Bruce Dickinson – The Air Raid Siren Invades the House of Blues!

Bruce Dickinson played the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay on Saturday, August 23, 2025.

Heavy metal singer. Pilot. Fencer. Cancer survivor. Bruce Dickinson wears many hats, and is truly a man of the world. Best known around the globe as the classic vocalist of Iron Maiden and having recorded countless albums and embarked on many a world tour with those titans of heavy metal, Mr. Dickinson’s solo material is often overlooked.

Wait. Bruce Dickinson as a solo career?

That might be the question you’re asking when seeing this review, but it’s true. The Air Raid Siren’s activities certainly aren’t limited to his exploits with Iron Maiden. Starting with TATTOOED MILLIONAIRE in 1990 (actually released while he was still a member of Maiden before departing the band a few years later and eventually returning), Dickinson has released numerous solo albums over the years, often with large gaps in time between each. His latest solo album, THE MANDRAKE PROJECT, was released last year, to positive reviews. It was his first solo release in two decades.

When I heard Mr. Dickinson would be bringing the tour for THE MANDRAKE PROJECT to the United States, including a stop at the small and intimate locale of Mandalay Bay’s House of Blues, I knew I had to go. Prior to this evening I’d seen Dickinson three times. Twice fronting Iron Maiden in an arena, and once a few years prior in the House of Blues, doing a spoken word show. Oddly, all of these took place at Mandalay Bay.

Any good rock show deserves a good opening act, and as his support act on this tour, Bruce is using a band called Combustion 96, out of Dallas. I’ll come right out and say I’d never heard of these guys, but knew they must be good if they had the stamp of approval to open for Mr. Dickinson on his American tour. Definitely a high-energy and more modern-driven band, they certainly rocked the venue as they kicked things off. A nice mix of old and new hard rock and heavy metal elements, the group was quite large and managed to deliver, getting the audience fired up. It’s tough to put these guys into a single genre of rock/metal, though I don’t think it’d be too far of an exaggeration to describe them as sounding like Linkin Park minus the rap elements. I’ll definitely be exploring these guys a bit more in the future; I’d gladly go see them play a headlining show.

And then we come to Mr. Dickinson himself. Both in and out of Iron Maiden, Bruce has played with a wide array of musicians, and I was certainly curious to see who he rounded up to serve as his band for THE MANDRAKE PROJECT tour. While I’ll admit I was disappointed not to see Dickinson’s long time collaborator, guitarist Roy Z. Ramirez (who has also played with Judas Priest vocalist Rob Halford), I was pleasantly surprised to see a band that included Tanya O’Callaghan on bass, who’s worked with Whitesnake in recent years, as well as drummer Dave Moreno, a man who certainly gets around these days. Everyone in the band (including a keytar player!) proved themselves up for the task, everyone having a great stage presence and chemistry with the Iron Maiden frontman.

As soon as Bruce himself took the stage, complete with a battle jacket bearing THE MANDRAKE PROJECT album logos and symbology, the audience went crazy. He began shelling out the songs with one of the most distinctive voices in rock. If you didn’t know better, you’d have no idea this guy was battling cancer just a few short years ago. I also appreciate the fact the Mr. Dickinson didn’t just turn this into an evening of Iron Maiden covers. We only got a single Iron Maiden song in the entire set, which was a deep cut – “Flash of the Blade” from 1984’s POWERSLAVE, a personal favorite of mine. Aside from a brief instrumental cover of the Edgar Winter Group’s 1972 instrumental FRANKENSTEIN, the set consisted entirely of Dickinson solo cuts. This included tracks from 1994’s BALLS TO PICASSO (which just got a remixed reissue), cuts from THE CHEMICAL WEDDING and ACCIDENT OF BIRTH, and of course, the most recent release, THE MANDRAKE PROJECT. He even managed to squeeze in one track from 2005’s underrated and oft-overlooked effort, TYRANNY OF SOULS.

The stage show was as entertaining as the music, complete with giant monitors telling a story, with vintage-style UFO and extraterrestrial footage, classified reports, and the like. It enhanced the show without serving as a distraction. And being the ever-charismatic individual he’s always been, Bruce had no shortage of things to say between tracks, often quite humorous. During instrumental breaks in songs, he even entertained the audience by playing tribal-style drums! This guy knows how to become king of any stage he sets foot on, and he and his loyal subjects had the audience from the moment he took the stage to when the encores ended and it was time to go home.

If I have one minor complaint with an otherwise stellar show, it’s that no tracks from Bruce’s 1990 solo debut, TATTOOED MILLIONAIRE, were played. The title cut would’ve been a fun inclusion, even if it’s more of a hard rock album than a heavy metal one. It also would’ve been nice to hear at least one Samson song (Bruce’s band before Iron Maiden), as I could easily imagine this band doing justice to something like “Tomorrow or Yesterday,” “Hunted,” “Vice Versa,” or “Riding With the Angels.” There were also no tracks played from Bruce’s 1996 effort SKUNKWORKS, though given that it was a more experimental album quite far removed from Iron Maiden and most of his solo output, the exclusion of its tracks from his current live set isn’t exactly shocking.

Who doesn’t love Bruce Dickinson? Is there anything this man can’t do? With a capable band, he conquered the stage at the House of Blues and wowed audiences in an intimate setting with killer vocals and an equally impressive stage show. Getting to see Bruce live is a rare privilege, and seeing him in a smaller venue an even rarer one. Don’t hesitate to catch him on his tour if the opportunity presents itself!

PHOTO CREDIT: Live photos by Courtney Ware for ZRockR Magazine – (c) 2025 – All Rights Reserved.