He's a pint-sized guy leading a stadium-sized band. And IRON MAIDEN frontman BRUCE DICKINSON is heading "home" next week, writes David Dunn of the English newspaper Sheffield Today. The story reads as follows:

It has to be said that Iron Maiden foghorn Bruce Dickinson is a man of many colours. No sooner had the Worksop-born singer finished addressing 18,000 screaming Spanish fans in Barcelona and he was informing The Star of how tennis elbow soured his passion for fencing.

Not that the tiresome condition prevented the frontman of one of Britain's biggest and most enduring heavy metal bands from reaching international competition standard, or authoring two books, a script, acting in a film, presenting radio shows - or flying his planes. These days this restless father-of-three cites his role as a pilot for a charter airline as his main job.

Not that you would know it to watch his hyperactive leadership of this UK rock institution. More than 25 years since they became a major force in the music business, Maiden's A Matter Of Life And Death album and world tour have conspired to create one of the most successful periods in their history. In Barcelona they became the first band to sell-out the massive Palau Sant Jordi arena.

"By the time we've got to Earls Court we'll have done the show plenty of times in biggish places," says the 48-year-old son of a car dealer. "Once you get to a certain size you have to go to a huge order of magnitude bigger before it becomes intimidating just because of the sheer size.

"The worst bit of the tour in terms of like 'Aargh' is always the first two weeks. And particularly the first three or four shows, because it doesn't matter how much you rehearse and what you do it's just like there's always that 'oh s***'. You hope you open your mouth and the right stuff is gonna tumble out at the right time. But there's always this fear that it won't."

Come Christmas the band will have played 44 shows to 500,000 people in 18 countries. Bruce brings them to Sheffield's Hallam FM Arena on Monday the 18th.

(Thanks MaidenNorway)