Iron Maiden’s Ed Force One seen as bad juju in Africa
I knew Bruce Dickinson had a pilot’s licence, but I had less than no idea that the band had acquired their own frickin’ Boeing 757 decorated in Iron Maiden livery for the purposes of their world tour.
Take “livery” here to mean the famous Iron Maiden lettering and their mascot, Eddie the… the… the big scary thing. The name of the plane? Ed Force One. Pretty cool, huh?
Well, a bit too cool, thank you very much, for an unnamed African country.
Here’s Captain Bruce:
“The striking Iron Maiden imagery had a violent reaction from the locals as they regarded the artwork, particularly that of Eddie, as very bad ju ju.”
“Not only would local passengers refuse to board the plane because of the artwork, but other passengers were refusing to board planes of other airlines parked nearby in case they were tainted by the evil spirits!”
The result is that Ed Force One had to have its Iron Maiden branding removed, as it is officially owned by Astraeus Airlines and they understandably don’t want to be accused of running some kind of witchcraft-powered transportation company.
There’s a part of me that wonders if this isn’t just a rather far-fetched PR exercise - why not name the country involved, after all? It certainly won’t do the ageing rock legends’ cred any harm, that’s for sure. Led Zep may have had their own plane back in the day, but the only spirits it was accused of harbouring were the ones John Bonham was chucking down his neck.
[via Fark on Blender]
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Hi Stuart.
The purpose of the posting on the Maiden web site was to apoplogise to fans that had booked on Bruce Air, flight number 666 that unfortunately the Maiden livery had to be removed.
Bruce air is a charter flight that fans lucky enuff to have enough money and time can book return flights to a maiden show and back, all in the comfort of a plane flown by the Maiden lead singer Bruce himself. The plane usually leaves from heathrow for a concert somewhere in Europe. Bruce has been doing this for a number of years now. It was all the more exciting to board a plane adorned with maiden livery. Unfortunalely this had to be removed.Hence the apology.Not naming the country has nothing to do with anything.
I take exception to your comments that it was a PR stunt. Iron Maiden just dont do PR stunts.
Only last week they asked to be removed from a Vodafone award, because they, rightly, believed they didnt fit the category they were nominated in. Also recently they were invited to headline MTV’s European headbangers ball. They said no thanks. We didnt need you before and dont need you now.
Iron Maiden have only been about releasing records and then touring to then play them. Bruce recently said, “Everything you need to know about the band you can see onstage”
Maiden have never had radio airplay anywhere in the world, never released a record to sell to non maiden fans…unlike Metallica….and just dont do PR Stunts.
They have been selling out stadiums throughout the world for 30 years, amazingly seem to be ignored by the mainstream media, and one day, way in the future will be revered by people the same way that the fans do today. Iron Maiden are an absolute phenomenon, the likes of which has never been seen before. This made even more glaringly obvious due to the fact they are regarded by mainstream media as an 80s relic, and play to stadiums throughout the world to people singing there lyrics word for word.They never have needed the media and just dont do publicity stunts.
Sorry I got carried away.
Clive
Blimey.