pole in the middle of the backstage area. I felt sure he was working up to something,” Dickinson wrote in What Does This Button Do?, his 2017 autobiography. The singer was invited to audition as Di’Anno’s replacement.
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