With all due respect to The Beatles, The Police, Radiohead, The Doors, Coldplay, or any other band from any other era or genre, Iron Maiden is the greatest band of all time. Period. I’ve thought about it, and I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.

Hallowed be thy name of Iron Maiden

Imagine: A middle-aged man sits in front of 14,000 devoted heavy metal fans, talks about Samuel Taylor Coleridge and is hailed as the greatest hero the world has ever known. There are two explanations for this bizarre incident. One: Heavy metal is smarter than people give it credit for. Or two: Classical literature ROCKS!

Bringing Out The Beast

“When we looked back at the ‘Live After Death’ DVD,” Dickinson recalls, “the big Eddie at the back that comes out … we said, ‘Oh, well, let’s just build it the same as we did before.’ And then we found the measurements of it, and we went, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty small. We can’t do that. We’ve got to at least double the size of it.’ So now it is absolutely monstrous.”

Iron Maiden attracting younger fans