Original Portuguese version here: http://backstageforum.hot-me.com/t4466-20110727-judas-priest-queensryche-pavilhao-atlantico
» Although this QUEENSRYCHE show was part of their 30th anniversary tour, it didn’t make them play more than 45 minutes as any other guest band. Which lead me to think that JUDAS PRIEST would get on stage at 21:00. Well think again… The A side of AC/DC‘s “Highway To Hell” replayed (not that I believe they were really playing vinyls, but I don’t remember listening to “Shot Down In Flames” or “If You Want Blood” before listening to “Highway To Hell” for the second time), and only by 21:30 BLACK SABBATH‘s “War Pigs” interrupted AC/DC, in higher volume and by shader lights, telling us the waiting was over.
The drapery only fell after “Battle Hymn” served as intro and the concert started for real with “Rapid Fire”, with an audience much bigger in numbers.
When JUDAS PRIEST announced in April that guitarist and founding member K.K. Downing was leaving without completing this tour and saying one last goodbye, I was deeply disappointed and was already thinking this concert “wouldn’t be the same”. I give here my sincere apologies to Richie Faulkner for such a fast prejudgement. Faulkner is an excellent guitar player who, dressed to the occasion, played all the songs as if they were his own, with all those poses and faces the audience loves so much. I admit I forgot about Downing right around the second song.
PRIEST have always put effort on their stage performances, but this being their farewell tour, they excelled with a mix of lasers, fire, videowall… Rob Halford was also “looser”, talking more and even dancing on “Blood Red Skies”.
Every metal has its ballad – according to Halford – and that night’s was “Beyond The Realms Of Death”, which the singer recalled having played the last time they’d been here and he hoped we would enjoy it now as much as then.
Joan Baez cover, “Diamonds And Rust”, whose studio version is pretty electric, has been performed in acoustic version in the last few years, becoming a ballad as well. However, this time, PRIEST surprised us with a third “hybrid” version: acoustic on the first half, at full speed on the second.
“Breaking The Law” and “Painkiller”, the two songs before the first encore, also had their specials – on the first one, Halford didn’t sing a single word, leaving us to that (which, unlikely “Eyes Of A Stranger”, we did pretty well); on the second one, Scott Travis extended the drum intro, giving us his solo.
Also the Harley Davidson that announces “Hell Bent For Leather” was intitled to say goodbye to us, while the band’s farewell, by the end of “Living After Midnight”, was made by Halford‘s solemn words: “Keep heavy metal safe. Good night. Goodbye”.
Front Row Forever 