IRON MAIDEN’s legendary drummer Nicko McBrain has opened up about his emotional final performance and the behind-the-scenes decisions that led to the public announcement of his retirement. Speaking with Dan Shinder of Drum Talk TV, the 73-year-old drummer reflected on his last-ever concert with MAIDEN, which took place nearly a year ago at Allianz Parque in São Paulo, Brazil. McBrain officially announced his retirement on December 7, 2024 via the band’s website and social media.
Looking back on that night, McBrain described the São Paulo show as an unforgettable and highly emotional experience. “It was a very mixed-emotions show,” he recalled (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).” Obviously, I had 50,000 kids chanting my name and [they] gave me a fantastic, emotional welcome. And then also when I got up the front of the stage at the end of the night — I’ve always gone and been the last guy to come off stage, to be able to say good night and thank you to all the fans and stuff. And this night was unbelievably special. I remember I thought to myself, ‘I’m gonna burst out in tears here in a minute.’ I felt that emotional, and I thought, God’s saying to me, ‘Look, it’s okay, Nick, if you wanna cry. That’s why we gave you tears and emotion.’ Anyway, so I thought, ‘No, maybe stay strong. Do your weeping offstage.'”
While the crowd’s reaction moved him deeply, it was the farewell salute from the band’s longtime backline crew that struck him the most. “The most important moment that I felt from the whole thing was not only the love of the fans and the adoration that they showed me and the love, was when I went to go on stage, all the backline, they gave me a salute and a farewell,” he said. “That was their last time they would actually be with me on an IRON MAIDEN show, with me performing. So that was a terrific emotion. And there were some tears, I gotta admit — some of my truly dear friends on the tour for many years had a tear in their eye.”
McBrain also revealed that he had mentally prepared for retirement long before that final performance. His initial plan was to step down after the Senjutsu tour, especially as he began to feel the physical toll of performing at age 69–70. The pandemic delayed those plans, stretching out the touring cycle and ultimately leading into the multi-year ‘Legacy Of The Beast’ and ‘Future Past’ tours. “My mindset was always to think about, ‘It’s time for me to step down and give it to a younger fellow.’ … So, yeah, I had my mind set, even back then, of thinking about, ‘I’ll make this the last tour.’ But then it went into ‘The Future Past Tour’.”
His 2023 stroke, which left him temporarily paralyzed on one side, only sharpened that decision. He credited the band for standing by him throughout his recovery: “I was very blessed that the band would stick behind me and take that journey that I took in my recovery and the fact that I have a handicap, ’cause I can’t play 16th-note rolls [anymore]… So I had to compromise with drum fills. And the band stood by me for almost two years.
Discussions with bassist and founder Steve Harris—and later the band’s management team—led to the decision to bring in drummer Simon Dawson as McBrain’s touring replacement. McBrain supported the choice, recognizing that the band needed a reliable backup if his health suddenly declined.
However, when it came to announcing his retirement publicly, McBrain admitted he originally wanted to wait.
I personally asked the management and the band to leave the announcement till after the gig, to January this year. I wanted to spend Christmas without having everybody and their mum sending me texts and my phone ringing off the hook: ‘Oh, what’s this? You’ve left the band.’ But [manager] Andy Taylor turned around to me. I remember the conversation like it was yesterday. Again, we were in L.A. And he said, ‘Nick, by the way, what’s this about you not wanting to make an announcement on your last show? You need to go out in a blaze of glory. You don’t want to go out on a wimpish whim.’ And I went, ‘You’re right. I’m being selfish.’ I didn’t want it because I didn’t want all my mates and family phoning me up or whatever. So, we talked about that there and then, and he convinced me that it was the right thing to do, because the notion I had was, ‘Yeah, let’s tell everybody in the new year. Let’s get Christmas and new year out the way.’ And it was a lovely way to announce it.
“The only thing I got a little upset about was I did ask them not to announce Simon until the Monday,” he continued. “‘Cause on the Sunday I was traveling home from São Paulo to Florida. And they were gonna make the announcement almost immediately, and I said, ‘Give it a day or two.’ Well, they gave me 24 hours. Not even that — they announced it the next morning, that Simon was gonna go and be my replacement, which really doesn’t matter when they did. But I did ask them to leave it an extra day. And I must admit I was a bit miffed off about that. I went, ‘Oh, they could have left it another 24 hours.'”
This past September, MAIDEN founder and bassist Steve Harris opened up about the departure of McBrain in an interview with Rock Candy.
Reflecting on the circumstances, Harris said: “To be honest, we didn’t really have a choice and had to make the change after Nicko suffered his health issues. It was what it was, and we had a decision to make as to whether we wanted to carry on or not. Obviously we had a tour booked at the time that it happened, and the rest of us all wanted to continue. But ultimately, after we got through all that, it was Nick‘s decision to step away and we all respected the fact that he’d decided to do that.”
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