Bruce Dickinson
Support: Combustion 96
The Wiltern – Los Angeles, CA
Sunday, October 5th, 2025
Review/Pics: Will
On Sunday evening, The Man, The Myth, The Air-Raid Siren himself, Bruce Dickinson, brought The Mandrake Project and more to the Wiltern in Los Angeles.
This was the last show on this leg of Bruce’s U.S. tour and he went out with a bang!
Before the show I had a bright idea of trying to glean an estimate at how many Iron Maiden shirts I’d see. Of course…it was beyond my mental capacity. (I mean, after counting past 10 fingers and 10 toes, I tend to get lost), but what I was surprised to see was a vast amount of Solo Dickinson shirts from past tours. What makes this more impressive is that Bruce hasn’t toured N. America (solo) in almost 30 years. So either people were traveling a lot back in the day to see him…Or there was a sale going on of Bruce Solo Merch somewhere.
SCREAM FOR ME LOS ANGELES!!!
As the lights dimmed, The Mandrake Project symbol rotated around the large background video screen while the band filtered on to the stage. You could hear the swell of noise in the crowd as BRUCE finally appeared. Adorned in denim, and a Mandrake Project T-shirt and Beanie, he greeted the crowd with a huge grin as he and the band tore into “Accident Of Birth”. What followed was an almost 2 hour set of pure Dickinson magic. Bruce remains one of the greatest frontmen in metal. He’s animated, playful, keeps the crowd engaged, runs around the stage like a maniac and most importantly, still sings his ass off!
International Band Stand
And this wasn’t any speaking tour, no. Bruce has surrounded himself with a worldly assortment of incredible musicians to help spread his vision. Chris Declercq (Switzerland) – guitar, Philip Näslund (Sweden) – guitar, Tanya O’Callaghan (Ireland) (Whitesnake) – bass, Dave Moreno (U.S.) (Puddle Of Mudd) – drums, and Mistheria (Italy) – keyboards and keytar. The band sounded fantastic with each member adding extra oomph to the evening’s proceedings via backing vocals.
A Solo Setlist with some Maiden Surprises
The setlist featured songs from 5 of Bruce’s solo works with the exceptions being his debut, Tattooed Millionaire and his 1996 release, Skunkworks. To the delight of the crowd the majority came from the epic, The Chemical Wedding. With 3 each from both Balls to Picasso (Which just had a lovely “do over” anniversary release) and The Mandrake Project. An album that I do believe in time is going to rank right up there as one of his best.
After the epic, “The Chemical Wedding” Bruce had a surprise in the form of a song that he wrote and originally wanted to play at their classic 2001 Rock in Rio appearance. Alas he was voted down and so has decided to include it on this tour. And with that the band ripped into Iron Maiden’s “Flash of the Blade”. *Cue crowd going nuts.
That was followed by a couple of current album songs; “Resurrection Men” and “Rain on the Graves” which he introduced with short stories of the occult and meeting the devil respectively.
A Jam and an Encore to Remember.
The band kicked into another gear as “Chili” Moreno bashed into a drum solo which led to the entire band joining in on a version of The Edgar Winter Group’s, “Frankenstein”. This jam had Bruce joining along on a stand-alone bongo/drum kit and concluded with him “playing” the theremin. An Instrument that had to be designed with his signature hand gestures in mind.
After 2 killer versions of “The Alchemist” and “Book of Thel” from The Chemical Wedding, the main set concluded with the “Road to Hell”.
Following a brief interlude the band returned and launched into what is surely the magnum opus of his solo work, “Tears Of The Dragon”, which again had the crowd providing their own collective voices.
After another gem from Balls to Picasso, “Gods of War” the crowd was given another treat. As it was the closing night, and Philip Näslund had already broke out his double necked guitar for “Tears…” Bruce gifted The Wiltern crowd with…well “I’ll let you guess”…and Philip played the intro to Maiden’s “Revelations”. *cue crowd losing their shit again. This had the entire audience in a full throated sing along as Bruce waved us up with visual prompts for the revelatory “screams”. The evening concluded with “The Tower”.
Setlist:
Encore:
Hints at New Solo Album Coming in ’27.
Bruce let us know that he and the current band had been writing and they were ready to record a new record that we’d probably have sometime in early 2027. My guess is he’s busy most of next year with his side project. “Ron Maiden and the Dixie Chickens”.
Funnily enough, I have now shot 4 of the current Maiden lineup. Bruce of course, Adrian on the Smith/Kotzen Tour in ’22 and Steve and Simon with British Lion a couple of times on the Monsters of Rock Cruise. So I’m either going to need Jannick and Dave to release solo projects or someone’s going to have to just give in and let me shoot the Legendary Maiden.
A boy can dream.
Opening set by Combustion 96
Combustion 96 – the band features guitarists Niklas Rubensson, Philip Näslund (Bruce Dickinson) who was replaced for this tour by Neal Tiemann and Benjamin Lechuga, Threat Signal vocalist Jon Howard, bassist Chase Bryant (Oni, Warbringer), and drummer Yoyo Bianchi (Teravolt, Sleeping Dog)
Related Links:
Judas Priest – YouTube Theater – 10/15/24
Smith/Kotzen – The Ventura Theater – 1/28/22
British Lion – Monsters of Rock Cruise – 3/3/24
Scorpions -Las Vegas – 4/18/23
