Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson recently recalled performing with a band during the early days of his career and touched upon his experiences with the fans. He also remembered the time when he used to perform in small pubs and stated that he even did a show with only one person in the audience.
Dickinson joined Iron Maiden in 1981 but had started his music career in the 1970s. Before Iron Maiden, he was fronting small bands and performing in small pubs for around $50 a night. During his recent interview, Bruce recalled that they had been booked for a gig one day but were surprised to see that no one showed up for their show except one person.
They were performing in a disco, but no one showed up. The band was still on stage because they were getting paid anyway and were shocked when one person finally walked in. That person was also shocked that there was a band on stage, playing in an empty club. However, he took a chair and sat in the middle of the dance floor.
Usually, Dickinson would insult the audience or ‘make friends with them in an odd way,’ but this time, he bought the man a beer for coming to listen to them and gave him a performance. He described this performance as relaxing, and instead of being angry about the situation, they had a lot of fun and made a friend.
Here’s how Dickinson recalled dealing with tough audiences and then revealed the one-person- audience show’s story:
“I would insult them. Either that or try and try and make friends with them, but in a very odd way. I had one, one show, I was in a band at university. There was one… In the old days, it would have been called a disco. Except there was nobody there. It was like the phantom disco, and there were like mirror balls and lights. And there was also the stage. And there was nobody, nobody there. But we were getting paid like 50 bucks to go and play.
So then, the door opened. And one person walked in. Looked a bit shocked that there was somebody actually on stage. And so he got a chair, and he put it right in the middle of the dance floor and sat down on this chair. And I thought, ‘This is great!’ So I got off the stage. And I went up to him with a microphone. I said, ‘Excuse me, sir, I got to know, what’s your name?’ And he was like, ‘Oh, I’m so-and-so.’ I said, ‘Can I buy you a beer? Because we’re about to do this performance just for you. The least I can do is buy you a beer. You may hate it, you know what I mean?’
And, and then we kind of relaxed, and we had this… We actually had a relationship, we had an audience of one who didn’t know who we were. But actually, we had a great time. Nobody cared, nobody knew. But we had a great time.“
It may be hard to believe that no one went to listen to Dickinson and his band back in the day before he gained fame with Iron Maiden. Currently, he sells out tickets and is known worldwide. Before Iron Maiden, he was in the band, Samson but quit to join Maiden. He has released 13 studio albums with Maiden while taking breaks in between to work on his solo career and has dropped six solo albums.
