Sixteen albums have hit the shelves and fans homes since Iron Maiden’s debut piece, Iron Maiden, in 1980. The band are just coming to the end of their ‘Book of Souls’ tour in recent months and said goodbye to ‘Ed Force One’, their private plane flown by band member Bruce Dickinson, just this week but Blaze Bayley has signaled his intentions to join up with the group some time soon.
Bayley said in an interview that he would love to join his former band for a special concert alongside Bruce Dickinson and Paul Di’Anno. Bayley left the band in 1999 after producing two of their most famous albums, The X Factor and Virtual XI. He says that people have been requesting his return for quite some years now and is pushing for a return in the shape of a special concert.
Bayley has toured with Paul Di’Anno since leaving Iron Maiden and the two are said to get on well which is why he doesn’t think it would be that ‘much of a leap’ to tour and perform some of Iron Maiden’s classics. There is no denying that fans would love to see Blaze Bayley perform alongside Iron Maiden once more and the two parties met at the Download festival just recently where talks may have been started.
Bayley is now 53 years old and took Dickinson’s place after he left but Dickinson returned two albums later and Bayley then departed. Iron Maiden have had a strong influence on a number of different generations and the evolution of the band has been an interesting watch for the older fans. The change in personnel certainly meant that the band adopted different approaches to music and the evolution over their long and illustrious career has been clear to see.
Infinite Entanglement was Bayley’s eighth solo album, which shows that he certainly hasn’t been wasting any time in his career and was released on 1 March. Will Bayley make a return to Iron Maiden? Will there be a special concert for the fans? Nobody knows at this stage but one thing is for certain; if Bayley gets his wishes, we will be seeing the three back together again and one show alone may not be enough to cover the demand that will arise.
~EY
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