On August 9th, Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson announced the cancelation of the final dates of his UK spoke word tour. A message revealed, "Due to a member of Bruce’s immediate household having tested positive for Covid-19, it is with great regret that the final two shows of his “Evening With” tour cannot go ahead as planned tonight at the Birmingham Alexandra or tomorrow at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London.

"Despite Bruce himself having tested negative today and throughout this tour, he now has to isolate for the next 10 days under current UK Government rules. He is understandably very upset that he won’t see you all for these final 2 shows but the safety and well-being of the fans, as well as the crew and venue-staff, obviously comes first.

"Please keep hold of your tickets for now and bear with us while we work with our promoter to endeavour to reschedule the dates. We thank you for your patience and understanding, in these still very uncertain times of the global pandemic. We’ll post all news and updates on ironmaiden.com as soon as we have a solution."

Dickinson announced rescheduled dates for his UK spoken word tour the next day: Saturday, October 16 at O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire in London, and Sunday, October 17 at The Alexandra in Birmingham. However, on August 12th he revealed to Rolling Stone that following his return home to quarantine for 10 days, per government guidelines, he became ill.

Rolling Stone:

For the first few days, he mostly felt bored until he started feeling like he was getting a cold. About three days ago, Dickinson, who is double-vaccinated, took a lateral-flow Covid test, and it came back positive. 

“I thought, ‘Oh well, shit,’ ” he tells Rolling Stone, sounding upbeat over Zoom. “I was kind of sneezing a bit. For a couple of days, I felt a bit groggy, kind of like the flu, and that was it. And I’m 63 years old. I’ve pretty much got no doubt that had I not had the vaccine, I could be in serious trouble.”

Iron Maiden will kick off a European tour next June, and Dickinson says he’s ready to get back in front of audiences. Although he personally doesn’t believe that fans attending shows should be required to get vaccinated — “It is a personal choice,” he says — he hopes they will be. “Personally, I think people are just very badly advised if they don’t go and get themselves double jabbed as quickly as possible, not for the reasons of going into concerts, but for their own health,” he says.

“Having said that, even if you’ve had a double jab, you can still get Covid, and therefore you can spread it to other people who might not have been vaccinated and they might get very sick and die,” he continues. “Now you cannot legislate against mortality. There are many things in this world that kill people and they’re not illegal but are unfortunate. Cancer kills a lot of people. Heart attacks kill a lot of people. Obesity kills a lot of people. Malaria kills a shitload of people every year. … So at some point, we have to just go, ‘We’re probably going to have to live with this. And if we’re going to live with it, then you have your vaccination.’ “

Read the complete report here.