Bruce Dickinson has made a career of doing the unexpected, but even by his standards, few could have predicted what happened when he opened his latest North American tour.
At the House of Blues in Anaheim on August 22, the Iron Maiden frontman dusted off a relic from 1984’s Powerslave, and played “Flash of the Blade” live for the very first time in history. Not Maiden, not Dickinson solo, not anyone, ever. Forty-one years of silence broken in one announcement that was pure Bruce: half riddle, half dare.
“Nobody has ever played this song, apart from on the record, of course, but nobody has ever played this song. And it’s a song that I wrote,” he teased before launching in. A moment later, he all but gave the game away: “You’ll die as you lived in a flash of the blade.”
The track was dropped into a setlist otherwise stacked with solo material from Balls to Picasso, Accident of Birth, The Chemical Wedding, Tyranny of Souls, and his most recent album, The Mandrake Project. That show also featured a cover of Edgar Winter’s “Frankenstein,” proving Dickinson has no interest in just touring the hits, he’s curating an event.
And he isn’t slowing down. In conversation with Metal Hammer, he confirmed he’s already written and demoed 18 songs for a follow-up to The Mandrake Project, with material ranging from “bone-crushingly heavy” to “tugging at the heartstrings.” Maiden bassist Steve Harris has even been caught eavesdropping on the demos, declaring it “the best stuff you’ve ever done.”
This is Dickinson at his most restless, still unveiling surprises after half a century onstage, still pushing forward while revisiting corners of his past long left in the vault. Maiden may be wrapping their European 50th-anniversary tour, but Bruce clearly isn’t interested in nostalgia as much as reinvention.
Because if you can wait four decades to unleash a song, and it still lands like a weapon drawn, you’re operating at a level most bands never reach.
