Iron Maiden: Flight 666. Leave a Review!

I tried to get tickets to the UK shows but they sold out before I could get through. However, there was a better alternative: the tour packages that got set up for the european venues included Bruce Dickinson flying the plane on at least one leg of your journey... I missed out on those too.

They're awesome live and known for their excellent live DVDs and albums - I'll be grabbing this when I get a chance, although it won't make up for not being on a plane with Bruce Dickinson.

I liked Iron Maiden when I was a teenager in the 80's. Powerslave, Live After Death, The Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind... I loved those. As I got older, I kind of forgot about them. Given that I had all their albums on record or cassette, I eventually found that I didn't have the hardware to actually play them any more. And I was hardly going to go out and buy them again on CD just so they could sit in a drawer.

But I was very heartened to see Iron Maiden become popular and cool again in the early 2000's. They've always been a "normal" band who work hard, touring constantly and releasing regular albums without relying on hype, PR or celebrity girlfriends.

So when this DVD came along, I thought I'd check it out to see how Maiden were doing these days. I wasn't disappointed.

It would seem that the band have been untouched by the passage of time. They're still as full of passion and energy as they ever were. The music sounds as good as ever - it's very basic heavy metal, but done extremely well.

Okay, so the DVD is all about "what life is really like backstage", but that wasn't important to me. Yeah, the chaps lark around a bit and ham it up for the cameras, but the over-riding impression is that they're nice, decent fellows who take nothing for granted. These aren't rock stars. They are hard-working musicians who believe in what they do and kept on believing during the years of obscurity. Maiden haven't changed, some of their audience have.

If you liked Iron Maiden and heavy metal back in the 80's, this is worth checking out. It shows that you don't need to dress up or court controversy to make good music - in fact, that seems to get in the way. This is unadorned metal and as good as it ever was. Even the newer material, that I'm unfamiliar with was good and felt natural.

The sheer scale of their popularity took me aback somewhat. Some of their fans are just so much more ardent than I remember from the days of scrawling their name on my schoolbag with Tippex.

Up the Irons!