Written on May 15, 2012
When
I decided to go to Madrid as an exchange student, I knew that living in
that city would give me the opportunity to attend more concerts than I
could ever dream of in Puerto Rico. The amount of Rock bands that come
to play in Spain is truly overwhelming, and even the most ardent music
lover is bound to miss a few shows. However, one I could not pass up on
was the mighty Judas Priest. Arguably the best Heavy Metal band of
all-time (and certainly my favorite), they’re not called the “Metal
Gods” for nothing. With numerous classic albums to their name, Priest
have composed anthems whose popularity transcends the Metal genre.
After
strong opening sets by UDO and Blind Guardian (hearing Udo’s band rip
through “Fast as a Shark” was a particular highlight), Priest took the
stage a little before 10 pm with their classic “Rapid Fire”. The band’s
(as well as the crowd’s) energy level was extremely high. Scott Travis
pounded the drums like a madman, the guitars were sounding extremely
heavy, and Rob Halford’s voice was on point. “Metal Gods”, “Heading Out
to the Highway”, and “Judas Rising” followed, and they were all great
performances, especially the latter. I would’ve preferred “Freewheel
Burning” over “Highway”, but it’s a minor complaint. “Highway” is the
more popular track between the two, and if I had to bet on which one
they’d perform, I would’ve put my money on the bigger hit.
At this
point, the band decided to take it back to their first three albums. I
was surprised (and slightly disappointed) that they played “Never
Satisfied” off their debut album, Rocka Rolla. That record is not
exactly a career highlight, to say the least. “Whatever, it’s just one
song. The next ones will be better” I thought. Priest then proceeded to
play “Victim of Changes”, “Starbreaker”, and “Diamonds & Rust”, so I
was right, to an extent. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice to hear them,
but they are all songs one would expect them to play. I would’ve loved
to hear “Dissident Aggressor”, a song so heavy for its time, that Thrash
pioneers Slayer covered it years later.
While all this is going
on in my head, I realized that something very disheartening was
happening right before my eyes – new guitarist Richie Faulkner sucks.
It’s not that he can’t play K.K. Downing’s riffs and solos effectively;
it’s that he has absolutely ZERO chemistry with Glenn Tipton. Now that
K.K. is out of the group, the two-headed axe monster he created with
Tipton is completely gone. Faulkner and Tipton do not play off other at
all; they are clearly two separate guitarists who happen to be in the
same band. When K.K. was up there, watching him play with Tipton was
pure magic. They traded solos and riffs with ease, and even their body
language suggested they were completely in tune with each other. Now
that Faulker is in the band, the two guitar players just go through the
motions as they stand on the opposite corners of the stage. As if this
weren’t enough, it became clear that Halford’s voice had lost most of
the power it had at the beginning of the concert.
The
show hit its low point when the band “performed” their classic
“Breaking the Law”. I’m still in shock from what I witnessed at that
particular moment. When the band started to play the song and the crowd
began to sing the words, Halford elevated his microphone stand to about 8
feet and proceeded to enact the song’s lyrics with hand gestures. I
payed 65 euros to hear this mother fucker sing, and instead I’m hearing
thousands of Spaniards scream the words in broken English. Needless to
say, I was pissed. I don’t know if this means I’m too naïve, but I
thought “maybe this is just something to get the crowd involved and he’s
going to sing it after that!” Nope. Instead, the band left the stage
and Scott Travis started to play a very average drum solo. I could tell
that would lead into “Painkiller”, so being the huge Priest fan that I
am, I kind of forgave Halford for taking “Breaking the Law” off.
“Painkiller” is an extremely difficult song to sing, especially at his
age, so I can’t blame the dude for needing a breather. But, fuck, not
during “Breaking the Law”! Oh, well.
When Travis finally played
the intro to the song, it was another disappointment. He slowed the
tempo down considerably, which made the song lose much of its heaviness
and attitude. Also, Halford’s break didn’t do anything to help his
voice, as he was straining throughout the whole performance. His body
was completely leaned over as he screamed the words into the mic. It
could be seen by some even more naïve than me as a “Metal” pose, but I
knew he did it because it was the only way that he could get out what
little power he had left in his voice.
The
next moment was also a major let-down. After leaving the stage for a
while, Halford emerged with the Spanish flash draped over his shoulders
and led the crowd to a series of “whoa yeah” chants. Amazingly, his
voice sounded great! This also pissed me off. WHY COULDN’T HE JUST SING
BREAKING THE LAW INSTEAD OF DOING THIS CRAP?! Ugh.
The last songs
the band played were “Hell Bent for Leather” and “You’ve Got Another
Thing Comin’”. These two are undisputed Metal classics; so of course,
they had to fuck them up. Halford’s voice was so gone at this point that
he SPOKE the chorus to both songs instead of singing them. For a guy
that’s so into having the crowd sing, he made it damn near impossible to
sing along when he changed the melody of the songs to fit his faded
voice. “There’s maaaanyyyy whooo triiiieeed to prooove thaaat they’re
faaasteeer, but theeeyyy diiidn’t laaast aaand they diiieeed as they
triiiiiiieeeeed” became “There’s many. Who tried. To prove. That they’re
faster. They didn’t last. They died. As they tried”. LAME!
After
finishing the set with random screams that seemed totally forced and
unnecessary, as if to prove he “still had it” (if he truly had it, he
would’ve skipped that crap and just sang the songs correctly), the band
returned to play “Living after Midnight”. Perhaps not surprisingly, that
was one of their best performances of the night. The song is pretty
easy to play and sing, and always gets the crowd pumped up due to its
simple structure and catchy melody.
In conclusion, I was very
disappointed by this show. Some might say that they’ve been doing it for
more than 40 years, so it’s obvious that they won’t sound the same as
they at the height of their fame and glory, and that it’s my own fault
for getting so overexcited. It’s a fair point, but I saw Aerosmith in
2007 and Iron Maiden in 2008, and those guys totally kicked ass. Bruce
Dickinson and Steven Tyler have been screaming their lungs out for about
the same time as Rob Halford, and they still sound amazing. While I
can’t blame a 60 year-old man for being past his prime, I still expected
more out of this experience. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go
blast “Exciter” on my iPod and act like this never happened.
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