STEVE HARRIS Watched BLAZE BAYLEY's IRON MAIDEN Set At EDDFEST

Blaze Bayley, who fronted IRON MAIDEN from 1994 to 1999, headlined the Friday night (July 10) Maidenville stage at IRON MAIDEN's Eddfest weekend in the United Kingdom. The concert was part of a celebration of IRON MAIDEN's 50th anniversary that is taking place on the iconic Knebworth site.

Fans saw Blaze and his band deliver a powerful set of songs from "The X Factor" and "Virtual XI", the albums he released during his time as IRON MAIDEN's lead singer. Blaze co-wrote some of the songs on those albums with band founder Steve Harris, and Friday night's Maidenville stage was personally curated by Steve Harris to showcase many elements of his musical career.

Harris watched Blaze's entire set at Eddfest from sidestage and later had a brief chat with the singer, as captured in a video (see below) by Stjepan Juras, a MAIDEN fan and author of many MAIDEN-related books, who had been managing Paul Di'Anno and taking care of Paul in the months leading up to the former MAIDEN vocalist's death.

Later this year, Blaze will be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame alongside MAIDEN's current lineup of singer Bruce Dickinson, bassist Steve Harris and guitarists Adrian Smith, Dave Murray and Janick Gers, as well as ex-singer Paul Di'Anno, ex-guitarist Dennis Stratton and former drummers Nicko McBrain and Clive Burr.

The 2026 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame ceremony will take place on November 14 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. It will air on ABC and Disney+ the following month.

Last month, Blaze was asked by Rev. Tom Brice of Sportzwire Radio how he feels about being inducted into the Rock Hall. He responded: " Well, I don't think any of us get into heavy metal and follow it as a profession to get awards, but it's nice to be recognized… And the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame — LED ZEPPELIN, I mean, giant of giants, almost so big that they can't be considered as part of normal music. And to be part of that and all the other wonderful artists, to be considered there with the work that I've done and the songs that I've written and the music that we've done, it's just incredible, really."

He continued: "What's interesting, whereas I might go, 'Well, I'm not in it for awards,' for a lot of my fans, it's important for them. For a lot of my fans, it's important. They think, 'Yes, he should be recognized.' And so that's really, really cool, that my fans enjoy the fact that their favorite singer has been recognized by the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame."

The two MAIDEN albums Blaze appeared on sold considerably less than the band's prior releases and were their lowest-charting titles in the group's home country since 1981's "Killers".

While MAIDEN has been eligible to join the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame since 2004, the band had only been nominated twice before — in 2021 and 2023.

Three years ago, Blaze spoke to Tony Webster of "The Metal Command" about some fans' initial reluctance to embrace his era of MAIDEN. When Webster noted that Blaze's solo work over the last two decades has gone a long way toward "changing the narrative" of his time with MAIDEN, Bayley said: "Yeah, I think you're right, Tony. I'm hearing this a lot. People look back and they go… Some fans go, 'Of course I've got every IRON MAIDEN album, but the ones I haven't listened to are [Blaze-era albums] 'The X Factor' and 'Virtual XI'. And now that's all I can listen to that I haven't listened to a hundred times. I have to listen to those. And it's exactly what you say to me.

"'The X Factor''s got some incredible music on it, but the sound of it is so dark, and the way it was produced, it's not accessible like some of the other MAIDEN albums," Blaze explained. "You've gotta live with that for quite a few spins until you're tuned into what things are doing. Then you can get to the music. I think that was maybe a problem with it at the time. It's so dark and the sounds of things were quite different to what came before. People who did live with it, managed to find it. And it's different cultures as well, different countries. In Sweden and Spain, those albums, people loved them as much as every other [MAIDEN] album. But in other places, people didn't. It's a different thing."