In 2017, the pop rock band Shinedown was the opening act for Iron Maiden's European tour. In a recent interview with The Jasta Show , guitarist Zach Meyers recalled the experience and the audience's reaction.
According to Meyers, Shinedown chose not to change their original setlist and left out some of the band's heavier songs, an attitude that earned praise from Bruce Dickinson for his courage. "Man, I've never seen a band get on stage with balls like that," the vocalist reportedly commented.
“We have some heavy songs, but we’re not a metal band,” Zach Meyers explained. “We’re a pop rock and active rock band. But we don’t change our setlist.”
“At the end of the show, everyone had their fists raised,” Meyers recalls. “And you know the Iron Maiden audience. We did shows with Metallica for two weeks in Europe and toured with KISS, but there are no fans like Iron Maiden’s. You start a song like ‘Second Chance,’ which reached number one on the Top 40, to a crowd of 20,000 people and nobody applauds [laughs].”
“You play this at your show and it feels like the ceiling is falling down. You play it with Iron Maiden and the reaction is 'Hey, idiot, when is Iron Maiden going to play?'” he added.
