I wanted to read the entire thread before I chipped in, so having done that here I go.
First of all, I wanted to comment that the 1994 tour dates are a complete mystery, and to this day I haven't been able to confirm if these tour dates were really booked or if it was just a smart promoter trying to cash in. For people that don't know what I'm talking about, let me tell you that supposedly Maiden was going to play on February 2 dates in Prague, 2 unknown dates in Hungary, and 1 unknown date in Romania... Now, why on earth they would book only 5 dates? Why were these dates canceled? Why there wasn't any more dates booked? If they were supposed to start the tour in 1994 why then did start in October 1995 (more than a whole year later)? Anyway... let's move forward with the subject of the entire thread.
Right from the start, there were problems with/for Blaze and he has said this himself. First of all, the lengthy development of the album and the intense publicity schedule for it had a severe negative impact on the preparations for the presumably most important thing, Iron Maiden’s return to the stage. According to Bayley, he was never given the opportunity that they had originally agreed to: Four weeks of well-planned rehearsals turned into seven days of mad rushing. "I felt robbed of three of those precious rehearsal weeks," Bayley said in the
At the End of the Day: The Story of the Blaze Bayley Band book "Plus, that was where a few problems popped up."
Then there was the fact about the band not only not tuning down for Blaze, but also, once again, according to Blaze himself (don't remember if its also in the book I mentioned or in another interview) that he didn't receive (initially) the sound he would get in his wedges! From what I remember he wanted some guitar and his wedges and they (Doug Hall I guess) said no, that he would only receive bass and vocals.
And the last fact that is that Blaze personality wasn't exactly the best and examples of this can be found in his own diary of The X Factour tour. He used to had a temper and would not always behave in the best way with people, whether it was the press, hotel staff, tour staff, or others (not the band) so that was an issue (Note: I think he did correct this issue after the tour).
Now, another thing I think should be considered is the fact that even if Blaze WAS or is a good singer, he didn't have the touring experience required for the challenge that was in front of him which bring us to the fact that
@NickoWho comments, that is, that when the band was in Japan, Blaze had a breakdown "I broke down, was at my wits’ end. They put us in this beautiful hotel, I emptied the mini bar,
screamed at the hotel staff and phoned up Steve Harris in tears and told him I didn’t know what to do. It was fucking terrible." Put all these facts into the mixture and I think we can all have a pretty good picture of what happened with Blaze on his first years with Maiden...
On a last note, I haven't really heard Blaze was a diva, quite the contrary, he was unprepared to face the challenge in front of him and the Maiden team didn't actually help him neither.
