Label: Columbia Records
Release date: May 28, 1987
Production: Tom Allom
Album length: 74.00 min/95.27 min (2CD remaster 2001)
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 9.0/10
It’s incredible what you can get a crowd to do, especially when you’re Rob Halford on stage. Mass delirium, the audience screaming in total ecstasy. Just how magnetic the phantom Judas Priest were and what kind of magic they could conjure with their stage show is proven by the voice of the people themselves, who were in a proper hypnotic trance. Of course. This is the mid-eighties, the golden age of heavy metal, when people truly lived and breathed heavy metal.
‘Priest…Live!’ is a living document that radiates the magic and the full grandeur of Judas Priest throughout the eighties. It was recorded in the middle of the American leg of the ‘Fuel For Life’ tour in 1986. The only shame, or downside, of the album is that the recording is so damn short. The re-release is now a double CD, with the whole live recording split by running time into a good 40 minutes on the first CD and 57 minutes on the second. There are also no breaks between the tracks; the recording was laid down on tape nicely in one piece, and a bit more of the band’s chatter with the crowd between songs has been kept, along with the sound of pyro charges going off (e.g. before Living After Midnight).
The album opens with a surprise, the love drama Out In The Cold. The guitar synths alone sound far more confident live. Priest pull off an extraordinary effect once they draw the listener in with cannon-blast swings of the drums, through which the band’s stage magic starts to flow. Everything in Out In The Cold, from the solos and riffing to Rob’s singing, sounds on a much higher level live than on the studio version of the song. The same goes for Turbo Lover, in the same breath. Priest set the scene on fire with the classics Metal Gods, Breaking The Law and Heading Out To The Highway, then get serious and mellow out a touch, while at the same time shifting the atmosphere to another galaxy with Love Bites, the beauty Some Heads Are Gonna Roll, and the grandiose, ultra-melodic temptation of The Sentinel, before landing on firmer ground again with Private Property and Rock You All Around The World, which opens the second CD. Another high atmospheric peak follows with Hellion/Electric Eye, and a live version of Turbo Lover that’s better than average for what is otherwise the band’s stylistic “swerve”, plus the merciless Priest classic Freewheel Burning. After that comes all-round rocker revelry with the softer Parental Guidance, its heavier cousin Living Afetr Midnight, and then the closing passionate knockout You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’, where Halford is especially devastating with his fantastic screams.
But the record isn’t over yet. Your fuses will blow in what follows, because the re-release includes three bonus tracks: Screaming For Vengeance, Rock Hard Ride Free, and Hell Bent For Leather, the only song on the whole disc that dates back to the seventies. All three bonuses were recorded on the same tour.
‘Priest … Live!’ is a classic that’s hard to get around; in fact, you simply can’t. With songs from the classic Priest-era records ‘Defenders of the Faith’, ‘Screaming for Vengeance’ and ‘British Steel’, it’s a chronicle of the kind only the best live albums can conjure up. Even though Judas Priest were by then starting to drift into star territory, they still kicked it on stage with everything they had. The album radiates remarkable ease, intensity, sparkle and confidence, and with them a kind of unbeatable eternity.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list (2CD remaster, 2001):
CD1.
1. Out In The Cold
2. Heading Out To The Highway
3. Metal Gods
4. Breaking The Law
5. Love Bites
6. Some Heads Are Gonna Roll
7. The Sentinel
8. Private Property
CD2.
1. Rock You All Around The World
2. Electric Eye
3. Turbo Lover
4. Freewheel Burning
5. Parental Guidance
6. Living After Midnight
7. You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’
8. Screaming For Vengeance (bonus track)
9. Rock Hard, Ride Free (bonus track)
10. Hell Bent For Leather (bonus track)
Line-up:
Rob Halford – vocals
K.K. Downing – guitar
Glenn Tipton – guitar
Ian Hill – bass guitar
Dave Holland – drums
