Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson, who recovered from tongue cancer in 2015, was forced to sing part of a recent show from offstage after smoke from flares lit by fans filled the stadium. Video from the band’s concert at Estadio Olímpico Atahualpa in Quito, Ecuador, shows Dickinson delivering lines of The Trooper from behind the set as flares burn in the crowd.
“I can’t sing if you light flares! I can’t breathe. If you want to light flares, go somewhere else, because this stuff is poisonous and pollutes the people around you,” he’s reported to have said from the stage.
As in many parts of the world, pyrotechnics are banned at Estadio Olímpico Atahualpa for security and safety reasons. Fans are searched before entry and any such devices are confiscated, while those who bypass the checks and set off fireworks inside face immediate ejection and banning. Those restrictions clearly didn’t deter a handful of determined rule-breakers in Quito, who set off flares on at least three occasions during the Maiden show.
Dickinson, 68, has warned fans in the past about smoke and vaping at concerts. In 2014, he was diagnosed with a small cancerous tumor at the back of his tongue. He completed seven weeks of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and was given the all-clear in May 2015. In 2022, he criticized a fan for smoking at a show in Greece, and elsewhere told the front row in Anaheim, California, that their weed fumes were disrupting his performance and that of bassist Steve Harris.
At a solo show in 2024, he said he and bassist Tanya O’Callaghan were suffering the effects of vaping. “My throat’s got work to do,” he pointed out on that occasion.
Maiden were expected to take a hiatus in 2027, but the band recently announced an unexpected North American leg of their Run For Your Lives world tour. The new run begins on April 14 in Tacoma, Washington, and ends on May 16 in Ocean City, Maryland.
