It took several years of line up changes and poorly received album releases before Judas Priest developed their signature sound, with the 1977 album "Sin After Sin" establishing the band internationally through their dual lead guitar attack, punishing pace and driving riffs which went on to define the evolving sound of metal.
The classic line up consists of vocalist Rob Halford, guitarists K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton and bassist Ian Hill. The 1980 album "British Steel" featured the hits "Breaking the Law" and "Living After Midnight" which garnered Judas Priest mainstream success. Their penchant for wearing leather and chains popularised this fashion statement in metal, influencing acts for years to come.
"Screaming for Vengeance (1982)" peaked at number 17 in the American charts, selling over a million copies, with the band being at the peek of their popularity, achieving great success with the renowned hit "You've Got Another Thing Comin'." The musical style is full of aggressive, fast paced guitar riffs and they also popularised the use of double bass drums, making for rapid rhythms. Their music helped influence the development of thrash metal, which was the next big sub-genre of metal to grow, with bands like Metallica and Megadeath pushing the speed and ferocity of their music to new extreme levels.
Judas Priest's career was hit by controversy, following an incident involving two American teenagers who, having been listening to Judas Priest and drinking beers, decided to make a suicide pact. Judas Priest were deemed responsible for their self-inflicted gunshot wounds due to supposed subliminal messaging that was featured in their song "Better By You, Better Than Me." This incident resulted in a civil action suit that lasted for a month before eventually being dismissed by the judge. The trial became the subject of a 1991 documentary titled "Dream Deceivers: The Story Behind James Vance vs Judas Priest."
After an eleven year break, Judas Priest reunited in 2003 and have continued touring and releasing albums since. They were inducted into the VH1 Rock Honors in 2006, as well as being awarded with the title of the second "greatest metal band of all time," with Black Sabbath taking the number one spot. More recently, the band have released their album "Redeemer of Souls," which has spurred an international tour in support of its release, achieving the band's first top 10 album in the US.
Brothers, Ryan and Joel O’Keeffe, came together to form a band in 2003 and recruited David Roads and Adam Jacobson. They worked at the Hotel Warrnambool and would bring their instruments to work so that after their shifts they could jam out song ideas. They went on to win a competition, called Push-On in Melbourne. It was their self-funded eight track EP entitled “Ready to Rock” that appeared in July 2004, that fell into the hands of Capitol Records whom they signed a five album record deal with.
It was a journey to the US for the band to work on their debut studio album, “Runnin’ Wild” with Bob Marlette who had produced albums with Ozzy Osbourne and Alice Cooper. The album was released in Australia on June 23rd 2007, and they released three singles from the album; “Runnin’ Wild”, “Too Much Too Young Too Fast” which featured on Guitar Hero; World Tour and “Diamond in the Rough”. The album made it to the top 30 of the ARIA Albums Chart in Australia, and even managed to chart in Austria, Switzerland and France. Nearing the end of 2007, they supported Kid Rock and Korn and at the start of 2008, they moved permanently to the US. Their album by this point had charted on the UK Albums Chart, and on the Billboard 200.
At the beginning of 2009, Airbourne headed back into the studio to record their sophomore album “No Guts. No Glory”. It was later released on March 8th 2010. The song “Born to Kill” was played on BBC Radio 1’s Rock Show. It reached the top 20 on the ARIA Albums Chart, and also in five other countries. They were fortunate enough to support Iron Maiden on their Final Frontier World Tour from July 20th to August 1st 2011. The band announced in November 2011 that they had been working on a new album. That album would be called “Black Dog Barking” and would go on to reach to top forty of ten countries.
After all these years Judas Priest is still melting the faces off their audience, pounding out their heavy metal music that will rock your world. The members of Judas Priest are all well accomplished musicians each having perfected their craft to a science. Rob Halford can still hit all the high notes pitch perfect with his singing and screaming, Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner act as a symbiotic duo with their dueling guitar shredding, Ian Hill’s bass appropriately lays down the rhythmic foundation, and Scott Travis’ drumming bellows like bullets out of a machine gun.
A live performance of Judas Priest will show why they are one of the most respected and influential heavy metal bands touring today. They have sold over 50 million records and MTV has listed them as the second greatest metal band of all time. Their live performances are a huge spectacle consisting of a grand displays of light and fog, large depictions of tapestry conveying unique presentations of artwork relating to their music, and stage antics by Rob Halford, which usually consists of Halford driving a motorcycle onto stage. Judas Priest is also known for their stage presence, which they helped establish through their fashion. They are notable for sporting heavy metal fashion on stage, which conveys a macho-biker like personality that compliments their style of performance very accurately.
Judas Priest represents the true essence of how a heavy metal band should perform, from the music to the lights to the stage presence. If given the occasion to see these guys live one should jump on the opportunity that will further verify why these guys are one of the most respected heavy metal bands around.
“Guitar music is dead!” is a phrase that has not been infrequently thrown around over the past decade. Yet whilst rock music might not dominate the mainstream, this is clearly a falsity. One band which refuses to let hard rock die is Australian quartet Airbourne, who have released some of the finest fist-pumping riffs since 2003. Playing Gibson Explorers with big, wild, curly hair, they certainly look the part. Releasing three studio albums thus far, they have proven that their riotous and energetic music could have stood up against the biggest hair-metal bands of the 80s.
Their set at German festival Rock Am Ring in 2013 brought enough power and vigour to have induced severe concussion in the audience from the sheer amount of uncontrollable head-banging. Their music is made to be played in stadiums, to which they received a roar of appreciation as they played tracks “Running Wild,” “Diamond in the Rough” and “Black Dog Barking.” After the atmospheric intro, they ran out to stage going straight into “Ready to Rock,” with the crowd certainly feeling the band’s massive energy, jumping wildly in appreciation.
One of the best things about Airbourne is simply that their music is just pure fun. Too often humour is lost due to artistic pretensions but the likes of Airbourne restore a sense of reckless joy that comes from just having fun, rocking out with your friends. Hearing their songs takes you back to a time when posing in front of a mirror with your guitar slung low made you feel fantastic and full of wild dreams of playing to thousands of people. Listening to Airbourne keeps this spirit alive, eroding any self-consciousness and embarrassment at raising your devil horns and ferociously nodding your head.
Great show with killer Accept tunes.
Just good as the last time he came.
His years of experience in the industry shows . A total pro.
Mod club is nice little venue. Saff are freindly.
Sound was amazing once Udo hit the stage.
He covered some of the same songs as last tour with a good number of others not played last time