After reading A History Of Heavy Metal by comedian and musician Andrew O’Neill a couple of months ago I was lucky enough to pick up the DVD of the live show he put together to accompany it after a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Recorded at Camden’s famed Underworld venue, it immediately has the right feel for a show about heavy metal, even on DVD, as O’Neill points out because the club is well known for showcasing heavy bands (as I write this Floridian death metallers Deicide have just played there, for example) and the audience is clearly one invested in the metal subculture with patch covered jackets and a fine range of hair and beards immediately evident.

Of course the basic gist and a fair amount of the content of the show are the same as the O’Neill’s book, with a few passages read directly from it, but with his delivery (which does even come through in the written version) it really comes to life.

Added to this he uses slides to visualise some aspects, a little like an occult Dave Gorman, albeit with less graphs and more comparisons between heavy metal heroes and famous women for the 80s and 90s, ridiculous photos of Geordie black metal pioneers Venom (including a hilarious cartoon) and repeated encouragement to Metallica’s drummer Lars Ulrich to sit down.

What really brings the show to life though, particularly when compared to the book, is the music.

O’Neill is known as guitarist and vocalist with The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing but here is joined by three-quarters of technical death metal band Reprisal to demonstrate various aspects of metal from the early sounds of proto-metal from Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple to the death metal of the late 80s and even into nu metal of the early 2000s.

As well as extracts of well known songs, in some cases with lyrics rewritten to highlight some points to great comedic effect, they start the show with a medley of well known tracks telling the history of not just metal but the universe as a whole in relation to heavy metal.

They then close the show with an original track bringing in aspects of everything discussed in the show, highlighting the show’s overall thesis that the best time to be a metal fan is now as you can still listen to the early classics while new bands are constantly experimenting with the genre in different ways.

I’d like to think that, rather like the book, there’s something in the show to enjoy whether you like metal or not, but definitely there’s a lot of fun to find as a fan too thanks to O’Neill’s evident enthusiasm and love of the music along with his ability to poke fun at it without ridiculing as many other comedians and commentators might.

While at an hour and a half O’Neill obviously has to gloss over some things he goes deeper into in the book it still all makes for a great show and the way its shot does a great job of putting you right there in the Underworld helping the whole atmosphere greatly and creating something I’d strongly recommend to both comedy and metal fans alike.