IRON MAIDEN drummer Nicko McBrain will perform with his band, the MCBRAINIACS, tonight (Friday, March 7) at Hard Rock Cafe, located inside the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Hollywood, Florida. The MCBRAINIACS will perform music from IRON MAIDEN and raise money through a silent and live auction to benefit the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital. In addition to live and silent auction items, Nicko will donate three of his personal items to Hard Rock International, including the cymbal that he played on the last night of the IRON MAIDEN U.S. world tour. Hard Rock International will also make a donation in Nicko's name to the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital.
McBrain stopped by the 98.7 The Gater radio station in West Palm Beach, Florida earlier this week to talk with Andy Preston about tonight's benefit concert and MAIDEN's plans for the remainder of the year. You can watch the chat below.
Speaking about IRON MAIDEN's upcoming summer tour, McBrain said: "It's the 'Seventh Son' tour. We started it two years ago, and we did a big world tour with it. And then we came back over to the States last year with it. It's the same tour. We might be switching out a song or two, but it's the same flavor of the tour; it's the same stage setup. And what we're doing is we're finishing off this little run — over two years — with a European summer festival tour. We're going out and doing places like Rock Am Ring in Germany, Hellfest in France. We kick off… just announced, I think, Barcelona, 27th of May, is the first show. It's a very short tour — it's a five-week tour — and we end up at the Sonisphere festival [in the U.K.] July the 5th. It's nice to end up on terra firma… Terra firma being where we're born. So we're ending up just up the road from there. It's 30 miles out of London, so it's really a London show for us. So we're very excited. As I said, we're probably gonna change out… We're gonna do something different in the set; we're not sure yet… Well, I don't know what yet — untilgo to rehearse in May. So I'm looking forward to it."
IRON MAIDEN in August 2013 landed at position No. 1 on Billboard.com's "Hot Tours" list of top-grossing tours with $8.5 million in ticket sales from six performances on their summer tour of Europe. The shows were attended by a total of 121,280 fans, including a two-night, sold-out stand on August 3-4 at the O2 Arena in Lonon, England, where the band played to 27,000 fans. With totals added from this summer's Europe dates, overall ticket sales from the tour top $42 million from 45 reported concerts.
