Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson has sworn off ever playing Glastonbury festival, saying he doesn’t want to play in front of “Gwyneth Paltrow and a perfume-infested yurt”.
The band, formed in 1975, is one of the biggest heavy metal groups in the world, but they have never been asked to play at Glastonbury festival in Somerset, which is taking place this weekend.
In a new interview with the i, Dickinson responded to the suggestion that the group’s choice to play the London Stadium on 28 June – the same weekend as the music festival – could be perceived as a “two-fingered” response to not getting the Glastonbury call-up.
However, Dickinson said that he would always reject any offer from the festival’s organisers.
“No! I always said I’d turn Glastonbury down if we were ever invited,” he stated. Dickinson added that he didn’t want to play “in front of Gwyneth Paltrow and a perfume-infested yurt”.
These are views long held by Dickinson. In 2014, he called the festival “the most bourgeois thing on the planet”.
“Personally I have no interest in going to Glastonbury,” he told the Daily Star at the time.
He added that when Glastonbury was an “alternative festival”, he found it interesting, but the festival has since become “not for me”.
Dickinson said he does enjoy performing at other rock festivals, but he claimed that journalists have less interest in those kinds of events.
Despite sending “thousands” of people to cover Glastonbury, Dickinson claimed the BBC simply “can’t be arsed to turn up to Sonisphere or Download with a camper van and a hand-held”.
The singer insisted that Iron Maiden will “leave the middle classes to do Glastonbury – and the great unwashed will decamp to Knebworth, drink a lot of beer and have fun”.
Iron Maiden are currently performing their Future Past World Tour, in support of their critically acclaimed 17th album Senjutsu.
On the day that the band will perform to 80,000 fans in London, Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage will be headlined by Neil Young, RAYE and a secret guest appearance from an act called “Patchwork”.
Young, 79, agreed to headline the festival after backtracking his comments accusing Glastonbury of being under the “corporate control” of the BBC. It was revealed on Thursday (26 June) that the BBC would not be live-streaming his performance upon his request.
Meanwhile, fns have been guessing who secret act “Patchwork: could be, with ideas ranging from Haim to Pulp.
“Pink Pony Club” singer Chappell Roan is also among the predictions after she shared a series of throwback photos this week, one of which showed her as a young girl while waving a patchwork quilt.
Young, 79, agreed to headline the festival after backtracking his comments accusing Glastonbury of being under the “corporate control” of the BBC. It was revealed on Thursday (26 June) that the BBC would not be live-streaming his performance upon his request.
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