There were plenty caviare in these bathtubs. The vodka that made everything pink. Unannounced wedding gigs, covert swastikas, and Maiden-mania everywhere they went.
Iron Maiden entered a world of hysteria, celebration, and “eye-opening” poverty and tyranny as they embarked on the 1984 World Slavery tour, becoming the first Western rock band to perform a full production show behind the Iron Curtain. Their objective? To rock the suffering away.
“We might make a significant number of people really happy by doing this,” singer Bruce Dickinson says in an interview with The Independent about this historic tour, which was started 40 years ago this week. The tour travelled to six cities in Poland and Hungary to promote their 1984 Powerslave album with a prop-heavy spectacle that included a 30-foot mummified Eddie mascot. It was by no means a political act. The purpose of the act was to amuse a few fans. It can be classified as a political act. There was no such thing as a non-political deed in my undergraduate years. Depending on where you did it, taking a piss may be considered political. [But] occasionally, all people want is to have fun. All they want to do is rock. That’s the reason we were present.
However, Iron Maiden’s invasion of Eastern Europe represented a glimmer of hope for harmony and understanding between the disparate cultures of East and West. It soon became clear that these long-haired, head-banging English friends of Baphomet weren’t there to spread a plague of Western wickedness, despite the fact that they were labelled as having “anti-Soviet lyrics” by Russian authorities due to anti-nuclear songs like “2 Minutes to Midnight.” The kids and police officers truly wanted to rock. Eastern Europe loved heavy rock and metal so much that the genre gave rise to a teenage counterculture that rejected Soviet ideology and the Cold War nuclear threat, as well as many of the major protest anthems. Many metalheads claimed that The Scorpions’ “Wind of Change” contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, with Maiden having hammered in the first few fractures.
Most of which, at the time, Maiden overlooked. They were there to rock out to thousands of fans who were excluded from the Western metal mayhem, nosh on the best treats from the Eastern Bloc, and burn their eye sockets with its harshest spirits. According to Rod Smallwood, Maiden’s manager, “I always saw Maiden as being a truly international band.” We felt that it was unfair that others who were, in a sense, beyond the wall were unable to see us, so we made an effort to approach them. Iron Maiden is going to get you, no matter how far, just like in the song!
According to Maiden bassist Steve Harris, “We thought, ‘How do we even know we’ve got fans there?’ and they said, ‘Well, you get radio play.'” Back then, it was arguably the only location on earth that was genuinely having fun with us. The records were obtained illegally. They were not permitted to make appropriate purchases. According to singer Bruce Dickinson, “people found out what the songs were because they pirated cassettes.” “They would get together and play them to each other, through proper word of mouth, in bars and their bedrooms.”