Best Judas Priest Album

Uriah Heep also opened for them back in 2019 when I saw them.

so guess they've been friends for a reaaaaaaaaaaaaallly long time

This is a great setlist, which my 17 year old self probably did not fully appreciate.

McNichols Sports Arena, Denver, CO
12.02.82
World Vengeance Tour

The Hellion [played from tape]
Electric Eye
Riding on the Wind
Heading Out to the Highway
Metal Gods
Bloodstone
Breaking the Law
Sinner
Desert Plains
The Ripper
Diamonds & Rust (Joan Baez cover)
Devil's Child
Screaming for Vengeance
You've Got Another Thing Comin'
Victim of Changes
The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown) (Fleetwood Mac cover)
Hell Bent for Leather

there's not a dull moment in that set. like if you were looking for time to get a beer/pee, maybe you'd choose one of the Top 40 singles if you were real sick of it, but even then you might have to get a little on your pants to get back to your seat in time for the next one.

amusing that they ended with Hell Bent, as that one was often used as an opener across various stages of the 70/80s/90s.

Pretty sure they played "Living After Midnight," even though it's not included on that entry from setlist.fm.

xp Yeah, Hell Bent looks like the standard closer for that tour.

it's funny too, like, they have so many songs that can double as an opener as a closer. so many high intensity bangers that it becomes like "where do you put them", like you're filling out a baseball lineup card.

"Hell Bent" used to be the standard closer because that was when Rob would ride the Harley out from backstage. This was the set list when I saw them in 2008 (with Heaven and Hell, Motörhead, and Testament). I went with my brother — the only concert we've ever gone to together — and he brought his oldest son, who was eight or nine. He fell asleep in his seat toward the end of Priest's set.

Dawn of Creation [tape]
Prophecy
Metal Gods
Eat Me Alive
Between the Hammer and the Anvil
Devil's Child
Breaking the Law
Hell Patrol
Dissident Aggressor
Angel
The Hellion [tape]
Electric Eye
Rock Hard, Ride Free
Painkiller

Encore:
Hell Bent for Leather
The Green Manalishi (With the Two Pronged Crown)
You've Got Another Thing Comin'

Yeah, that was when Rob brought out the Harley. Man, that was fun.

Motörhead was a band I definitely didn't appreciate back in the day. I saw them when they opened for Ozzy on the Diary tour. It didn't help that they sounded like sludge in what was a fairly small venue.

looks like Hell Bent for Leather was mostly used as an opener between 1979-1980 and the Painkiller tour.

(i've listened to so many boots this week..it's been fun)

When I was about 12 to about 15, I had a giant poster of Rob and his Harley hanging up in my bedroom — the pose he was striking was straight out of Scorpio Rising, and it was literally taped to my closet door. I wonder what my mother thought...

what I can't figure out is what was Halford's deal for the reunion tour. dude was in relatively great vocal health, his voice had settled into a deeper baritone but he still had tons of power on the first two Halford solo albums and the live album (like he sang a version of "Riding on the Wind" which was incredible on that one).

so they pull out classics like "Exciter" and also the never-before-played "Hell Patrol", and the motherfucker sings the chorus to BOTH of them down one octave, sapping all intensity out of the song. like I was watching Youtube of the DVD they put out from that tour and dude was just scared of the high notes on a lot of songs.

they did "Hell Patrol" in 2019 and he did do the high notes. granted, he's found other ways to produce those notes, as he can't produce them like he did in 1991 (it's a little more head voice in the head/chest combo than previous)...but it's still coming out and pretty strong for a 75 year old.

I'd have been pretty mad to hear "Exciter" sung like a dude singing the song around a campfire had I paid all that money to see that first reunion tour.

xpost LOL....the raw, unsubtle grimy non-heteronormative sexuality of Priest is one of the best parts.

"Eat Me Alive" is better raw sexual energy than any hair band could come up with.

back to the vocal discussion, he released a second book that I haven't read yet, but I read an excerpt where he said he'd never taken any vocal lessons (not surprisingly, supposedly Dio didn't either, some people just come by it naturally), but it was fascinating to hear him describe how he *thinks* he produced the sound for various songs...like he outright didn't even know himself how he did it! He knew how to do it well enough that he could replicate it consistently, but even he was kind of flummoxed by how he created his signature sound.

meanwhile I've been singing since I was 11, took voice lessons for years, was a voice major at Florida State University for one year, and all of the pedagogy and theory about how to produce sound made me go cross-eyed and stressed out. I decided to change majors. I've since done professional a capella barbershop/caroling gigs, and yet after decades of work, practice, and study I can't do even a fraction of what he did in his prime. I doubt half of the men in the opera program at FSU could either.

like I even managed in my 30s-40s to add basically another octave via chest/head voice through a lot of work and effort and at the end of the day it's still not even close. I don't know how the dude ever did what he did in his prime or even how he does it today at age 75, admittedly in a much reduced capacity.

so they pull out classics like "Exciter" and also the never-before-played "Hell Patrol", and the motherfucker sings the chorus to BOTH of them down one octave, sapping all intensity out of the song. like I was watching Youtube of the DVD they put out from that tour and dude was just scared of the high notes on a lot of songs.

That's interesting. I saw Priest for the first time in 2021 on the 50th anniversary tour, and while I appreciated that Halford was going for just about all the high notes, I thought his occasional dips into lower registers sounded great and wished he would do that more.

oh for sure, there's definitely things *now* where it makes more sense to do that because he has to protect his instrument which is much more frail and it might sound better aesthetically than straining.

in 2004 though, he was in a bit better vocal health.

listening to Angel of Revolution for the first time in over a decade, and got to "Revolution"

did JP intentionally rip off "Mountain Song" here?

"Defenders Of The Faith" is all-time for me.

JAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
breakerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

LOVE BITES! (chakka-chukka-chakka)

A few months ago I saw Andy Edwards talking about Simon Phillips on Sin After Sin, he said he was a game changer for metal drumming and it might have only been a day's work for Phillips. I'm not a big enough Priest or metal fan to track all this stuff, so is this something people talk about often?