"You're surrendering your senses to this little fascist in your hand." Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson hates cell phones.

[highplainsdem]

From Classic Rock.magazine:

https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/youre-surrendering-your-senses-completely-to-this-little-fascist-in-your-hand-iron-maidens-bruce-dickinson-really-hates-mobile-phones

"You're surrendering your senses completely to this little fascist in your hand." Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson really hates mobile phones
By Stef Lach ( Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Louder ) published 2 hours ago
Iron Maiden singer despises cell phones at gigs and doesn't want to perform for "a bunch of Android twerps"

-snip-

"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.

"And so I feel sad. I also feel pissed off, because as a performer, I want to perform for an audience of people that have some emotional feedback – not a bunch of Android twerps."

He also repeated previous comments about having seen Ghost in concert recently, and how their phone ban has made a remarkably positive difference to the atmosphere.

This week, Maiden added extra European dates to their Run For Your Lives world tour – including two completely phone-free shows in Paris which are being filmed for an upcoming release.

More at the link - no paywall.

And below is the Appetite For Distortion video inteeview those quotes are from.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. He's right: "What a phone does, it cuts all of that off." . . . . nt

[highplainsdem]

2. It does. The fan getting video with a cell phone is missing out on much of the concert experience.

I have to admit to being conflicted about this because - and especially with the Oasis reunion tour having 10x more requests for tickets than they could fill - I'm also grateful for fans' videos of concerts.

And even fans who were at the concerts have posted online that they are grateful for those videos because they were so emotionally overwhelmed while they were at the concert that they don't have very many clear memories of it. (Alcohol and lack of sleep may also have been factors.)

A lot of bands have made it clear they'd rather see fans responding to the music than focusing on their phones.

And having a lot of people holding up phones can also block much more of the view for the fans behind them - something especially noticeable for fans near the stage trying to see the band instead of the giant screens.

I don't know what the solution would be. Going back to the days of maybe just having a concert documentary coming out after a tour would leave fans with little understanding of how well a tour was going. Certainly there's been more attention on the Oasis reunion because there's so much fan video proving how good every show has been.

I should add that I have seen musicians complain about fan videos because they don't want concerts that didn't go well to show up on YouTube.