Judas Priest: Hard Rock Live, Biloxi, MS, 12/03/11

She is ten years old and her face is alight with youthful excitement as she stares up at the curtain with the word “Epitaph” scrawled across the center. She is in the front row, the envy of hundreds who are packed in tight behind her while her father stands protectively beside her. “Rob is my favorite,” she tells me in a quiet voice. “He’s kind of shy”.  And as Rob Halford looked down into her face near the end of Judas Priest’s last show of their tour in Biloxi, Mississippi, he told her, “You will remember this concert the rest of your life”.

Being enchanted may not be the most common way to describe a heavy metal concert experience, but for the young girl seeing her favorite band, the word takes on a whole new meaning. For the man walking out of the venue beside me after Priest had just scorched the beachy earth of this coastal town, he was floating on air as well. “I feel like I’m fourteen again”, he almost shouted. “I’m reliving my youth,” another man admitted as he shook his head in almost disbelief that the legendary British band was only a few feet in front of him once again.

Judas Priest is proud of their longevity. Conceived at the tail end of the 60’s and becoming a full force of nature into the 70’s and 80’s, the guys are now past middle-age, greying slightly, but have never been louder in their career. Guitarist Glenn Tipton is still rocking those bright red leather pants albeit without his blonde partner-in-frets KK Downing this go around. Downing opted out of the band right before this tour cranked up but has been replaced by whiz kid Richie Faulkner who has a Randy Rhoads aura, lightening up solos with a steely fire and finger-tapping frenzy. Along with original bass player Ian Hill, the trio can still do the synchronic headbanging that Tipton, Hill and Downing made synonymous with JP stage shows.

Not wanting to wimp out by any means of the word 40 years down the road, the leather clad band brought smoke, fire bombs, lasers, screaming guitars, even louder ear-piercing harmonic yells from Halford and a big chromed-out motorcycle to go “Hell Bent For Leather”. Prowling the stage like a plotting caged panther, Halford has always made metal cool. He never rushed through the motions, never gave the impression he was tired of singing “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin” for the millionth time, and never belittled his multi-aged crowd for their love of his type of music. “It’s great to see all these different generations of heavy metal fans,” he told the sold out crowd before tearing into “Breaking The Law”. “Some places you couldn’t see the people,” he explained of some of their recent bigger shows. “And now look how I am sweating all over you”.

Playing at least twenty songs from their career, they covered all their favored albums: Stained Glass, Screaming For Vengeance, Point Of Entry, Defenders Of The Faith and Rocka Rolla. With the medieval growling of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” echoing from the speakers, prepping the already highly eager fans, the curtain dropped and the gods began rumbling through “Rapid Fire”, “Metal Gods”, “Heading Out To The Highway” and “Judas Rising”.

“I like your shirt, “Halford said to a fan in the crowd. “I got mine from Wal-Mart”. The singer’s sense of humor was tame compared to the howls emanating from his throat. He still has the vocal chords that cut through glass and guitarist Tipton still has the nimblest of fingers, running up and down his fretboard in a wizarding array of high notes as on “Turbo Lover” and “Beyond The Realms Of Death”. Newcomer Faulkner was a surprise, bringing a chilling breath of fresh air to timeless classics like “Another Thing Comin”, “The Sentinel”, “Blood Red Skies” and “Painkiller”.

Highlights: the beautiful guitar intro with Halford subtlety caressing the words of an old Joan Baez song called “Diamonds & Rust” before bursting it to hell in a metal thunderstorm; the Tipton/Faulkner dueting guitars on “Beyond The Realms”; Halford coming out in a silver sequined cape, hood and devil’s pitchfork that blew sparks to end “Prophecy”; and “Blood Red Skies”, which Halford dubbed their “Spielberg number”.

And then with a “See Ya” and a bow, the band known for inspiring a generation of guitar player wannabes to put on leather pants and scream into hairbrushes, they walked off one of the most powerful podiums in music: the lighted stage.

SETLIST: Rapid Fire, Metal Gods, Heading Out To The Highway, Judas Rising, Starbreaker, Victim Of Changes, Never Satisfied, Diamonds & Rust, Prophecy, Night Crawler, Turbo Lover, Beyond The Realms Of Death, The Sentinel, Blood Red Skies, The Green Manalishi, Breaking The Law, Painkiller, Hellion/Electric Eye, Hell Bent For Leather, You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’, Living After Midnight.

Related Content

Recent Posts

New to Glide

Keep up-to-date with Glide

Twitter