IRON MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson kicked off his two-month North American spoken-word tour last night (Monday, January 17) at Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Fan-filmed video footage of the event can be seen below.
Dickinson is considered one of the world's most storied musicians. Aside from decades spent delivering high-octane performances with his larger-than-life persona in IRON MAIDEN, Bruce has lived an extraordinary off-stage existence too. A true polymath, his accomplishments include: pilot and airline captain, aviation entrepreneur, beer brewer, motivational speaker, film scriptwriter, twice-published novelist and Sunday Times best-selling author, radio presenter, TV actor, sports commentator and international fencer… to name but a few.
So there's plenty to be entertained by, throughout the evening's cornucopia of fascinating tales and derring-do exploits, all delivered by Bruce with characteristically infectious enthusiasm and wry wit.
Split into two parts, the first section of the show sees Bruce taking a humorous and often satirical look at the world from his own very personal perspective, treating the audience to private insights into his drive and ambition, peppered with plenty of MAIDEN anecdotes, and a myriad of other experiences encompassing not just the giddy heights but also the extreme lows, as told first-hand in his inimitable anarchic style, punctuated with photographs, videos and sometimes even erupting into song a-capella, to illustrate a point.
The final section of the evening is devoted entirely to the aforementioned question-and-answer session, with the opportunity to pose questions on any subject whatsoever. As Bruce's answers will all be completely improvised — the more left-field and quirky the question, the more interesting and compelling the response is likely to be.
Remaining tour dates:
Jan. 18 - Orlando, FL @ Plaza Live
Jan. 20 - Tampa, FL @ Theatre
Jan. 21 - Jacksonville, FL @ Florida Theatre
Jan. 23 - Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle
Jan. 24 - Raleigh, NC @ Meymandi Concert Hall at Duke Energy Center
Jan. 26 - Nashville, TN @ Polk Theater
Jan. 27 – Columbus, OH @ Jo Ann Davidson Theatre
Jan. 29 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Carnegie Music Hall of Homestead
Jan. 30 – Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore
Feb. 01 - Buffalo-Niagara Falls, NY @ Buffalo State Performing Arts Center
Feb. 02 - Albany, NY @ The Egg
Feb. 04 - New York City, NY @ The Town Hall
Feb. 05 - Boston, MA @ Schubert Theatre at the Boch Center
Feb. 07 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore
Feb. 08 – Washington, DC @ Warner Theatre
Feb. 10 - Cleveland, OH @ MGM Northfield Park
Feb. 11 - Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre
Feb. 13 - Minneapolis, MN @ Pantages Theatre
Feb. 14 - Milwaukee-Racine, WI @ Pabst Theater
Feb. 16 - Des Moines, IA @ Hoyt Sherman Place Theatre
Feb. 17 - Oklahoma City, OK @ Rose State College Hudiberg Chevrolet Center
Feb. 19 - Kansas City, KS @ Uptown Theater
Feb. 20 - Denver, CO @ Paramount Theatre
Feb. 22 - Dallas, TX @ Majestic Theatre
Feb. 23 - Houston, TX @ Stafford Centre
Feb. 24 - Austin, TX @ Paramount Theatre
Feb. 26 - Phoenix, AZ @ Mesa Arts Center
Feb. 28 - San Diego, CA @ Balboa Theatre
Mar. 01 - Los Angeles, CA @ Orpheum Theatre
Mar. 03 - San Francisco, CA @ Palace Of Fine Arts
Mar. 04 – Portland, OR @ Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
Mar. 06 - Seattle, WA @ The Moore Theatre
Mar. 12 - Las Vegas, NV @ House Of Blues
Mar. 14 - Vancouver (New Westminster), BC @ Massey Theatre
Mar. 16 - Victoria, BC @ Royal Theatre
Mar. 18 - Edmonton, AB @ Winspear Centre
Mar. 20 - Winnipeg, MB @ Burton Cummings Theatre
Mar. 21 - Calgary, AB @ Jack Singer Concert Hall
Mar. 23 - Montreal, QC @ MTELUS
Mar. 26 - Ottawa, ON @ Algonquin Commons Theatre
Mar. 27 - Quebec City, QC @ Palais Montcalm
Mar. 29 - Hamilton, ON @ FirstOntario Concert Hall
Mar. 30 - Kitchener, Centre In The Square
Dickinson recently told Pablo of the Minneapolis, Minnesota radio station 93X about his latest spoken-word tour, which kicked off in his native United Kingdom in August: "It's hopefully reasonably amusing. It's a look at how a spotty kid from the middle of nowhere ended up being the singer in IRON MAIDEN wearing crazy trousers, and all points in between. And it covers the cancer thing. It covers a lot of the early-days stuff, like how I learned to sing, all the weird stuff that happened to me at school and what formed your personality [and] character — all done with a very dark sense of humor, I hope. And then we take a break, and then the last 45 minutes, one hour-ish is basically improv. And so what I do is I take cue cards from the audience they write on the night, and I arrange them into kind of an improv script. Then I do that. That's the show."
Back in October/November 2017, Dickinson read from his autobiography, "What Does This Button Do?", talked about the experience of writing it and answered questions from the audience at half a dozen U.S. appearances, including in New York City and Los Angeles.
Six years ago, Dickinson had surgery to remove a cancerous lump on his throat. The rocker, who had a golf gall-size tumor on his tongue and another in the lymph node on the right side of his neck, got the all-clear in May 2015 after radiation and nine weeks of chemotherapy.
Bruce previously told iNews that he wanted to cover his cancer battle in his 2017 autobiography to raise awareness of the condition, which affects people who often have no or minimal history of tobacco or alcohol abuse. The individuals with HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer who undergo treatment have a disease-free survival rate of 85 to 90 percent over five years. Dickinson also expressed disdain for some of the media outlets that suggested he may have gotten tongue cancer from performing oral sex on women.
IRON MAIDEN's 17th studio album, "Senjutsu", was released in September via BMG. The band's first LP in six years was recorded in 2019 in Paris with longstanding producer Kevin Shirley and co-produced by bassist Steve Harris.
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