When Bush and Blair launched the war on Iraq, grey-headed baby boomers lamented the lack of protest in modern rock.

Cue, albeit a few years on, Massive Attack’s stunning, take-no- prisoners tour to promote new album Heligoland, which touched down at the Dome on Tuesday.

As well as supporting a Palestinian refugee charity, the band’s approach to shock-and-awe protest featured a screen the width of the stage that augmented the eye- popping light show. Visuals included pictures of war victims, quotes on freedom by the likes of Bakunin and Rousseau and a chilling transcript of radio chatter from an army patrol going into attack.

Politics aside, the light show could simply be pretty, as with guest vocalist Martina Topley Bird’s soulful reworking of Teardrop to beams of light raining on the audience.

Shock and awesome, really.

And the music? Heligoland sounds reflective, as if looking at an imperfect world in the peace just before sunrise. Live, Massive Attack’s dance roots muscled to the fore as they administered a super-strength dose of adrenalin.

Robert Del Naja leapt around in front of a hot band that negotiated the handbreak turns of his songs with jaw-dropping precision.

As well as classics such as Angel, Unfinished Sympathy and Teardrop – surely one of the most beautiful tunes in the rock universe – highlights from the new album included Grantley Marshall’s gravelly vocal on Splitting The Atom.

Even Del Naja looked blissed-out as he turned to the screen and danced to his creation. Only February and one of the year’s gig highlights already.