Hope they're a lot better than when I saw them in the early 90s. I've been to hundreds of concerts, and that one was the worst I've ever attended (I'm including local bands, concert in the park here in BG, and Richard Marx here too :mj07: ). They played for a grand total of 58 minutes and had no encore. lame.
Those were the Blaize Days, not quite as good of a replacement as Ripper Owens for Priest, but he held his own. DiAnno would have been better! DUH ! !
Wolfsbane and Iron Maiden (1984-1999)
Blaze Bayley started his musical career as the lead vocalist of
Tamworth heavy metal/
hard rock band
Wolfsbane, upon their formation in 1984. When
Bruce Dickinson departed fellow English heavy metal band
Iron Maiden in 1993, Bayley was chosen as his replacement in 1994 after hundreds of auditions. His depature from Wolfsbane led to their disbandment later on that year. After a bad motorcycle accident caused by losing control and clipping his knee on a
catseye in the road, which put him out of action for a year, his first album with Maiden was
The X Factor, released in 1995. Bayley went on to tour with the band in support of the album. Another Iron Maiden album with Bayley on vocals,
Virtual XI was released in 1998.
The two Iron Maiden albums released during Bayley's time in the band did not chart as well as that to which the band were accustomed.
The X Factor peaked at #8 on the
UK Albums Chart and
Virtual XI hit only #16, both being the lowest charting Maiden studio albums since
Killers was released in 1981, which peaked at #12. Some of this comparative commercial failure could be attributed to fans disliking Blaze's singing style and tours being cut short due to Bayley's frequent sickness.<SUP style="WHITE-SPACE: nowrap" class=Template-Fact title="This claim needs references to reliable sources from September 2007">
[citation needed]</SUP>
In February 1999, when Iron Maiden announced that vocalist
Bruce Dickinson was returning to the band, Bayley departed by mutual consent, and he remains on good terms with his former bandmates. Iron Maiden occasionally performed songs from the two Maiden albums featuring Bayley, including "
Man on the Edge" and "
Futureal", which he co-wrote, though no Bayley era songs have been on the band's set list since 2003. Likewise, Bayley has performed Iron Maiden songs originally recorded by the Dickinson and
Paul Di'Anno led line-ups at some
concerts.
In 2007, Wolfsbane reformed for a one-off performance, with Bayley again taking up vocal and
frontman duties. They supported
The Wildhearts on a short UK tour in December 2007
