BOSTON-Leave it to a 30-year-old band to innovate with style. The classic metal act Iron Maiden showed off its incredible versatility and prowess with a performance Friday that fractured the opinions of its fan base, and showed the band's guts and commitment to its craft, playing every song from their new album A Matter of Life and Death at the Agganis Arena at Boston University. After a lackluster opening band, the crowd was psyched to hear the legends perform. They opened up with the Opening track, "Different World," their new album, and played straight through till the end. Bruce Dickinson's vocal range is one of the greatest in the world, and live he is able to strike such powerful annotations and inflections that it can hardly be believed. He was at the top of his game in every way.

The whole band performed admirably. Steve Harris is one of the world's greatest guitarists, and he showed off his style with several impressive tricks: flipping his axe, swinging it around and actually juggling it in the air, to name a few. Each member of the band played with passion and gusto, leaving the audience suitably impressed. Eddie, Iron Maiden's infamous monster mascot, was also prominently featured riding a tank, and marching on stage in commando gear and with a large rifle, in what were probably the highlights of the show.,

Unfortunately, the Boston crowd was not nearly as impressive. Maiden has been a metal institution for so long that they've established certain expectations whenever they play a concert, and fans are known get particularly temperamental when these are not met. Dickinson has written that he feels like American audiences only want a greatest hits check list at every show, and that this is quite aggravating for a band putting out new records and wanting to actually play their new material.

Playing the whole CD might have been a bit of a slight toward the average American fan. While other legendary '80s bands such as Slayer play the entirety of their old albums at every show, Maiden is putting faith in new material, which unfortunately, the audience wasn't especially thrilled by . After finishing playing through the new album, the band played several legendary songs, including "Fear of the Dark," "Iron Maiden," "Two Minutes to Midnight," "The Evil that Men Do" and "Hallowed be Thy Name." These were well received, and the audience sung its heart out.

Even though the show was an unfortunate confirmation that American audiences seem to expect their hits spoon fed to them, it also served as an amazing banquet of delights for those fans with an open mind to new and less-known materials. It demonstrated the evolution of Maiden into one of the most intelligent and talented bands in the world today.