IRON MAIDEN’s BRUCE DICKINSON Joins ADRIAN SMITH And RICHIE KOTZEN For ‘Wasted Years’ Performance In London
Written by megarock on February 22, 2026
IRON MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson joined SMITH/KOTZEN, the collaborative project featuring IRON MAIDEN guitarist Adrian Smith and THE WINERY DOGS frontman and acclaimed solo artist Richie Kotzen, during the latter act’s concert Saturday night (February 21) at O2 Shepherds Bush Empire in London, United Kingdom to perform the MAIDEN classic “Wasted Years”. Fan-filmed video of Bruce‘s appearance can be seen below.
Smith originally wrote “Wasted Years” for MAIDEN‘s 1986 album “Somewhere In Time”. He told U.K.’s Total Guitar magazine about how the track came together: “I was messing around with a little four-track and I’d just put that riff down for ‘Wasted Years’. I was playing Steve [Harris, MAIDEN bassist] some other stuff and I played it to him by accident and he said, ‘What’s that?’ I said, ‘You probably won’t like this as it’s so commercial,’ but he really liked it and insisted we do it. So something you’d think he wouldn’t want to do, he does. But I do like to sit down and visualize us doing different things. Obviously, we can’t do anything too drastic, but whatever works, really.”
