JUDAS PRIEST
Hard Rock Live, Biloxi, MS
December 3, 2011
The last time Jen and I saw Rob Halford perform live, it did not go well.
The occasion was the 2002 edition of the Bang Your Head festival in Balingen,
Germany, and Halford was there with his solo band. It was one of the
weakest, most perfunctory, and all-around lamest shows I can remember.
After going on stage late, the self-proclaimed Metal God stood motionless in a
semi-circle of monitors, hunched over his teleprompter, trying (and often
failing) to hit the notes, all without even a modicum of interaction with band
members or acknowledgment of the crowd. After that day, I honestly never
expected to pay money to see Halford sing again. (This sentiment was
reinforced when I watched the DVD of Priest in Japan on the ‘Angel of
Retribution’ tour, where once again he seemed to be a mere burned-out shell of
what he once was.)
Then we heard that Judas Priest had a scheduled the final date of the 2011 North
American leg of their Epitaph tour at Hard Rock Live, an intimate 1,400-capacity
venue nestled inside the Hard Rock Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi, a mere 60
miles from the front door of our house. The icing on the cake was that the
gig was slated for a Saturday night, so there would be no disruption of weekday
work routines for either of us. So we shelled out for a pair of $84 floor
tickets (balcony seats were pricier, if you can believe that), and drove over to
Biloxi on the first Saturday in December to attend the sold-out show. We
passed a low-key afternoon checking out the Christmas decorations at the Beau
Rivage casino next door to the Hard Rock, admiring the rock’n’roll memorabilia
at the Hard Rock casino (a pair of Vinnie Vincent’s leather pants – really?),
killing time at the penny slot machines, and eating an ass-kicking Asian buffet
for just $9.99 apiece.
I’m not sure how it came to pass that Priest (who had been playing mostly
full-size arenas on this tour) were booked to Hard Rock Live. But the
tour’s opening acts (Black Label Society and Thin Lizzy) were not on the bill,
presumably because there wasn’t enough ticket revenue to pay them and Priest
too. Nor were there any openers of any description. Instead it was
just Priest. I was more than a little concerned that we wouldn’t get the
full 140-minute spectacle that Priest had been delivering at other tour stops,
whether because the Hard Rock people wanted to get the audience back out on the
casino floor to gamble or because J.P. weren’t interested in exerting
themselves for such a small crowd. Either way, I was pleasantly surprised.
Doors opened at 6:30 p.m., and we spent the next hour and a half standing around
on the packed floor waiting for the show to start from our vantage point, which
was just four rows from the stage over on Tipton / Hill’s side. The crowd
was well-behaved. There was no pushing or jostling, just a lot of
beer-drinking and hanging out. I smiled to see that the percentage of
greybeards was so high that Jen and I must have been below the median age of the
gig’s attendees. When was the last time that happened? I gazed over
at the merch booth, where Priest t-shirts were being hawked at $35 to $60 (!!!)
a pop, with very few takers. And there were two rather chunky women
standing right in front of us who were chanting Priest drummer Scott Travis’s
name even during the soundcheck. I don’t think they were personal friends
of his or anything. One of them was wearing a Kottak Attack t-shirt (you
know, the Scorpions drummer guy), so I think they just had a thing for
drummers. Anyway, it was most amusing to watch them carry on.
At a few minutes before 8:00 p.m., Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” began blaring out
of the P.A. at a much higher volume than the songs before it. The
audience sprang to life immediately, shouting the lyrics along with Ozzy.
Jen marveled that so many people knew every word of this iconic song.
Then the Epitaph curtain came down with a rush, and Judas Priest stormed the
stage to the strains of “Rapid Fire.” What followed was one of the best
concert experiences I’ve had in 2011. It was immediately striking just how
close we were to the band. This was a cozy, intimate gig, with Halford,
Glenn Tipton and new kid axe-slinger Richie Faulkner right in the crowd’s faces
from beginning to end. When Halford would crouch down and belt out his
screams at the front of the stage, he was probably no more than 5 feet away from
us. Amazing. It was also gratifying to see that, despite the scaled-down
stage production, Biloxi received a full complement of flame throwers (back of
the stage), smoke shooters (front of the stage), and laser effects (everywhere)
in song after song. The projection screen at the back of the stage often
displayed the album cover corresponding to whatever song they were
playing. A simple, but cool effect.
What really surprised me, though, was just how energetic the band were.
Faulkner, especially, was a ball of energy, working the stage as if he’d been
in Judas Priest for ages and not seeming intimidated or overmatched in the
slightest. Kudos to Tipton, as well, for sharing the spotlight with his
young guitar colleague. The Tipton/Faulkner team was locked in on the
dual-guitar parts and played brilliantly. For his part, Tipton was plenty
animated too, headbanging in his red leather trousers, making eye contact with
the first few rows of fans (I swear he was staring right at me during the
entire first verse of “Beyond the Realms of Death,” smiling as I sang every
word at the top of my lungs). Ian Hill was chained to the back corner of
the stage, as usual, but it sure was fun to watch the old geezer rock out back
there. It was a treat to watch Scott Travis too. The guy is just so
fluid behind the kit that it looked like he was having a stroll through the
park for most of the material. He also caught the gaze of the chunkers in
front of us during “Rapid Fire,” and gave a slight nod of his head to them
mid-song, just to show them he knew they were there. I thought they were
going to swoon on the ground.
Halford. What to say about Halford? How about this: I was
completely wrong. The guy has reinvigorated himself. I don’t know
how he did it, but he truly was The Metal God tonight. Moving around the
stage? You bet. Interacting with crowd and band members? All
the way. Hitting the notes? Holy crap, was he ever. Those
classic Halford screams at the end of “Beyond the Realms of Death” and “Victim
of Changes”? Nailed ‘em. He even did a passable-to-good version of
the viciously difficult “Painkiller.” Only on “The Sentinel” did he alter
the vocal lines considerably as an accommodation to his voice. Oh, and it
was also quite entertaining to see all of his wardrobe changes. I swear
the dude must have had 10 different over-the-top jackets, ranging from
leather-n-studs biker coats to full-length floor dusters to denim affairs to
this bizarre iridescent thing. Every two or three songs, he’d go disappear
backstage and come out in another get-up. Unnecessary? Sure, but he
looked cool. And he was working his ass off. I could see the sweat
glistening on the back of his bald head throughout the entire gig.
Halford must’ve been sweltering up there in all that heavy gear, but that
didn’t stop him or even slow him down.
It’s hard to pick favorite moments because the concert was strewn with
highlights. “Judas is Rising” was an early treat because I think it’s a
great song and I’d never heard it played live before. “Victim of Changes”
was simply epic. “Night Crawler” kicked ass and took names. But the
absolute pinnacle for me was the one-two combo of “Beyond the Realms of Death”
and “The Sentinel.” I swear, heavy metal just doesn’t get much better than
this, folks. Also, it was funny to see Halford put down the microphone for
the entirety of “Breaking the Law” and simply act as a cheerleader while the
audience sang every word. The motorcycle bit during “Hell Bent for
Leather” is still great theater, even if it got a little silly with Halford
lashing his riding crop at Faulkner’s guitar. During “Electric Eye,”
Tipton and Faulkner had some fun. During the “I’m made of metal” part,
they’d both point at Tipton. For “My circuits gleam,” they’d point at
Faulkner. At “I am perpetual,” they’d both point back at Hill. They
did this during each run-through of the chorus, chuckling all along. And I
got a big laugh out of Faulkner baiting the crowd during the acoustic part on
“Diamonds and Rust.” People were asking him for guitar picks, so he
gestured that they’d have to sing along if they wanted a pick. But
apparently they didn’t know the words, so he gave them a good-natured ribbing
(and no picks), all while strumming away on the acoustic. The new guy
definitely holds his own. Oh, and the stage production was simply nutty on
“You’ve Got Another Thing Coming,” when flamethrowers, smoke machines and lasers
were all going like gangbusters, all at once. What a spectacle!
A couple more anecdotes from the audience. Somewhere around the middle of
the set, I got a tap on the shoulder. It was a short guy, probably 50,
who had seen me singing along and wanted to sing with me, or something.
Me, I just wanted to rock out. Jen laughed, saying “You always seem to
make friends at concerts.” The guy finally left me alone during “Blood
Red Skies,” to which I know virtually none of the lyrics. Yeah, it’s an
excellent song, but the ‘Ram it Down’ album wasn’t so great so it didn’t
exactly garner a lot of airplay in my college dorm room back in the day.
Oh, and remember the Scott Travis-loving ladies in front of us? At the
end of the gig, Travis came out to the front of the stage, stepped out onto the
barricade, reached into the crowd, and handed one of his drumsticks to
them. One of the women became so overcome with emotion that she promptly
crumpled onto the floor, tears of joy streaming down his cheeks.
Pathetic? Maybe, but it was an awfully classy thing that Travis did,
knowing how much it would mean to them. Finally, “Living After Midnight”
was never my favorite Priest song, but I watched Jen jumping up and down and
singing in full voice, a look of unmitigated joy on her face, and it was a
happy moment indeed for this metal husband.
Bottom line: We had a blast. I never would have believed that Judas
Priest could conjure this kind of heavy metal magic in 2011. And it was
such an amazing bonus to have this fantastic live concert experience in a
club-sized venue less than an hour from home. Naysayers be damned, Priest
can still deliver the goods. So when the Epitaph tour inevitably returns
to these shores sometime in 2012, you’d be a fool to miss it.
Setlist:
Rapid Fire
Metal Gods
Heading Out to the Highway
Judas is Rising
Starbreaker
Victim of Changes
Never Satisfied
Diamonds and Rust
The Prophecy
Night Crawler
Turbo Lover
Beyond the Realms of Death
The Sentinel
Blood Red Skies
Green Manalishi
Breaking the Law
Painkiller
Hellion (taped) / Electric Eye
Hell Bent for Leather
You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’
Living after Midnight
Hard Rock Live, Biloxi, MS
December 3, 2011
The last time Jen and I saw Rob Halford perform live, it did not go well.
The occasion was the 2002 edition of the Bang Your Head festival in Balingen,
Germany, and Halford was there with his solo band. It was one of the
weakest, most perfunctory, and all-around lamest shows I can remember.
After going on stage late, the self-proclaimed Metal God stood motionless in a
semi-circle of monitors, hunched over his teleprompter, trying (and often
failing) to hit the notes, all without even a modicum of interaction with band
members or acknowledgment of the crowd. After that day, I honestly never
expected to pay money to see Halford sing again. (This sentiment was
reinforced when I watched the DVD of Priest in Japan on the ‘Angel of
Retribution’ tour, where once again he seemed to be a mere burned-out shell of
what he once was.)
Then we heard that Judas Priest had a scheduled the final date of the 2011 North
American leg of their Epitaph tour at Hard Rock Live, an intimate 1,400-capacity
venue nestled inside the Hard Rock Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi, a mere 60
miles from the front door of our house. The icing on the cake was that the
gig was slated for a Saturday night, so there would be no disruption of weekday
work routines for either of us. So we shelled out for a pair of $84 floor
tickets (balcony seats were pricier, if you can believe that), and drove over to
Biloxi on the first Saturday in December to attend the sold-out show. We
passed a low-key afternoon checking out the Christmas decorations at the Beau
Rivage casino next door to the Hard Rock, admiring the rock’n’roll memorabilia
at the Hard Rock casino (a pair of Vinnie Vincent’s leather pants – really?),
killing time at the penny slot machines, and eating an ass-kicking Asian buffet
for just $9.99 apiece.
I’m not sure how it came to pass that Priest (who had been playing mostly
full-size arenas on this tour) were booked to Hard Rock Live. But the
tour’s opening acts (Black Label Society and Thin Lizzy) were not on the bill,
presumably because there wasn’t enough ticket revenue to pay them and Priest
too. Nor were there any openers of any description. Instead it was
just Priest. I was more than a little concerned that we wouldn’t get the
full 140-minute spectacle that Priest had been delivering at other tour stops,
whether because the Hard Rock people wanted to get the audience back out on the
casino floor to gamble or because J.P. weren’t interested in exerting
themselves for such a small crowd. Either way, I was pleasantly surprised.
Doors opened at 6:30 p.m., and we spent the next hour and a half standing around
on the packed floor waiting for the show to start from our vantage point, which
was just four rows from the stage over on Tipton / Hill’s side. The crowd
was well-behaved. There was no pushing or jostling, just a lot of
beer-drinking and hanging out. I smiled to see that the percentage of
greybeards was so high that Jen and I must have been below the median age of the
gig’s attendees. When was the last time that happened? I gazed over
at the merch booth, where Priest t-shirts were being hawked at $35 to $60 (!!!)
a pop, with very few takers. And there were two rather chunky women
standing right in front of us who were chanting Priest drummer Scott Travis’s
name even during the soundcheck. I don’t think they were personal friends
of his or anything. One of them was wearing a Kottak Attack t-shirt (you
know, the Scorpions drummer guy), so I think they just had a thing for
drummers. Anyway, it was most amusing to watch them carry on.
At a few minutes before 8:00 p.m., Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” began blaring out
of the P.A. at a much higher volume than the songs before it. The
audience sprang to life immediately, shouting the lyrics along with Ozzy.
Jen marveled that so many people knew every word of this iconic song.
Then the Epitaph curtain came down with a rush, and Judas Priest stormed the
stage to the strains of “Rapid Fire.” What followed was one of the best
concert experiences I’ve had in 2011. It was immediately striking just how
close we were to the band. This was a cozy, intimate gig, with Halford,
Glenn Tipton and new kid axe-slinger Richie Faulkner right in the crowd’s faces
from beginning to end. When Halford would crouch down and belt out his
screams at the front of the stage, he was probably no more than 5 feet away from
us. Amazing. It was also gratifying to see that, despite the scaled-down
stage production, Biloxi received a full complement of flame throwers (back of
the stage), smoke shooters (front of the stage), and laser effects (everywhere)
in song after song. The projection screen at the back of the stage often
displayed the album cover corresponding to whatever song they were
playing. A simple, but cool effect.
What really surprised me, though, was just how energetic the band were.
Faulkner, especially, was a ball of energy, working the stage as if he’d been
in Judas Priest for ages and not seeming intimidated or overmatched in the
slightest. Kudos to Tipton, as well, for sharing the spotlight with his
young guitar colleague. The Tipton/Faulkner team was locked in on the
dual-guitar parts and played brilliantly. For his part, Tipton was plenty
animated too, headbanging in his red leather trousers, making eye contact with
the first few rows of fans (I swear he was staring right at me during the
entire first verse of “Beyond the Realms of Death,” smiling as I sang every
word at the top of my lungs). Ian Hill was chained to the back corner of
the stage, as usual, but it sure was fun to watch the old geezer rock out back
there. It was a treat to watch Scott Travis too. The guy is just so
fluid behind the kit that it looked like he was having a stroll through the
park for most of the material. He also caught the gaze of the chunkers in
front of us during “Rapid Fire,” and gave a slight nod of his head to them
mid-song, just to show them he knew they were there. I thought they were
going to swoon on the ground.
Halford. What to say about Halford? How about this: I was
completely wrong. The guy has reinvigorated himself. I don’t know
how he did it, but he truly was The Metal God tonight. Moving around the
stage? You bet. Interacting with crowd and band members? All
the way. Hitting the notes? Holy crap, was he ever. Those
classic Halford screams at the end of “Beyond the Realms of Death” and “Victim
of Changes”? Nailed ‘em. He even did a passable-to-good version of
the viciously difficult “Painkiller.” Only on “The Sentinel” did he alter
the vocal lines considerably as an accommodation to his voice. Oh, and it
was also quite entertaining to see all of his wardrobe changes. I swear
the dude must have had 10 different over-the-top jackets, ranging from
leather-n-studs biker coats to full-length floor dusters to denim affairs to
this bizarre iridescent thing. Every two or three songs, he’d go disappear
backstage and come out in another get-up. Unnecessary? Sure, but he
looked cool. And he was working his ass off. I could see the sweat
glistening on the back of his bald head throughout the entire gig.
Halford must’ve been sweltering up there in all that heavy gear, but that
didn’t stop him or even slow him down.
It’s hard to pick favorite moments because the concert was strewn with
highlights. “Judas is Rising” was an early treat because I think it’s a
great song and I’d never heard it played live before. “Victim of Changes”
was simply epic. “Night Crawler” kicked ass and took names. But the
absolute pinnacle for me was the one-two combo of “Beyond the Realms of Death”
and “The Sentinel.” I swear, heavy metal just doesn’t get much better than
this, folks. Also, it was funny to see Halford put down the microphone for
the entirety of “Breaking the Law” and simply act as a cheerleader while the
audience sang every word. The motorcycle bit during “Hell Bent for
Leather” is still great theater, even if it got a little silly with Halford
lashing his riding crop at Faulkner’s guitar. During “Electric Eye,”
Tipton and Faulkner had some fun. During the “I’m made of metal” part,
they’d both point at Tipton. For “My circuits gleam,” they’d point at
Faulkner. At “I am perpetual,” they’d both point back at Hill. They
did this during each run-through of the chorus, chuckling all along. And I
got a big laugh out of Faulkner baiting the crowd during the acoustic part on
“Diamonds and Rust.” People were asking him for guitar picks, so he
gestured that they’d have to sing along if they wanted a pick. But
apparently they didn’t know the words, so he gave them a good-natured ribbing
(and no picks), all while strumming away on the acoustic. The new guy
definitely holds his own. Oh, and the stage production was simply nutty on
“You’ve Got Another Thing Coming,” when flamethrowers, smoke machines and lasers
were all going like gangbusters, all at once. What a spectacle!
A couple more anecdotes from the audience. Somewhere around the middle of
the set, I got a tap on the shoulder. It was a short guy, probably 50,
who had seen me singing along and wanted to sing with me, or something.
Me, I just wanted to rock out. Jen laughed, saying “You always seem to
make friends at concerts.” The guy finally left me alone during “Blood
Red Skies,” to which I know virtually none of the lyrics. Yeah, it’s an
excellent song, but the ‘Ram it Down’ album wasn’t so great so it didn’t
exactly garner a lot of airplay in my college dorm room back in the day.
Oh, and remember the Scott Travis-loving ladies in front of us? At the
end of the gig, Travis came out to the front of the stage, stepped out onto the
barricade, reached into the crowd, and handed one of his drumsticks to
them. One of the women became so overcome with emotion that she promptly
crumpled onto the floor, tears of joy streaming down his cheeks.
Pathetic? Maybe, but it was an awfully classy thing that Travis did,
knowing how much it would mean to them. Finally, “Living After Midnight”
was never my favorite Priest song, but I watched Jen jumping up and down and
singing in full voice, a look of unmitigated joy on her face, and it was a
happy moment indeed for this metal husband.
Bottom line: We had a blast. I never would have believed that Judas
Priest could conjure this kind of heavy metal magic in 2011. And it was
such an amazing bonus to have this fantastic live concert experience in a
club-sized venue less than an hour from home. Naysayers be damned, Priest
can still deliver the goods. So when the Epitaph tour inevitably returns
to these shores sometime in 2012, you’d be a fool to miss it.
Setlist:
Rapid Fire
Metal Gods
Heading Out to the Highway
Judas is Rising
Starbreaker
Victim of Changes
Never Satisfied
Diamonds and Rust
The Prophecy
Night Crawler
Turbo Lover
Beyond the Realms of Death
The Sentinel
Blood Red Skies
Green Manalishi
Breaking the Law
Painkiller
Hellion (taped) / Electric Eye
Hell Bent for Leather
You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’
Living after Midnight