“Bruce Dickinson is a superstar… When you dig deeper, you find that his tremendous sense of humour facilitates the telling of an epic story. This man has an enormous heart and fighting spirit.“ – COPENHAGEN POST NEWSPAPER, DENMARK
“Bruce Dickinson is an eager man, devoted to exploring and learning new things ….a fantastic storyteller” – RADIOROCK, BAUER MEDIA, NORWAY
“Dickinson isn’t your garden variety heavy metal legend…he is arguably THE metal legend” – NOISEY
Bruce Dickinson is a man of a thousand contradictions. A product of the English public school system but at once rejected by it. A world class fencer, commercial airline pilot, cancer survivor, brewer and, of course, frontman for one of the most successful franchises in music history, it’s fair to say that Dickinson has made the most of his 60 years. That’s probably a gross and glaring understatement but in fact understatement is just what Dickinson does for most of the time he spends on stage for his spoken word “A Conversation with Bruce Dickinson”.
He spends at least half an hour talking about pissing on food eaten by his high school headmaster, and then goes through a range of stories about everything from his taste in trousers and his time with the band Samson to trying to defecate on morphine.
These things probably sound like banal topics for a man who is so accomplished and for whom life looks nothing like it does for the vast majority of the population. Perhaps they are, but the point is that they’re humanising. For someone interested in his exploits in the fencing arena or the airspace the information is out there aplenty. For Iron Maiden superfans, and they superfan like very few others, they already know all of that, right down to the wood used in the triplane he flies. This instead was a chance to see what it might be like to sit and talk to him for a few hours.
He’s funny but not hilarious and rehearsed but not polished. Dickinson is one of several artists bringing spoken word shows to Australia. Scott Ian was here recently, Dee Snider will bring his show early next year and of course Henry Rollins, the perpetual tourer, is never far away. Part of the attraction with these kinds of shows is the inside glimpse into what life is like for a person who has spent decades on stages and planes and tour buses. Another attraction is that they’re often people who started out as rabid rock n roll fans and it’s a joy to hear of a life lived in music and performance and art. With Dickinson it’s slightly different because he’s one of the few who has lived a thousand lifetimes inside and outside music and that comes with a certain perspective of distance on the whole thing.
It might have been nice to hear some deeper reflections on some of those things he has lived inside, but the chances are those reflections are inside the book that was included in the price of the ticket to the show and came signed by the man himself.
One thing about which he was prepared to speak at length was his fight with throat cancer. Here too though, he is understated in the most British of ways; stoic and disinclined to the kind of overwrought display of feelings that so characterises American responses to such events.
There are many reasons to get a long to a show like this, but the only one that counts is that this is Bruce Dickinson and Maiden fucking rules.
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