It looks like some diabolical temple for the damned. Wide stone steps lead up to a gigantic skull, its bat wings outstretched, casting its ghastly grin upon several thousand over-excited metalheads. If this is a temple, then Avenged Sevenfold’s frontman M. Shadows, a tattooed, muscular spook clad in black and grey with dark glasses, is its abominable priest.

As he flies about the stage, there is something tribal about the chanting of the seemingly endless crowd, who, as one body, sway, fist-pump, scream, and jump to his will. 'Electric' is a much overused adjective when we talk about atmosphere but whoever first came up with the phrase must have been a rock and roll fan, because every moment of this thrilling, theatrical and full-throttle show was charged with incessant and intense energy.

After a couple of numbers from the band’s latest album, Hail To The King, the fans, which range from teenage to middle age, go berserk. Up in assigned seating, they swarm into the isles and fall over their seats, before attendants very sternly usher them back. But by the time the band launch into an old favourite, the classic cranium crusher ‘Buried Alive,’ everyone’s up again.