Manchester Apollo
Saturday 16 July 2011
Well, some people obviously never learn - Judas Priest are still "Breaking The Law" after 31 years, which, according to my friend, shows how ineffective the police are! Considering that they must now be either in, or approaching their sixties and Rob Halford clearly has a good deal of difficulty getting around the stage, that's a bit of an indictment!
Judas Priest really are the most innocent of "law breakers". What they do is really pretty innocent: they play cranked up loud heavy metal music that gives the outward appearance of rebellion, but in this day and age is about as threatening as not wearing a tie in the office. In the 1980's they got into a lot of trouble for including so called subliminal and satanic messages in their songs, but it was tame and old hat stuff even then. This is reputed to be their farewell tour, and whilst I would be disappointed and surprised if it was, there can be no doubt that they belong to a more innocent era and I would respect them if it was true.
Tempus fugit is indeed starting to have an adverse on JP (see my review of the concert on 21.03.05 . Just before the start of the tour, one of the founding members, guitarist KK Downing, announced his retirement. Now his absence didn't really have an adverse effect on the quality of the music on offer, but as I have maintained in other reviews (see especially Lynyrd Skynyrd, Deep Purple and Yes) once members of classic line-ups depart (for whatever reason), the result is a gradual dilution of the overall experience, to the point where you may as well save your money by listening to your CDs at home, or going to see a tribute act.
Tempus Fugit's second deleterious effect on JP is the stage appearance of singer Rob Halford. He is one of the great heavy rock vocalists and still seems to make a good job of the air raid siren style vocals, but he really does appear to have a good deal of difficulty getting around the stage. Maybe he was always like that, but I have my doubts. Now it would be terribly politically incorrect of me to make fun of someone's afflictions, and I won’t do that - but there comes a point where you have to realise that you are in the entertainment game and at some point you inevitably have to consider your credibility On a couple of songs Rob had to make heavy use of a walking stick and there were some quite long gaps between songs where the crowd grew restive and one could only surmise that he or other group members were being given medical attention.
Such observations aside, I can't moan about the show. They gave good value for money and played a fair selection of tunes from all stages of their career, although I would quibble at the inclusion of so many songs from the first album "Rocka Rolla" (which wasn't very good) at the expense of very few if any from the second album "Sad Wings of Destiny" which is one of the all time blockbusting heavy rock classics. Ah well, everything else was there, including the aforementioned "Breaking The Law". This is really nothing more than a standard pop song but played loudly, and I think that the band does somewhat regret the fact that they have become forever typecast by it - that's maybe the reason why Rob Halford took the novel opportunity of not singing at all on it - everyone in attendance knew the words by heart, so it was done rather as a glorified karaoke piece. Obviously the unknown new lead guitarist did the same thing in effect, all night. The stage show seemed toned down since the first time I saw them, but Gordon Brown's economic downturn is obviously affecting even the “Metal Gods”. Never mind, the solid gold motorbike appeared on stage for the encore and everyone was happy
The sound quality was good enough and fairly loud, and I thought the slightly extended drum solo leading into "Painkiller" was terrific. The other highlight was the track "Nostradamus", (I haven't yet got the album, maybe that's why I liked it do much) - a really effective slow burning Sabbath style doom laden riff - and Rob Halford's appearance as Satan clad from head to foot in a gold robe was really quite frightening to behold - and of course the trident also served well as a walking stick.
I couldn't really have asked for more from the evening. Priest gave the fans pretty much what they asked for and it would be a shame if this is their last tour. At the end of the day it's not their fault that they're knocking on a bit - they did quite well under the circumstances - and it does have to be admitted that pretty much all the fans are in the same boat themselves.
