On August 28, 1993, the decapitated head of Bruce Dickinson was shoved onto a metal spike in front of several hundred Iron Maiden fans by the band’s deathless mascot, Eddie.
The symbolism was hard to miss. This wasn’t just the climax of the final show on the tour in support of the previous year’s Fear Of The Dark album, it was also the last show of the singer’s 12- year tenure with the metal icons.
The gig was being filmed at Pinewood Studios near London for an MTV special titled Raising Hell. It was part rock concert, part magic show – the latter courtesy of illusionist Simon Drake, who provided suitably schlocky interludes involving audience members being burned alive in coffins and semi-naked women having their hearts torn out while tied to a rack.
The gory finale, involving Bruce being shoved in a ‘iron maiden’ torture device before Eddie lumbered out to separate the singer’s ‘head’ from his body, was the culmination of a journey that had begun several months earlier, with Bruce’s realisation that he no longer wanted to be the singer in one of the world’s biggest metal bands.
Speaking to US TV journalist Charlie Rose in 2017, the singer laid out his reasons for leaving. “I was having my little artistic dark night of the soul,” he said. “I was thinking, ‘I am in an institution, and I will die in this institution if I don’t do something about it.’”
His decision was as unexpected as it was drastic. Fear Of The Dark hadn’t just righted the Iron Maiden ship after an uncharacteristically wobbly period, it had updated their musical and lyrical approach, jettisoning some of the musical excesses of the past and bringing the band more in line with changing contemporary musical tastes. Maiden’s career didn’t exactly need saving, but Fear Of The Dark had set them up for a new decade.
Now everything was in turmoil.
Maiden started the 1990s in an unfamiliar position: with their backs against the wall. 1988’s was heavy on proto-prog metal epics, and the band’s first headline appearance at the Monsters Of Rock festival and subsequent tour had seen the East London quintet playing in
