Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson has delivered his most scathing critique yet of smartphone culture at live concerts, describing the obsession with filming shows as a “failing of humanity” and an “infestation.” In a passionate new interview, he urged fans to put down the “little fas**st in your hand” and live in the moment, a plea that comes with a dose of realism, as he has previously explained the logistical reasons why a strict phone ban is not feasible for a band of Maiden‘s scale.
Speaking on the Appetite For Distortion podcast, the legendary singer did not mince words when describing his feelings about seeing a sea of phones at a concert.
“Look, in so many ways I wish the camera on those things had never been invented,” he said. “But it has been invented. It’s now a kind of infestation, is the way I would describe it. It’s like some terrible disease, that people feel the need to look at the world through this stupid little device. And so it’s like a failing of humanity, basically. You’re surrendering your senses completely to this little fas**st in your hand.”
He then made a direct appeal to the audience from a performer’s perspective.
“Put it down, put it in your pocket and look around you. Look at the people, look at the joy, look at the band, feel the emotion, feel the music. What a phone does, it cuts all of that off,” he pleaded. “And so I feel sad. I also feel pissed off, because as a performer, it’s, like, I want to perform for an audience of people that have some emotional feedback — not a bunch of like Android twerps.”
Dickinson recounted his recent experience attending a Ghost concert, which used the Yondr pouch system to enforce a phone-free environment, and said the difference was “astonishing.” “The atmosphere — it was, ‘Wow.’ I mean, really, really noticeable,” he said. “Even the way people behaved with each other, interacted with each other… was different.”
Despite his clear passion for the phone-free experience, Dickinson has previously explained why Iron Maiden has opted for a “polite request” rather than a mandatory ban on their own tours. He cited the logistical impossibility of implementing a pouch system for tens of thousands of fans in a stadium setting. “You’ve got fifty thousand people — that’s tough to make it work,” he said in a prior interview, adding that he doesn’t want security to act like guards in a “co***ntration camp.“
