Iron Maiden play the ACC in Toronto tonight and for fans of the heavy metal band the next best thing to seeing them live in concert is to witness their majestic arrival via their custom painted Ed Force One.

In fact, there's such a cult following for this ex-Air France 747-400 that it has its own hashtag. Luckily for us, the band collects tweets and Instagram photos of the plane here.

In Toronto, it's always been a plane spotter's favourite pastime to get pics of the plane on its arrival into the city - and that's exactly what they did when the Ed Force One arrived via Montreal yesterday afternoon.

Back in 2008 the plane looked a bit different (it was smaller too) but it was captured in all its blue, yellow and white glory here.

To get a sense for the enthusiasm greeting yesterday's arrival check out the video below. A sizeable crowd of plane spotters waited next to Pearson to capture the moment it descended from the sky.

This shorter video shows the arrival from a different angle.

Top photo via SnapshotJa in the blogTO Flickr pool.