Iron Maiden’s soloist Bruce Dickinson has received an official hat and a kiss on the cheek in Poznan, Poland in August 1984.
The British band Iron Maiden toured Eastern Europe in August 1984 and were part of the phenomenon that eventually brought down communism.
Thursday On August 9, 1984, the gods were heard in Warsaw, Poland. An estimated 6,000 people packed in to watch as the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden began their tour of Eastern Europe. It was one of the first big Western rock bands to tour the Eastern Bloc on a full scale.
The audience gathered for Iron Maiden’s concert at Warsaw’s Torwar Hall on August 9, 1984. It was the first performance of the tour.
The concert started Winston Churchill with a speech that primed the song Aces High. The song tells about the air battle of the Second World War from the British point of view.
Even after decades, you can feel from the pictures that the audience really liked the show. Earlier in the day, the band members barely made it out of the hotel as eager fans thronged to catch a glimpse of their hero. Even the militiaman smiled after receiving the autograph.
“Interesting chapel selection”, says the professor of political history Markku Jokisipilä.
He has studied the cultural struggle of the Cold War and considers the fall of communism to be a key experience that pushed him into a career in self-historical research.
In addition, Jokisipilä knows heavy music from the 1980s, including Iron Maiden.
In 1984, Iron Maiden started their concert with the song Aces High, which is about air combat in World War II. In the photo, from left, guitarist Dave Murray, soloist Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith.
He fastens Aces High – in the song, he draws attention to the fact that the partnerships from the Second World War met in the Warsaw sports hall. Poland and Great Britain had been allies, the Polish exile government had operated in London and the Poles had fought on the Western Front under British leadership. Now we were on different sides of the political divide.
Western popular culture was helping to break the Iron Curtain. The symbolic wall of the Cold War separated the communist countries under the influence of the Soviet Union from Western Europe.
Contemporaries hardly knew how to give such importance to events. At that time, the knowledge of the English language was not widespread in Poland, and no one had heard the whole song before, because it appeared Powerslave– album only a month later.
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“Poland was a laboratory on a small scale.”
The tour, which began in 1984, introduced Iron Maiden to audiences on a stage with references to ancient Egypt in the spirit of the band’s Powerslave album.
Self the tour was anything but politics. It was skillful heavy music played with enthusiasm by young musicians. In addition to military history, the songs told about literature, for example.
The band’s soloist Bruce Dickinson told Billboard magazine in October 1984 that the decision to tour the East came out of curiosity when the Poles once asked. In addition, it was difficult to start a tour from the rest of Europe in August when the holiday season was in full swing. Thus, Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia were able to act as warm-ups for the world tour.
“Poland was the right place if in 1984 you wanted to present Western glad tidings in the Eastern Bloc”, says Markku Jokisipilä.
For years, it had already been speculated that if the grip of communism would begin to loosen anywhere, it would be in Poland. Nationalism remained in the country, and the Catholic Church acted as a counter force to communism. In the early 1980s, the Solidarity movement and its leader Lech Wałęsa began to challenge those in power. Although the movement was banned and martial law was declared, the Communist Party was in great trouble in the country. The high cost of food hurt the people, there were strikes.
According to Jokispilä, the key moment was experienced when the leader of the Soviet Union Yuri Andropov decided that the country would not intervene militarily in Polish affairs.
“All over Eastern Europe, it began to be realized that the local communist administrations could no longer rely on the intervention of the Soviet Union,” says Jokisipilä.
The Polish administration began to ease restrictions. Letting the Western band into the country was a hand out, part of gradual liberalization.
Jokisipilä estimates that Mikhail Gorbachev followed the events in Poland with interest. In 1985, Gorbachev became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He initiated the reforms, perestroika and glasnost, which eventually led to the fall of the Soviet Union and the communist system.
“Poland was a laboratory on a small scale. Gorbachev followed that it is necessary to go in the direction of openness,” says Jokisipilä.
Jokisipilä summarizes that the most significant reason for the loss of communism was the bleakness of everyday life, which resulted from the system’s inability to compete with capitalism. Western music and movies were strong message bearers, and no amount of propaganda could change that.
From Eastern Europe, the tour continued west. Here we are in Nottingham, Great Britain, in September 1984. The band played in Finland in November of the same year. From left, guitarist Dave Murray, drummer Nicko McBrain, lead singer Bruce Dickinson, bassist Steve Harris and guitarist Adrian Smith in the background.
in Poland The members of Iron Maiden played five sold-out concerts and enjoyed their popularity. During the continuation of a gig, they thought they were going to a disco, but they ended up at a wedding party – and on stage to play for the wedding guests.
The world tour that started in the East continued for almost a year. During that time, Iron Maiden played 189 concerts around the world and established its place among the biggest heavy rock bands.
The band’s sojourn beyond the Iron Curtain ended in Budapest, Hungary on August 17. The documentary filmed from the tour shows how the authorities have taken their cap off. At the open-air gig, the sea of people swells and people have climbed a tree to get a better view of the stage. Change was in the air.
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