Christmas came a little early this year for Central Iowa hard-rock fans as the Merry Mayhem tour featuring Soil, Mudvayne and double headliners Ozzy Osbourne and Rob Zombie made a stop at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines on Sunday night.

Zombie put on a show not soon to be forgotten by concert patrons, using an elaborate set and a number of gimmicks along with hard-hitting fan favorites from both “Hellbilly Deluxe” and his newest record, “Sinister Urge,” to entertain the near sold-out auditorium.

He also told the fans that Sunday’s show was probably “the first show we’ve played in 15 years where people are sitting in chairs.” There were no open areas on the floor for moshing, as seats covered the entire area.

But the band gave fans plenty of reason to get out of their seats, including a set that consisted of giant neon skulls and ghouls, plus three enormous projection screens.

Towering robots and skeletons stalked the stage while the band tore through songs such as “Dragula,” and female dancers were brought out for the Zombie hit, “Living Dead Girl.”

Much to the delight of fans, clips from “House of 1000 Corpses,” the movie Zombie wrote and directed, were shown on the projection screen while the group played the song of the same name. It’s no wonder Universal Studios decided not to distribute this movie, as it is easily one of the goriest and most disturbing movies to come out in recent years.

Zombie even brought out songs like “Superbeast” and “More Human Than Human” from his old band, White Zombie while pentagrams were shown on the screens and fire shot from the stage.

The set was very cartoonish with its B-horror film clips, walking 10-foot skeletons and monster madness, but it seemed to be exactly what he was aiming for, and it was exactly what worked.

Zombie was a tough act to follow, but if anyone was up to the challenge, it was the man who nearly 20 years ago in Des Moines bit the head off of a bat. Ozzy one-upped Zombie right off the bat (no pun intended) by gliding through the air to the stage in a sleigh complete with presents, bones and a 666 license plate.

As he got on stage, a giant crucifix lifted in the air with Old St. Nick himself strapped to it and was immediately set on fire.

The Ozzman has been in the business for 32 years, but has the same unbridled stage energy as he did when he first broke through with Black Sabbath.

Even a recent stress fracture in his leg, which caused the postponement of the tour, didn’t stop the noticeably hobbled “madman of metal” from running side to side on the stage, clapping, jumping and throwing buckets of water and water balloons on fans.

Osbourne and his band, consisting of bass player Robert Trujillo, former Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin, and guitar wizard Zakk Wylde played some material from the new album “Down to Earth” but focused mainly on older songs.

Wylde, a burly, longhaired, gnarly biker looking type with a huge Viking beard, stole the show single-handedly with his shredding guitar work. His guitar solos were scorching, especially during one particular five -minute stretch in which he played with so much intensity that it made you wonder if the music wasn’t coming directly from his body instead of from the stacks of amps.

Hard-rock classics such as “No More Tears” and “Suicide Solutions” whipped the crowd into a frenzy, but it was the last three songs of the set, “Crazy Train,” “Mama I’m Coming Home” and “Paranoid” in which the band shined the brightest.

It was just a good, old fashioned rock `n’ roll show, just the way it should be, complete with guitar solos and plenty of pyrotechnics.

Luckily Zombie and Ozzy more than made up for what was a disappointing set of opening acts, Soil and Mudvayne. Soil was nothing more than a bad Machine Head rip-off, rehashing every aspect of nu-metal that is already growing old. And Mudvayne was just a constant wall of distorted noise, making it nearly impossible to make out any chord progressions or lyrics with the only bright spot coming during a pummeling version of “Dig.”