Review

Flash, bang and a bleedin' big wallop - UK metal band Iron Maiden are now more successful than at any other time in their almost 30-year existence, writes Tony Clayton-Lea.

Whether this is down to persistence, the circular evolvement of musical trends or (as we suspect) the unwavering regard by certain types of people (mostly male - which is why extra toilet facilities for men were organised for this gig) to see 50-something blokes make fools of themselves and to hear music that by rights should be locked up in solitary confinement is open to conjecture.

What is certain is that Iron Maiden are probably the best of their kind - the last, if you will, of a blood-curdling breed. While support band Trivium took up some form of slack - the UK metal act are, with some justification, being touted as contenders - it really was up to the headliners to pull the showstopper out of the Christmas crackers.

The contents were a streamlined mixture of metal mania (legs akimbo around the drum kit, dandruff over the mosh pit, a stage set resembling a B-movie second World War scenario, complete with tank), punch-rock panto (lead singer Bruce Dickinson as the Artful Dodger ringing the neck of the belles of St Trinians; the rest of the band straight out of Spinal Tap central casting) and a thoroughly energetic rock act.

Blending metal's tropes of crunch-riffs, squalling guitar solos, fists in the air, strafing searchlights, strained vocals, amateur-hour drama and strategically placed ballad-like interludes, the show succeeded by virtue of a combined sense of fun, metal melody and astute showmanship. The outgoing music was the theme song to Dad's Army and Monty Python's Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. Metal that knows its place, metal with a smile on its face - how unusual is that?