Birmingham’s legends shine at commonwealth games shows

A 20-PAGE CELEBRATION

Buckle up and prepare to be taken on the ride of a lifetime. Steven Wilson is back with The Overview , an album that even he admits is prog. Comprising two tracks, the conceptual suite includes lyrics from XTC’s Andy Partridge and visuals that are out of this world. Prog visits the musician at home to get the lowdown.

With Iron Maiden celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, we talk to all the members of the band and look back over the successes, trials, tribulations, thrills, spills and genre-defining records of the longest-running and arguably greatest heavy metal band of them all.

For SMALL FACES , 1968 was a year of extremes, from hit singles and a career-defining album to a final, onstage bust-up. But while the bonds between them were strained by internal tensions and external dramas, the music they made in their last months together pointed tantalisingly in bold new directions. As an expanded version of their posthumous The Autumn Stone set reveals fresh treasures, Rob Hughes discovers what really transpired during the band’s final, tumultuous 12 months. “We were splitting up,” says Kenney Jones. “But we sounded so great.”