A couple of years ago I missed an opportunity to see Judas Priest in concert. At the time, I had a decision to make whether to see Slayer/King Diamond or Judas Priest/Saxon. I chose Slayer/King Diamond because I did not think the chance to see King Diamond would come back around. I figured Judas Priest would come around again. That turned out to be true. And bonus, they were coming off an absolutely terrific new album, Firepower.
This concert was played at Stir Cove in Council Bluffs, IA, which is where Judas Priest played before and where I saw Slayer and King Diamond. It is an outdoor venue, which is usually fine, but it was pretty cold Friday night.
The opening band was a blues/rock band from England called The Temperance Movement. They were pretty good, catchy certainly. The style is not usually my kind of music but it reminds me quite a bit of rock music from the 1960's/1970's.
Judas Priest was next on the stage and they were absolutely the reason I was going to this concert in the first place. Even my wife was excited to see them as she has come to enjoy them quite a bit, particularly the early 1980's stuff. She loves "Turbo Lover" for reasons I cannot explain. Priest sounded terrific, though Rob Halford's voice is clearly aging at this point. K.K. Downing and Glen Tipton are no longer in the band so the dual guitars are handled by Andy Sneap (Hell, Sabbat) and Richie Faulkner. The new duo does a remarkable job at replacing the legendary Downing/Tipton. Most of the Priest classics were played and though Halford's voice has weathered, he still managed a few blood-curdling shrieks. The only song I noticed was definitely missing was "Some Heads are Gonna Roll". The band sprinkled in some of the new stuff off or Firepower, which is currently one of my contenders for Album of the Year. Priest was absolutely worth seeing live.
The final band of the night was Deep Purple. Despite their status as one of the early influencers on heavy metal and even bordering on metal themselves, I was not overly familiar with most of their music. I have of course heard "Smoke on the Water", "Highway Star", and some of the other certified classics, but I do not own any albums. Ian Gillan's voice has also aged, but the band sounded amazing considering they are mostly in their 70's at this point. The highlight of their performance was the extended keyboard solo by Don Airey. I was never really excited to see Deep Purple, not nearly as much as Priest, but I was very glad I saw them.
I would have probably preferred the band lineup from when I missed Judas Priest a couple of years ago. I enjoy Saxon more than Deep Purple, but this was a terrific concert and I was glad to finally see Judas Priest live. Priest was a bucket list band for me, and one of the last truly legendary metal bands I had yet to see live. There are a few black metal and death metal bands still out there, and a couple of international thrash metal bands, but that is about it.
