Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson is currently on a North American spoken word tour and, in Tampa, Florida last week, he revealed what he believes to be Maiden’s most underrated song.
The Jan. 20 stop was just the third night of the tour where fans can break away from Dickinson’s energized performances with Iron Maiden and get an insight on what made him the man he his today with tales from throughout his life. “The show has evolved to the point now where it’s kind of comedic slice of life storytelling along with some uplifting bits of bits of information,” he told Loudwire in a recent interview about the jaunt.
Each show ends with a question-and-answer session where Dickinson draws from pre-submitted questions from the audience and, in Tampa, someone inquired about Iron Maiden’s most underrated song. “I’m a really big fan of ‘Total Eclipse”, he told the crowd, as noted in a report by Eon Music.
The song appeared as a B-side on the “Run to the Hills” single and nearly made the original album cut, but the band instead opted to stick with “Gangland” for the historic 1982 record The Number of the Beast.
Regarding “Gangland,” Dickinson recollected Iron Maiden’s sentiment about the track at the time and recalled them saying something to the effect of, “That sound’s great! This is so good that we can’t do it as the B-side.”
“‘Gangland went on the album, and we actually forgot to mix the guitar solos. There’s a bit in there, and there’s no guitar solo,” he added, referencing the short solo burst that appears three-quarters into the song amid an instrumental passage. “To this day, I think we forgot!”
Dickinson’s spoken word tour continues in the United States through March 12 with a set of dates in Canada booked from March 14 through March 30. See a complete list of dates here.
Iron Maiden, who released their latest album, Senjutsu, last year, will return to North American on another ‘Legacy of the Beast’ tour later this year. Dickinson has also suggested that, following the conclusion of that tour, the group may embark on another run and play Senjutsu in its entirety.
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