Last Saturday, on the 16th of July, 2022, Iron Maiden played live in Athens, Greece, at the Olympic Stadium, the concert was great, however, everyone is talking now about this event for the wrong reasons. What happened in this Iron Maiden concert is now known all over the world and this Greek gig has become the number one news story, even in major sites like Blabbermouth and Metal Injection. Let’s examine the facts.
Firstly, we have to mention that during the whole concert of Iron Maiden, some fans in the crowdy stadium were lighting flares. This is a sort of a habit for Greek fans in big concerts – when the band plays a hit, a classic song, the fans go crazy and some of them light flares. That has happened also in 2018, when Iron Maiden played in Malakasa, Greece, that happened this time too. Bruce Dickinson, angry and outraged, had asked from the fans not to do so in Malakasa, yet, the fans ignored him.
So, this year, things went wild! The Greek fans had started lighting flares, that’s what they did also, when Iron Maiden started playing their classic number, “The Number of the Beast”. Bruce Dickinson sang the first line of the song’s lyrics, but saw a Greek fan in the front rows lighting a flare, and blasted him, saying “The cunt with the fucking flare, I’ve gotta sing up here! You fucking cocksucker. You Greek cunt. All right. I’ve gotta fucking sing. All right. Fuck you”. Having stopped singing, the legendary singer left briefly the stage, with the rest of the band playing the song. At the time of the second verse, Dickinson came back, continued the song, literally in anger and doing some obscene gestures.
As you can understand, Bruce Dickinson was annoyed by the fans’ flares, obviously because the smoke was affecting negatively his singing. Apart from that, Dickinson admonished the fan, since there was a risk of fire and but also because the smoke would harm some people with breathing problems, women and children.
Fans in concert arenas and venues shall respect the musicians and the other fans, who want to enjoy a safe live show. Besides that, Greek fans should have known better, as Bruce Dickinson is strict with these matters.
The concert was fantastic, we have to keep the good memories, and also learn to behave.
