A rogue fan jumped on stage at Iron Maiden’s ‘The Legacy of the Beast’ show in California last month - but Bruce Dickinson, being the GC he is, grabbed him and got him off it.
Fan-filmed footage uploaded to YouTube shows the band performing their second encore ‘Aces High,’ when the fan jumps up onto stage left and approaches guitarist Janick Gers. The fan drops to one knee, waves his arms around, and passionately throws multiple goats in the air.
Gers appears to let out an expressive scream at the fan for a second while still probably trying to clock what’s going on, and then gestures for him to get off.
Then comes Dickinson, who motions to the fan to come closer to him, before grabbing him by the arm. He didn’t get a good grip on the first try, which is fair enough because he was still bloody singing. He then grabs the fan by the collar and drags him to the side of the stage.
The crew then deal with the fan (we’re not sure where the hell they were when he jumped on stage), and the band keep performing like the professionals they are.
The general consensus in the comments of the video is that it was absolutely fair enough of Dickinson to get the rogue fan off the stage - with many mentioning the tragic death of Pantera and Damageplan’s Dimebag Darrell, who was shot on stage by a concert-goer back in 2004 - and we would have to agree.
One commenter wrote, “Considering what happened to Dimebag, I understand why some artists don't want people on stage.”
While another commented, “Bruce was 100% right !! Especially after what happened to Dimebag, artists really don't like stage invaders. They're working, how would you like someone cocking around when you're in middle of your work?”
And a third wrote, “The guy will literally say the story for the rest of his mortal life.”
On a different note, earlier in the video (around the 32 second point), there’s a pretty cool moment of a fan in a wheelchair being hoisted up by the mosh, and Dickinson reaches out his arm to try to touch him.
Have a watch of the fan-shot-footage up top, and skip to 53 seconds to see the rogue-fan-interaction.
