BBC World are currently chasing Sonisphere around Europe in a little rented car, making a documentary film about the world’s greatest touring rock festival – to be screened shortly after Knebworth. At the most recent stop in Basel, Switzerland, none other than BRUCE DICKINSON himself was on hand to contribute his own insights to the film, from a headliner’s perspective.

IRON MAIDEN are currently on their second lap of the globe, 20 dates away from the end of a mammoth world tour that has seen them play pretty much everywhere there is to play on the planet. As well as their own arena and stadium shows, they have plugged into Sonisphere which has bolstered the tour with a run of massive open-air festivals, spread across two summers. Last year saw them close a packed-to-capacity Knebworth before appearances at the Sweden and Finland festivals. This year they will have added Poland, Czech Republic, Turkey, Greece, Switzerland, Italy and Spain to their Sonisphere wings.

Clearly, considering this is a band that has no trouble selling out its own shows in any continent, being one act among many at Sonisphere offers a band of Iron Maiden’s stature a refreshing break from just going it alone all the time. According to Dickinson, the keywords here are camaraderie and variety.

“It’s great fun“, enthuses the legendary frontman to the BBC, adding: “And what’s nice is that it’s such a diverse mix on offer to the audience.”

A case in point here is that Maiden have shared an audience at their last few Sonispheres, including this weekend’s double whammy of Switzerland and Italy, with Iowa’s sickest, SLIPKNOT - a most unlikely pairing that shouldn’t work on paper, but has done and continues to do so spectacularly well.

“Obviously we do what we do for two hours, and a lot of our stuff now is semi-theatrical and proggy“, explains Bruce, “Whereas Slipknot is theatrical but much more rrrraaaaahhhh!!!! The audience get a really good variation of stuff.”

But it’s not just in mixing up different ends of the rock spectrum that Sonisphere excels. According to the new singer Sonisphere also offers a particularly good platform for nurturing new blood.

“There’s A-stages and B-stages“, he points out, “Lots of opportunities for smaller bands to come along and get into it.”

The BBC are keen to hear how Iron Maiden adapts its set for the festival crowd. Turns out, they don’t…

“We’re the headliners so we are doing our usual set“, he asserts, although they are treating festival-goers to some additional features: “We’ve got ourselves some new toys for it, so there’s one or two spectacular monsters and things like that, but I think everybody brings their toys out for a festival! I mean, Slipknot have got some fabulous kit. I’m very jealous of their flames and fire! We haven’t gone with any pyro at all on this tour. I think the next time we go out we will. We like to alternate it every other year because if you get the reputation that you’ve got to go and see a band because of the pyro and then you don’t do the pyro people think ‘oh I won’t bother then.‘”

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