Making a blunder is always embarrassing, and even those in Iron Maiden aren't immune to it. Proof of this is drummer Nicko McBrain , who recently recalled an embarrassing episode that occurred in 1984.
Talk Is Jericho podcast , McBrain was asked about a time on stage when he had to keep playing in the middle of something disastrous. The drummer then recalled the Powerslave and the several consecutive nights that Iron Maiden performed in Hammersmith (transcription via Ultimate Guitar ).
“We were playing 'Flight of Icarus' and before we started, Bruce [ Dickinson ] would always say 'Shout for me, Hammersmith' three times. It was always three times,” Nicko recounts. “One night he said 'Shout for me, Hammersmith' twice, but I counted a third time, and Dave [ Murray ] was on the right, Adrian [ Smith ] was on the left, and Bruce was in front, so I couldn't stop. 'I can't stop, that would be embarrassing. I'll just keep going… How am I going to get out of this?'”
McBrain recalled his bandmates' confused reaction and said he was disappointed in himself because the show was being recorded. “I thought, ‘I’m not going to get fired, I’m going to quit the band.’ So I went backstage after the show and told the guys, ‘I’m sorry. You don’t need to fire me, I’m going to leave…’,” he recounts. “Everyone laughed. Martin Birch [producer] came up to me and said, ‘That was priceless!’ There’s a tape with those images somewhere and I wish I had asked Martin for it,” he concluded.
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