Have you heard the isolated tracks?
I have a hard time believing it is actually Steve Harris. Although the sound seems genuine, the playing is so godawful it just doesn't make sense this man fills large venues all over the world... 
Sure I have, what do you think? Well, he does jump around quite a bit and they play these enormously long tours where they get more knackered every night, so I'm not as surprised/disappointed as some former Dutch juvenile Maiden fans such as ...
I've seen the man in concert, all that clacky-di-clack never sounded accurate to me (but then Chris Squire was quite sloppy too when I saw him recently). Isolated tracks can be cruel. Music - Nofi will love me for this - is more than the sum of its parts!
There really is no good definition of Heavy Metal. I remember the MC 5 - before they were all of the sudden punk godfathers - being called heavy metal. Judas Priest consider themselves Heavy Metal, Deep Purple have been called it often enough, yet disdain the term. Motörhead don't want to be called a heavy metal band, but they don't sound like reggae to me either. Even Bachman Turner Overdrive were called heavy metal (never mind Randy Bachman's penchant for Latin Amercian chords: "Looking out for No 1"). Angus Young likes to believe he's more Chuck Berry than a heavy metal guitarist, but seeing him live in concert you might think otherwise. Iron Maiden were at the forefront of the NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal), yet they do have a proggish (if pedestrian) influence too. Holding Hard Rock, Heavy Rock and Heavy Metal apart, is tricky sometimes and maybe there isn't a real differentiation.
We can attempt a definition here, I'll start:
"Heavy Metal is a blues-derived guitar riffs and solos oriented high energy music of dramatic nature with minor chords often prevailing, aimed at a mostly male and adolescent audience, with usually high-pitched vocals whose melodies tower over the instrumental melée while the rhythm section provides a steady backbeat in quarter, eights, sixteens or shuffled triplets."
Even while writing I can think of bands that are regarded as heavy metal, but don't qualify for all or even most of the above. You guys come up with a better definition, we'll copyright it then.
