Last night at his concert in Brazil, Bruce Dickinson admonished a group of attendees for smoking cigarettes and purportedly deploying pepper spray amidst the crowd.
In a video posted on the Iron Maiden Brasil Instagram account, Bruce can be heard saying: “I can’t f**king breathe. Tanya [O’Callaghan, Bruce‘s bassist] can’t breathe. You with the f**king vape over there, yeah, it’s not you, but, you know, please, f**king do that outside, all right? You know, if you can’t stay for five minutes without having a f**king addiction, but… Somebody down here has been using pepper spray. Some f**ker has been using pepper spray, which is why people can’t f**king breathe down there, right? So, you know, if you figure out who the f**k it is, I just don’t care what happens to them after the show, all right? In the meantime, we will try and do the best we can.”
In other video posted on YouTube, Bruce further remarked: “I do apologize for coughing. Some of you f**kers are smoking, all right? I can’t sing if you’re gonna smoke, all right? [Tanya‘s] coughing her guts out, I’m coughing, my f**king wife is going, ‘Blargh,’ in the back there, all right? It’s kind of disgusting, all right? But if you wanna be disgusting, do it outside, all right? Not in here. My throat’s got work to do. You pay good money to hear me f**king sing, not go, ‘Blargh, blargh,’ all right?”
This is not the first time that Dickinson publicly calls out fans and security personnel at concerts if he perceives their behavior as inappropriate.
One of such incidents occurred on July 22, 2022 as IRON MAIDEN launched into “The Number Of The Beast”, at the Olympic Stadium. After singing the opening line of the track, Bruce noticed the flare lighting up and immediately burst into an angry rant.
Dickinson then said: “The c*nt with the f*cking flare, I’ve gotta sing up here. “You f*cking c*cksucker. You Greek c*nt. All right. I’ve gotta f*cking sing. All right. F*ck you.”
Dickinson momentarily exited the stage, hoping the smoke would dissipate while his bandmates carried on playing. Nevertheless, upon Dickinson‘s return to sing the song, it was evident that he was off time and out of sync with the rest of the band.
