Blaze Bayley

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I have never understood the anger towards teleprompters or cheat sheets on stage. I have seen Blaze with his folder on stage and it has never annoyed me. Maybe he had memory issues for some songs? He doesn’t have a poor work ethic, so you can’t put it down to laziness.

I remember the story of Michael Stipe from REM having to go out and buy copies of their songbooks to help him learn songs they had written years ago. They hadn’t toured for 8 years. He also used lyrics onstage and you cant say it affected his performances! He is one of the best frontmen of all time.
 
I have never claimed to be a Blaze Bayley expert and in fact I didn't know he had such a massive problem with alcohol.

Metal Hammer Germany, April 2024

My translation

... "I was broke, had to split up my band and earn my living as a factory worker and driver", he remembers the hard times with horror.
Worse still, his state of health was worrying, alcohol had a firm grip on him, to the point of delirium. Fortunately, that was all
many years ago. He has now found his feet again, thanks in part to a change in lifestyle:
"I have never smoked or taken drugs, and I've rigorously stopped drinking.
I also make sure that I don't put my body through too much on strenuous tours and that I regenerate sufficiently afterwards."
 
Ascendingthethrone said:
I have never understood the anger towards teleprompters or cheat sheets on stage. I have seen Blaze with his folder on stage and it has never annoyed me. Maybe he had memory issues for some songs? He doesn’t have a poor work ethic, so you can’t put it down to laziness.
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Advancing age and/or health issues affect memory. I will be 59 in a few months and I'm starting to experience it myself. I have no issues if a vocalist needs to use one. I would think Bruce would need one if they ever did The Parchment, heh. I did see Steven Tyler was using them on their last tour before they had to halt the tour
 
Iron Lurker said:
Advancing age and/or health issues affect memory. I will be 59 in a few months and I'm starting to experience it myself. I have no issues if a vocalist needs to use one. I would think Bruce would need one if they ever did The Parchment, heh. I did see Steven Tyler was using them on their last tour before they had to halt the tour
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He wouldn't need a prompter, just the lyrics sheet taped somewhere on his monitor wedge like when they did Lord of the Flies back in '03.
 
TheTalisman said:

Blaze singing over an instrumental backing track on Top of the Tops in 1995. He sounded good here!
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Yes that's the first ever time I saw and heard him sing with Maiden in 1995.
He was indeed youthful and with good presence - you can see why Steve hired him. Also on the MTV Most Wanted video.
Sadly, he didn't grow into the role in the years that followed as maybe it looked like he could on these early videos.

I don't mean to be cruel to Blaze, but I just also noticed in that video his bald spot has already appeared...
So on top of the high pressure gig with Maiden, and the classics being beyond his natural range, Blaze was also dealing with the totally normal phenomena of early onset baldness aged just 32 in a very public role where long hair was expected.

Can see very much how his confidence didn't hold. Also, being in Maiden for nearly 2 years when this TV appearance was shown and never having yet played a single live concert with Maiden. Tough circumstances indeed.
 
Helmuth Von Moltke said:
Yes that's the first ever time I saw and heard him sing with Maiden in 1995.
He was indeed youthful and with good presence - you can see why Steve hired him. Also on the MTV Most Wanted video.
Sadly, he didn't grow into the role in the years that followed as maybe it looked like he could on these early videos.

I don't mean to be cruel to Blaze, but I just also noticed in that video his bald spot has already appeared...
So on top of the high pressure gig with Maiden, and the classics being beyond his natural range, Blaze was also dealing with the totally normal phenomena of early onset baldness aged just 32 in a very public role where long hair was expected.

Can see very much how his confidence didn't hold. Also, being in Maiden for nearly 2 years when this TV appearance was shown and never having yet played a single live concert with Maiden. Tough circumstances indeed.
Click to expand...
I really, really was rooting for him back in those days. I was so eager to hear how he'd sound on the Bruce material, and didn't know that much about singing at the time so it didn't occur to me that he might not be capable of the Bruce stuff. Fortunately, the first bootleg I got my hands on back then was The Eternal Flame, and he sounded...fairly decent on most of the Bruce stuff. It wasn't until later on when I got other boots, like the infamous Santiago one, where I saw how badly Steve blew it with not downtuning that material. And of course, by the end of each show, Blaze was drenched with sweat, which exacerbated the bald look.

As for the baldness thing, that was curious to me. He wisely donned the backwards-turned cap on the Virtual XI tour, and then at some point after he went solo, he went and got hair implants (likely for free for appearing in ads for the company). Not too long after, he started shaving his head, presumably because the implants weren't all they were cracked up to be. Fortunately, the man's got a good dome, and looks good bald.
 
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