Published: June 3, 2025 · 10:17 AM EDT
BRUCE DICKINSON reflected on his early days with IRON MAIDEN, recalling the intense atmosphere during his first audition.
In a recent interview with Music Radar, Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson looked back on his 1981 audition for the band. According to the story, by the summer of 1981 the band were having problems with their singer, Paul Di’Anno. It was decided they would have to let him go. Bassist / band leader Steve Harris and manager Rod Smallwood met with Dickinson – who was with Samson at the time – backstage at the Reading Festival.
Dickinson: “It was weird. They rehearsed with me up in Hackney with everybody sneaking in — not that anybody in Hackney actually gave a shit! So I turned up and Steve wasn’t there; he hadn’t arrived yet, but everybody else was. And I looked around and everybody was just… not happy. Everybody was just down. And I was thinking, ‘this is going to be rough.’ But we just started bashing through some songs that we knew, and it turned out we all knew half of every fucking rock song on the planet.”
“We had a go at a bit of AC/DC, a bit of (Deep) Purple — ‘Woman From Tokyo’, then ‘Black Night’ — and so on. And suddenly we were all smiling and having a laugh. And then Steve turned up. We went, ‘Right, let’s have a bash at some Maiden songs!’ And we never looked back.”
Iron Maiden opened up their Run For Your Lives World Tour in Budapest at the Budapest Aréna, featuring songs from their debut up to 1992’s Fear Of The Dark. They have shared an official recap video of the show:
“The Run For Your Lives tour kicked off in Budapest, Hungary only a few hours ago… here’s a little taste.”
The full setlist has been revealed. Every album from this era is represented except for 1990’s No Prayer For The Dying.
Setlist:
“The Ides Of March”
“Murders In The Rue Morgue”
“Wrathchild”
“Killers”
“Phantom Of The Opera”
“The Number Of The Beast”
“The Clairvoyant”
“Powerslave”
“2 Minutes To Midnight”
“Rime Of The Ancient Mariner”
“Run To The Hills”
“Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son”
“The Trooper”
“Hallowed Be Thy Name”
“Iron Maiden”
Encore:
“Aces High”
“Fear Of The Dark”
“Wasted Years”
