They mocked Sunday morning in an arena now owned by a church. They gave a huge finger to the rich and famous who didn’t buy a ticket to their show, which sold out months in advance. They further “egged” on their feud with Sharon Osbourne, and they got half the crowd to boo the local basketball team whose former home they were performing in.

They are Iron Maiden, and Tuesday night in front of a sold-out crowd at the once-fabulous Forum, the six-piece U.K. band played hit after hit for three generations of rabid Maiden fans.

It’s fitting that the Forum is located below the flight path of LAX, as Iron Maiden have taken the concept of world tour to a whole new level. Singer Bruce Dickinson is a commercial airline pilot in his spare time, and the band’s current Somewhere Back in Time Tour finds the group, its crew and even some lucky fans crossing the planet in a commercial jet dubbed Ed Force One with Dickinson at the helm. Before the band took the stage for a two-hour-plus, hit-filled set, a video of this aircraft and the ensuing hi-jinx of world travel played on screens hanging from the rafters. This footage got the loyal crowd worked up for what would be an explosive evening of classic heavy metal. Having never seen Maiden before, I had been pumped for months leading up to this event, and I knew that this would be the perfect first show.

Recycling a decent chunk of the stage they used during the mid ’80s Powerslave tour, the band opened with the first track off that record, “Aces High.” From there, Maiden went right into another fan favorite from that record, “2 Minutes to Midnight.” It was not until the fourth song, “The Trooper,” from 1983’s Piece of Mind, that the capacity crowd truly went bonkers. Maybe it was the pyro, maybe it was Dickinson running around in a British military uniform waving the flag proud, or maybe it was just because “The Trooper” is a great song, but the level of excitement reached a new level of mayhem.

You see, Maiden fans are intense. I almost felt guilty being there last night, as I am more of a casual fan who didn’t even own an Iron Maiden CD till last year (I did grow up hearing them everywhere, though, from the locker room at school to my pal’s fecal brown Camero). The merch lines stretched out the door of the arena, with fan after fan placing down hundreds of dollars on everything from T-shirts and soccer jerseys to coffee mugs and posters. Drunk chants of “Maiden! Maiden!” rang thru the packed halls of the arena as fans waited in line for $9 beers.

I was shocked to see how many young kids (on a school night, even) were there. How did these kids get into Maiden? Was this due to “Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock”? It’s not like you find them on the local rock radio station or any music video outlet not called VH1 Classics. I also couldn’t take my eyes off of the people in front of us. Looking like 1990s MTV star Beavis, a man who I will just assume is the “bad uncle” had brought three junior high boys to the show. Throughout the night, as the young kids headbanged and threw up devil horns I couldn’t help but think back to my first arena shows. If only I had an uncle as cool as these kids had. Someone who would blow up condoms and turn them into balloons for the crowd to pass around, pass out lighters to me and my friends. I know my uncle would have never set his jeans on fire to impress us, nor would he have set my jeans on fire when I was not looking. Then again, my uncle looks nothing like Beavis and stopped going to rock shows after almost getting killed at Altamont. He did once give me a sip of beer on Christmas when I was like 9.

As the smell of California’s finest cash crop filled the hot sticky air, the band continued tearing through hit after hit. Bass guitar guru Steve Harris dropped fat low-end bombs on timeless hits like “The Number of the Beast” and “Run to the Hills.” In fact, every note was perfect. The band even played “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” off Powerslave for the first time in California since they’d played it in Long Beach back in the ’80s for the home video release “Live After Death.” Despite being about 20 minutes away (two hours in traffic, though) Dickinson played up that fact by howling “Scream for me, Long Beach!” to the packed crowd.

As the main set wrapped up, the crowd knew it was time for EDDIE — the beloved Maiden mascot. They used the same cyborg-esque Eddie from the Somewhere in Time tour. As he moved across stage, he stopped near stage left and was quickly dressed in a Los Angeles Lakers jersey.

Upon returning for the encore, Bruce chatted up the crowd for a few minutes. He confessed that it was their manager’s lame idea to place a Lakers jersey on Eddie, and that the band couldn’t care less about basketball. When he surveyed the crowd as to its feelings on the Lakers, half of the crowd booed the team that made the very building we were all in famous. But as loud as the boos for the 14-time world champs were, the biggest boos of the night came for Sharon Osbourne.

While thanking Los Angeles for always supporting the band, Dickinson mentioned past gigs, from their last tour that went through Irvine, to that eggstatic time in the desert. As they mentioned the now-famous incident in which Osbourne not only egged the band but cut their PA, Maiden were able to poke fun at the entire event by having their own PA cut in and out during Dickinson’s speech.

After announcing more Southern California dates in May, the band launched into its encore. Just before 11 p.m., they wrapped with “Hallowed Be Thy Name,” from 1982’s The Number of the Beast (the first Maiden album to feature Dickinson).

The house lights came up, and the multicultural crowd (fans came from as far away as Mexico, Japan and Australia) exited into the heavy metal parking lot covered with broken beer bottles, condoms used for their actual purpose, and passed-out fans covered in their own vomit. Sitting in traffic for an hour just to leave the parking lot, I reflected on my evening. From Beavis setting himself on fire to the 45 minutes I waited in the merch line only to find out that the $35 T-shirt (airplane fuel is expensive) I wanted was sold out, the night was perfect. Maiden came, they rocked, they destroyed and they hopped on their jet to the next stop of their world tour. See you in May.

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