On this day in 1981, Iron Maiden replaced its original singer, Paul Di’Anno, with the man who would quickly become the voice of the metal icons – and eventually the pilot of its airliner.
At the Palazzo dello Sport in Bologna, Italy, on 10/26/81, 23 year-old Bruce Dickinson took to the stage and led the group through a 17-song blistering set which concluded with three encores.
Maiden was wrapping up its Killers World Tour which made its biggest dent when the band was opening for Judas Priest across the US in arenas that summer of ’81. Many fans of Priest were seeing Maiden and its dual-guitar attack for the first time and were duly impressed.
But during that march, Di’Anno became disillusioned with Maiden’s manager Rod Smallwood and bassist Steve Harris. Not only was Harris the founding member of the band but he was also its principal composer and lyricist, thus leader.
Di’Anno desired to push the band into an edgier punk direction while Harris envisioned the more melodic sound the band mastered a year later with The Number of the Beast (1982) and then Piece of Mind (1983).
The band only held a few auditions to replace Di’Anno and quickly found their man in Dickinson, formerly of Samson, a group that recorded in the same studio as Maiden… around the same time.
read more at: Setlist.fm
