IRON MAIDEN Condemns Manchester Attack, Vows To Finish U.K. Tour

IRON MAIDEN has condemned the terror attack in Manchester, England last night (Monday, May 22) which left 22 dead and 59 injured.

The British heavy metal legends, who are in the middle of a U.K. headlining tour, said in a statement: "We are shocked by last night's terrible events at the Manchester Arena. Our thoughts go out to everyone affected. We can advise fans that our last three U.K. shows in Cardiff and at London's O2 will proceed as planned. Of course any extra means to ensure fan safety are being examined with the relevant authorities."

The final three dates on the U.K. leg of MAIDEN's "The Book Of Souls" tour are as follows:

May 24 - Motorpoint Arena - Cardiff, UK
May 27 - O2 Arena - London, UK
May 28 - O2 Arena - London, UK

In a December 2015 interview with the Radio Sarajevo show "The Aebyss", IRON MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson spoke about what security concerns he might have in an age of terrorism when it comes to deciding which countries to travel to in order to play for the people there. He said: "Personally, yeah, I'll play no matter what. Your concern has to be, actually, for people who don't have a choice in the matter. But those poor people that went for that [EAGLES OF DEATH METAL] concert at the Bataclan [in Paris, France in November 2015] had no choice; they were completely, completely innocent in every possible way. And, of course, nobody knew that the place was gonna get targeted. So, unfortunately, there's a judgment call that people have gotta make, and you have to make it on the best information available — as to whether or not you're suddenly gonna get… If somebody says, 'We're gonna massacre everybody at a rock concert,' you say, 'Well, is it some lunatic, or is it genuinely credible that this might happen?'"

He continued: "You can't take the responsibility for what might be some lunacy, massacring people, just because you wanna be kind of 'macho man' and stand up and say, 'Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we did this and people threatened us, but we were like macho men.' And that's great until one day it turns out that somebody does go and do [something like that] and then you have lots and lots of dead women and children, and you go, 'Maybe we shouldn't have done the show, because there was a credible threat.' So, unfortunately, you've gotta be grown up about it. But, at the same time, you still need to be able to offer people that hope and send that message out there. They can't stop… Real life just carries on. I mean, when the Irish Republican Army, years and years ago… when I was a kid, things were getting blown up left, right and center in the U.K., and one lot was blowing things up and horrendous things happened, and nothing stopped — people just got on with it and carried on. You don't stop. You don't back down from living your life. There is light at the end of the tunnel there. So all those kinds of things are acts of defiance, but not involving guns or bombs or bullets and things like that."

IRON MAIDEN's "The Book Of Souls" world tour will return to North America for an extensive series of arena and amphitheater shows in June and July. Support on the trek will come from GHOST.