Mind the gap. Iron Maiden may bond like few other bands with their adoring, tribal support, but the gap between how the sextet and their acolytes see themselves is intriguingly huge.

Burning with hubris, the sextet elected to play all their new album, A Matter of Life and Death. In one chunk. In the correct running order. The crowd, you suspect, would have enjoyed a hit or two woven into the set, rather than five examples of their extensive back catalogue tagged onto the end.

That the entire stage set was transformed into a giant tank ( unsurprisingly, there were few women present) during the song Iron Maiden didn't wholly obscure the fact that the band were protesting just a little too much about being relevant. The conceit might have worked - it's a fine record, as singer Bruce Dickinson aptly, if less than poetically enthused, "about war and how shit it is" - but this mighty oak of rock was felled midway through when the sound failed.

Manfully, the band remained on stage for the entire 25-minute hiatus, grinning their most rictus grins. Guitarist Adrian Smith showcased his juggling skills. Bassist and leader Steve Harris displayed his admirable football talent and Dickinson mimed like a jolly berk. The remarkably good-natured crowd merely responded with a cheery "You're not singing any more". As Dickinson gratefully noted, "Anyone else would have rioted."

Even so this was Iron Maiden with their three lead guitarists. As the galloping new track The Pilgrim showed as effortlessly as the still soaring Two Minutes to Midnight, nobody rocks quite as hard, and quite as tunefully.

Indeed, who could not find it in their festive heart not to love a band in which four of whom wore Iron Maiden vests, three had personalised sweatbands and 57-year-old drummer Nicko McBrain played barefoot? Exactly.