Judas Priest Bring 50 Years of Metal Excellence to New Jersey
“50 Heavy Metal Years” Tour
Legendary metal titans Judas Priest returned to New Jersey’s Prudential Center last night. Typically the Prudential Center is home to the New Jersey Devils, or a pop act like Justin Bieber or Billie Eilish, but not on March 30th, 2022. On this night, the Prudential Center was turned into a Metal music kingdom via Rob Halford and company.
Supporting their 2018 album Firepower, which is also the band’s highest-charting album. Judas Priest is making a statement! 50 years later they’re still right here!
But England’s metal titans have not had an easy road to get to this point. The group has suffered through line-up changes like guitarist and co-founder K.K. Downing leaving in 2011 and Glenn Tipton being forced to slow his role with the band in 2018 after revealing his battle with Parkinson’s. Most recently, Richie Faulkner was sidelined after his aorta ruptured while playing a gig last year, once again causing cancellations of the “50 Heavy Metal Years” tour originally scheduled for 2020 but was forced to be on hold due to the pandemic.
Now that’s all in the past, Judas Priest is healthy and back out on the road doing what they do best, melting faces!
Priest’s first show in the Garden State in nearly four years took off like a rocket featuring a blistering career-spanning setlist designed to keep heads banging and horns in the air. Legendary frontman Rob Halford was electrifying, forcing your eyes to be like magnets as he moved across a stage dubbed “J.P. Metalworks,” an industrial playground of sorts complete with smoking barrels, hanging chains, and of course the iconic pitchfork cross, this one outfitted with LED lights and held by chains.
“The Priest is back!” Mr.Halford addressed the crowd between the band’s classic “You Got Another Thing Comin’” and the newer track “Lightning Strike” from their 2018 Firepower album which blended seamlessly into the setlist. Watching the show it’s easy to forget Rob Halford is 70, yes 70! He still moves back and forth with pauses in the center of the stage with the same passion he always has. You can clearly see he still goes out there and gives 110%.
Along with the music, Judas Priest also came with their iconic fashion, draped in leather and studs, looking as uniformed and badass as ever. Halford used different wardrobes, some with gold and others with red or silver trim.
For the band’s encore, we saw Halford ride his chromed-out motorcycle for a rocking performance of the fan-favorite “Hellbent for Leather” which was met with roars of excitement from the 7,000 person arena. The show includes a ton of highlights that any Priest fan would love. Andy Sneap and Richie Faulkner go riff for riff and solo for solo back and forth while the final three songs of the setlist find Glenn Tipton’s return to the stage for “Metal Gods,” “Breaking The Law,” and the closer “Living After Midnight.”
All in all, it was a night of epic proportions, a hard-hitting, guitar-driven, metal spectacle by a legendary metal band that paved the way for so many. Judas Priest shows no signs of slowing down!
As Halford said “Thanks for keeping the metal faith.”
