The event was organised by Hezbollah, the "party of God" whose martyrs stared down from giant billboards in a specially built stadium. But as the helicopter carrying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad circled above tens of thousands of Shia Muslims in Bint Jbeil, south Lebanon, the atmosphere came close to that of a rock concert.
Hezbollah security fought to hold back delirious young men trying to throw themselves over barriers as the Iranian president, making his first state visit to Lebanon, took to the stage to address supporters in the heartland of what he called Lebanon's "school of resistance".
"Today the resistance in Lebanon has become an example to the resistance of all the nations," Ahmadinejad told the crowd to cheers, lashing out at "Zionists" in Israel who he said would soon be forced to "admit defeat". "Resistance is the key of victory to the Lebanese nation and all the nations in the region," Ahmadinejad said. In a separate section, women called out for water as those who had fainted were carried out on stretchers.
Thousands of balloons in the red, white and green of the Iranian flag drifted across the sky, to fall over the highways and billboards of Lebanon, which has been transformed to welcome Ahmadinejad. It was his nation that established Hezbollah and arms the group, the only Arab fighting force to have held its own against Israel's hugely superior military.
"The soul of our families is beating with pride on seeing you in the land of clerics and martyrs and victory," said Mohammed Raad, a Hezbollah MP introducing the Iranian president. "The resistance [Hezbollah] and Iran are linked ideologically. That's why we are seen as a threat."
Iran's president may be reviled in the west, but in this town – still rebuilding after it was devastated by some of the fiercest fighting in the July 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israeli troops – Ahmadinejad could have been in no doubt he was among friends, just a few miles from the border with Israel.
"Ahmadinejad is our only support," said Um Hassan, a 38-year-old shouting to make herself heard above the thunder of music. "When everyone was against us, when the Arabs were against us, he was the only one who was with us. Iran has built up our country and supports us with money. Ahmadinejad can be a leader for humanity, both Muslim and Christian."
Um Hassan had been waiting for four hours and was overheating in her full black chador. But she said: "It's definitely been worth it. This is history."
There were cheers as the names of the Lebanese president, Michel Suleiman, and the Shia speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri, were read out to the crowd, but there were awkward jeers when Sa'ad al-Hariri, the Sunni prime minister, was announced, underscoring the deep political and religious divides that continue to threaten this country's stability.
Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, has said an investigation into the assassination of Hariri's father, Rafiq, a five-time prime minister, will indict Hezbollah members in the killing, a move he has attacked as an American and Israeli conspiracy against his militant group.
There were reports of Israeli helicopters circling close to the border, but they did not cross into Lebanon. In advance of Ahmadinejad's visit there had been calls in Israel to try to assassinate the Iranian president, comparing him to Hitler in 1939. There was no sign of a reported plan for him to throw stones across the border in a symbolic act of defiance.
Ahmadinejad was accompanied on his trip by his wife, Azam Farahi, who visited the southern village of Mleeta, where Hezbollah recently opened an outdoor museum displaying captured Israeli tanks and replicas of underground tunnels used by militants in their fight against the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon, which ended in 2000.
Farahi met the Hezbollah women's committee and the families of dead fighters. On leaving Bint Jbeil, Ahmadinejad travelled to Qana, site of Israeli airstrikes that have twice killed dozens of civilians. "I came to say peace be upon Qana, the land of endurance and resistance," Ahmadinejad said. "Today, Qana is a living evidence of the valiant resistance and of the Israeli enemy's criminal mentality."