That time Bruce Dickinson insulted the audience in Athens

The singer of Iron Maiden Bruce Dickinson interviewed by Sakis Fragos of Rock Hard Greece he returned to talk about an incident that occurred during a concert of the British band at the Olympic Stadium in Athens in July 2022 when he lost patience with a couple of people from the audience who had lit a rocket during the live.

The incident occurred when Maiden had just started playing their classic
“The Number Of The Beast”
. Having noticed the rocket, Bruce also lit it and burst into an angry outburst, shouting into the microphone. “That bitch with the fucking rocket, I gotta sing. You fucking cocksucker. Greek bitch. Alright. I gotta fucking sing. Alright. Fuck you.” In the meantime, the band continued to play the opening riff of the song, Dickinson left the stage for a few seconds in the hope that the smoke would clear. Once he returned he started singing again but he was definitely out of time.

Asked if he remembered that incident – as reported by Blabbermouth – the singer of

Iron Maiden
he replied, “Oh, the guy who swung his thing and everything. You know what? I probably got his nationality wrong. I just lost my temper, because it was all so… What a very small minority does of people is really selfish and creepy. They think it’s really cool. Actually, it’s not for the band. It’s not for the audience. They just want to draw attention to themselves by harming the people around them with this extremely toxic thing that flies around. They don’t think about who might be asthmatic, they don’t have a problem. Their attitude is like ‘Oh, we don’t care about anyone. Let’s just fill the place with smoke, because it makes us feel important’. It really gives me annoying as hell. Anyway, yeah, I lost my temper. I shouldn’t have called him a Greek asshole; I should have just called him an asshole.”