Hill, Tipton, Travis, Halford, Downing
Most of us are more than a little skeptical when we hear the words “farewell tour.” And rightly so. The Who, Phish, Ozzy Osbourne, and KISS have all done them and yet each has returned to the road to play another day. Still, although we may have become a bit jaded by the long goodbyes, the word “farewell” strikes fear in our heart.
The latest to utter this bittersweet word are vintage metal band Judas Priest, who are threatening to doff their metal studded boots once and for all and retire from the road. In a statement released on the group’s website earlier this week, band members announced a farewell romp that will have them circling the globe in the coming year. “After storming the world for nearly 40 years and taking their very special brand of heavy metal to all four corners of the planet,” read the release, “Judas Priest have announced this will be their final world tour!! However, the mighty Priest will certainly be going out strong as they rock the planet starting in 2011 on the massive Epitaph tour, hitting all the major cities throughout the world and playing the songs that helped make the name Judas Priest synonymous with heavy metal! With all guns blazing and amps cranked to 11, the band will be giving all their fans one last chance to witness the ultimate metal experience that is Judas Priest!” If exclamation points count for anything, Judas Priest might actually be one of the few groups to say farewell and mean it.
Judas Priest, named after the Bob Dylan song “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest,” are second only to Black Sabbath as one of the most influential of the heavy metal bands to come out of the ’70s. The group was formed in Birmingham, England, in 1969 and are often credited for spurring the evolution of the metal genre when they shed their original blues influences for hard, heavy rock. Decked out in leather and chains and featuring a lead singer who rides a Harley-Davidson motorcycle onstage, these Metal Gods, as they were nicknamed from their song of the same name, were the first of their kind to make use of a twin-guitar sound. The aggressive dual leads of guitarists K. K. Downing and Glenn Tipton fused the gothic doom of Black Sabbath with the riffs and speed of Led Zeppelin, utilizing various techniques including pinch harmonics and sweep and tremolo picking.
Although the band went through several drummers early on in their career, Judas Priest's core lineup has consisted of Downing and Tipton, vocalist Rob Halford, bassist Ian Hill and drummer Scott Travis since 1989. Boasting one of the best catalogs in all of metal, songs like “Dissident Aggressor,” “Sinner,” and “Tyrant” were the heaviest songs of their day and are considered classic metal tracks today. The band have released 16 studio albums, 6 live albums and 4 compilations, and have career sales in excess of 40 million albums.
The single “Rocka Rolla” started it all for Judas Priest back in August 1974 before an album of the same name was released a month later. The band followed up with the albums Sad Wings of Destiny (1976); Sin After Sin (1977); Stained Class and Killing Machine (released in America as Hell Bent for Leather), both in 1978. British Steel, with its shorter, more concisely structured songs (one of which was the hit “Living After Midnight”), and Point of Entry followed in 1980 and 1981 respectively before the band found mainstream success the following year with the release of Screaming for Vengeance in 1982. That album popped the radio friendly number, “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’,” which was ranked fifth on VH1s list of the 40 Greatest Metal Songs. The song reached #67 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, making it Judas Priest's only charting song in the United States.
The band would put out another three albums before the dawn of a new decade saw them all but eliminate the use of 1980s-style synthesizers on 1990s Painkiller. While on tour in support of the new album, Rob Halford rode a large Harley onto a Toronto concert stage in August 1991 and collided with a half-raised drum riser that was hidden behind clouds of dry ice mist. Halford broke his nose in the mishap and, after regaining consciousness, returned to the stage and performed the entire set before going to the hospital.
Within the year, Halford would leave Judas Priest amid rumors of internal tensions and would not return to the band he helped found until more than a decade later.
After eleven years apart and faced with an ever-growing demand for a reunion, Judas Priest, with original lead vocalist Rob Halford again at the helm, announced they would reunite in July 2003 to coincide with the release of the Metalogy box set. The band performed a live concert tour in Europe in 2004 and co-headlined Ozzfest that same year. They also cut a couple new records, Angel of Retribution (2005) and the band’s first concept album, Nostradamus (2008), both of which met with critical and commercial success.
Although Judas Priest's last few tours haven't exactly set box office records, even when they performed their 1980 classic British Steel in its entirety at shows last summer, expectations are high that headbangers the world over will turn out in droves for what indeed may be the group’s swan song. Considering that Priest band members are now either in or pushing their 60s, not many dyed-in-the-wool metalheads are willing to gamble on a comeback gig.
Judas Priest will be starting their world tour in Europe. So far they're confirmed for eight festivals next summer across Europe including Wacken Festival in Germany, Hellfest in France and a headline slot at London’s High Voltage bash. More dates are set to be added in the coming months.
