Iron Maiden dump paper tickets

Iron Maiden have announced that their forthcoming tour is going to be "paperless":

Iron Maiden have announced their new UK tour will be their first in the country to use paperless tickets. Bruce Dickinson’s band are aiming to cut down the amount of tickets listed for “ludicrously inflated” prices on resale websites. Fans will not receive printed tickets for the group’s May arena tour, but will have to present photo ID and a credit card when they arrive at the show. “We do not want our fans being ripped off either by counterfeit tickets or through costly mark-ups on so-called secondary ticketing websites,” manager Rod Smallwood said in a statement.

It's the first UK paperless tour - although they did one in the US.

Not clear what happens if your change credit cards in the nine months between buying tickets and the gig, though. Or what happens if you plans change before the gig.

Bruce Dickinson overthinks the standing on stage thing

Bruce Dickinson has shared how he sees his role knocking out old Iron Maiden songs for ageing rock fans:

"I feel like that sometimes on stage, that you are an intermediary between one world and another — the audience are in one world, the band are in their world, and as the singer, frontman, whatever, your job is to kind of bring the two worlds together, but not get them tangled up. Keep it under control without people realizing that, actually, they're in a safe place. Keep the audience in a safe place, but let everybody feel out of control. And so that's the way I feel often on stage.

"Standing there looking beautiful is not performing. Performing comes from engaging. And it's hard work; you've gotta work to do that. Audiences are brutal — I mean, they will eat you alive — because they all paid good money to be entertained, and they turn up expecting to be told what to do. They may disagree with that, but actually they do. They turn up to a show, and they go, 'I came here to be…' you know. 'This is gonna be good. This is gonna be good. What do I do now?' And the band guide them; you guide them, you guide them, you guide them to a great place, where they go, 'Wow! What a great experience. Wasn't that cool? And we did this. And we all sang, and we all chanted.' But if the guy comes up on stage and goes, 'I'm gonna stare at my shoes and it's all about me,' they're gonna kill you. 'Cause it's not all about you, dude — it's about the music, and it's about them; it's about the audience."

If they turn up and expect to be told what to do, how are they actually brutal? Unless you tell them to kill you for staring at your shoes? And why would you do that?

It's a slightly odd view of what he's doing - opening some sort of portal to a netherworld, while simultaneously having to be the health and safety guy making sure the audience don't cross over. Which they wouldn't do unless he told them to.

Really, he's mainly just choosing when Run To The Hills appears on the set list, isn't he?

Bruce Dickinson's air business has wings

Bruce Dickinson out of Iron Maiden continues to prove his credentials as the Freddie Laker of Hard Rock (only successful), as he's expanded to help growth of an African airline:

Now he’s got a new flag carrier role – having signed a memorandum of understanding with Air Djibouti to develop a national airline for the East African nation.

Dickinson signed the deal in his role as founder of Cardiff Aviation, the aircraft repair business he helped set up in 2012. The company is now to manage a European air operator’s certificate for Air Djibouti, find aircraft and provide operational management, and offer maintenance support from its base in South Wales.

This is good news for that nation, good news for Dickinson, and good news for music hall comics:

- I flew in on that new African airline, and I've just been to freshen up
- Air Djibouti?
- No, I just washed my hands and splashed on some cologne

Iron Maiden visit their non-paying fans

The headline on this citeworld story is a little alarming:

How Iron Maiden found its worst music pirates -- then went and played for them

It suggests that they turned up at the house of a bloke who had downloaded all their albums and then played a gig in his kitchen - which would be scary, and almost certainly lead to being issued with noise violation tickets.

The idea that the stuff you download will be enacted in your living room would probably kill torrent traffic off - especially as far as bukake videos go.

Instead, it's actually a story about how Iron Maiden discovered that their music was being downloaded enthusiastically in South America. Not bought, but downloaded. Rather than follow the usual route of traipsing over to the lawyer's offices, the band (or rather the legally-incorporated company that the band now is) booked flights to South America, and toured the arse out of the continent:

And in a positive cycle, Maiden's online fanbase grew. According to Musicmetric, in the 12 months ending May 31, 2012, the band attracted more than 3.1 million social media fans. After its Maiden England world tour, which ran from June 2012 to October 2013, Maiden's fan base grew by five million online fans, with a significant increase in popularity in South America.

When life gives you lemons, in other words, you should get the data underlying those lemons, and work out how to use them to sell more lemons back to the... oh, you get the point.

[Thanks to Michael M for the tip]

Iron Maiden singer banged up

Not Bruce Dickinson - he's still flying - but the guy he replaced, Paul Di'Anno. Di'Anno - or Paul Andrews, as he's officially know - has been found guilty of claiming income support, housing benefit and council tax payments despite, erm, going around the world touring.

(Just a sidebar: little disappointed to see the Guardian describe council tax benefit as "council tax handouts" in the report - did a sub from the Telegraph slip in?)

Clearly, he's in the wrong, and his defence:

"He was obsessed with music and performing. He is very naive in terms of business matters and has no formal education," [Steven] Ritter [defending] said.

Mmm. I think you'd be stretching naivety a little far to suggest you might not know you had to declare earnings from concert tours while telling the social you'd got a bad back. Even ET might struggle to convince he didn't understand that one.

The odd thing is the DWP response, though. It doesn't appear in the online version, but it was in the print edition of the Guardian:

A DWP spokesperson said: 'Benefit fraud is a crime. This money is intended to provide valuable support to those most in need, not line the pockets of people earning substantial amounts from their celebrity status."

Leaving aside the unedifying sight of a civil servant using pious tabloidese, you can only assume the spokesperson churned out their reaction without knowing any of the details.

Andrew was hardly "earning substantial amounts" - indeed, the court heard that he had hardly any money (reading between the lines, it sounds like he was touring mainly for fun rather than as a way of earning money); and since when did being 'the singer in Iron Maiden who, when people mention him, is always described as "no, the other one" count as "celebrity status"? It's a status which would struggle to get you an invite on Call My Bluff, isn't it?

More importantly, in sentencing, the court made it clear that his status wasn't relevant in any way to the case:

Sentencing Andrews, who lives in Salisbury, Jane Miller QC, told him: "Your public persona is not relevant."

The judge didn't think it was relevant, so why was the DWP making hay from it?

Iron Maiden: Marketing the skies

I know that Bruce Dickinson is a trained pilot, and has flown commercial flights, but does that really make him an obvious choice to be an airline marketing director?

He's been appointed in the role for charter company Astraeus. The Guardian reports how they explain their thinking:

"Bruce is a great communicator," explained Astraeus's chief commercial officer, Shaun Monnery. "[And] he knows the aviation industry inside out."

"In a demanding industry he is a man who can cope with pressure," Monnery said, "whether as a 757 captain or in front of 50,000 Iron Maiden fans, or senior airline and aviation managers."

Perhaps. Or, much more likely, the decision to appoint a heavy metal guy to a marketing job is, in itself, a wonderful act of marketing.

Arizona drains: Artists cancel, but slowly

With the new 'papers, please' law targeting people who don't look like the right sort of person in Arizona, there's a gentle cultural backlash starting to gather pace:

Hip-hop acts Pitbull and Cypress Hill have canceled upcoming shows in Arizona to protest the new law, which will take effect July 29. The legislation will require local authorities to determine a person's immigration status if he or she is suspected of being undocumented.

Banda star Jenni Rivera and reggaeton chart-toppers Wisin & Yandel are skipping the state on their AEG Live-promoted summer tours, while Mexican acts Conjunto Primavera and Espinoza Paz have canceled their previously announced concerts in Phoenix.

Amongst those seemingly quite happy to have their identities questioned by playing Arizona in the coming months are Tony Bennett, 50 Cent, She And Him, Iron Maiden, Athlete and Kings Of Leon. Imagine what sort of message that lot pulling out would make.

Iron Maiden move their audience

Bogota played host to Iron Maiden yesterday; it wasn't a total success as chaos descended on the city. First, there was trouble inside as metal fans failed to respect the VIP area and clambered in, in order to get closer to the stage.

Outside, fans who had been unable to get tickets at all milled about, with the presence of unfriendly police managing to tip the atmosphere over into a mini-riot.

Colombian commentators are suggesting that Iron Maiden and their fans may now have spoiled it for all metal acts wanting to play the country.

Iron Maiden: No, seriously, don't call it a comeback

Iron Maiden have thrown a little strop and demanded their names be removed from the shortlist for the Vodaphone Live Music Awards.

The band are humped they were up for 'best live return':

In a message on their web site, the band told people not to cast votes for them because they "are not quite sure where we are returning from.

"We have asked them to remove us from the nominations and they have done this," the message adds.

The event organisers, we're given to understand, admitted they'd been dubious about including Iron Maiden in the category in the first place, although it wasn't words 'live return' they'd been unsure about.

We're a little freaked out now, to be honest

Thanks to the anonymous commenter who pointed out in response to our line about Iron Maiden turning into storm chasers that, actually, this weekend Iron Maiden cancelled the Metalway festival appearance because of storms:

Due to massive storm damage to the staging and PA and lights in the the last 24 hours or so, today's Zaragoza [show] cannot take place. At this stage it looks unlikely, due to the extent of the damage, that the Metalway Festival can be rescheduled. MAIDEN are sorry that it seems unlikely that they can appear for their fans in Zaragoza. MAIDEN's equipment had not arrived on-site when the storm occurred so this has no effect on continuing MAIDEN's shows in Scandinavia and elsewhere."

Walk to the hills/ walk for your life

Brazilian metal fans are delighted by the first-ever visit of Iron Maiden to their nation. How delighted? They organised a massive walk event to celebrate.