Watch Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson perform Deep Purple's Burn with an orchestra

Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden
(Image credit: YouTube)

Bruce Dickinson recently performed a cover of the 1974 Deep Purple classic Burn, during his appearance as part of Jon Lord's Concerto For Group And Orchestra.

The Iron Maiden frontman is currently guesting with the 80-piece orchestra - the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, conducted by Paul Mann - with an accompanying band composed of Jon Lord's Kaitner Z Doka and Bernhard Welz on guitar and drums, Jethro Tull's John O'Hara on keyboards, Whitesnake's Tanya O'Callaghan on bass and Scorpion's Mario Argandonia on percussion.

Dickinson performed the rendition at the April 15 show, which took place at Vibra São Paulo in São Paulo, Brazil. 

When first announcing the Concerto For Group And Orchestra shows in a video, Dickinson declared: "So I'm really excited to be doing this Concerto For Group And Orchestra all around the place — around Europe and in Brazil.

"Well, what is it exactly? Well, it's about a 45-minute piece of classical music that was written by Jon Lord from Deep Purple involving a group; in this case, it was Deep Purple.

"And it's like a meeting of minds between a rock and roll band and an orchestra, and they play slightly separately, they play together. I'm basically just the singer in the part of the Concerto that is the singing part; that's basically part one of the show. 

"Part two, we kind of really let our hair down a bit. There's a couple of more classical interactions between the band that's more instrumental, and then we do five Purple songs with the orchestra and the band, so Perfect Strangers, When A Blind Man Cries, obviously, Smoke On The Water, Hush and Pictures Of Home, which is a rarity and it's amazing with the orchestra.

"And then we're also gonna do something a little bit special. We've done an orchestral arrangement of my version of Jerusalem and also Tears Of The Dragon with the orchestra and the band. So, those two are gonna be in there at end — no particular order at the moment. So it's a really good, amazing evening of fantastic playing by incredible musicians. And that's what it is — it's music."

Watch fan-filmed footage of the performance below:

Liz Scarlett

Liz works on keeping the Louder sites up to date with the latest news from the world of rock and metal. Prior to joining Louder as a full time staff writer, she completed a Diploma with the National Council for the Training of Journalists and received a First Class Honours Degree in Popular Music Journalism. She enjoys writing about anything from neo-glam rock to stoner, doom and progressive metal, and loves celebrating women in music.