Judas Priest/BLS/Thin Lizzy Cleveland 11/15-Tons Of Pics/Short Review

[JEBlade]

Well here’s the link to 79 photos from the Judas Priest/Black Label Society/Thin Lizzy show. Thanks to my wife Connie for shooting all these and about 500 others that didn’t make the cut.
PHOTOS- http://s689.photobucket.com/albums/v...veland%202011/
Thin Lizzy opened up with a short set. I saw Thin Lizzy back in the day twice with Phil Lynnot. I have seen the reformed band once before with this being the 1st time with this line up. Classic members were Scott Gorham, Brian Downey and Darren Wharton. The others are Marco Mendoza on bass, Ricky Warwick on vocals & guitar and Damon Johnson on guitar. I’ve seen Damon with Alice Cooper numerous times.
What really got me at first was the signature Lizzy sound on the guitars. In the front row, the guitars came out ahead of the vocals, but the atmosphere of being so close and the power of the guitars made this an evening to remember.
We got a guitar pick from Marco Mendoza as well as one of the set lists, see photos, taped to the stage.

Next up was Black Label Society of course featuring Zakk Wylde, made famous as Ozzy’s guitar player for over 20 years. I have seen BLS numerous times and I’ve never really been a fan of Zakk’s guitar playing due to the whammy bar whine he has as his signature sound.
For tonight, most of that was missing. About halfway through the set, I screamed (LOL) into my wife’s ear, “this is brutal”. Brutal in a good way in that the double guitars of Zakk & Nick Cantanese were just so in sync and just blew you away, song after song.
Zakk has supposedly been sober for some time due to a health scare a short while back and he didn’t say much to the audience. He pretty much let the playing do the talking and who knows. Maybe he’s getting used to functioning on stage without alcohol and just really needed to concentrate.
Vocals were down in the mix, but again that wasn’t a bad thing as the guitars ruled and I’m not the biggest fan of Zakk’s vocals anyway.
We got guitar picks from everyone and I caught a drumstick too. I gave it to my one of my friends who went with us.

Last up were the mighty Judas Priest. When it was announced that founding member KK Downing was retiring from the band, I was not going to see this tour. I had a friend talk me into it. He is to Judas Priest as I am to Black Sabbath. So then somehow I score front row and I’m glad I went.
The music in between bands was great and when Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” came on the whole crowd was singing along. Midway through, the lights went out and Priest began with Rapid Fire.
Richie Faulkner, KK’s replacement, was incredible. Extreme power in his playing and he has this rolling, melodic technique in his playing that I noticed right off. He’s British too, so I imagined that helped get him hired. LOL.
Judas Priest played something from every album they recorded. The set list is below.
They pulled out all the stops in the stage show with lasers, tons of fire, smoke and backdrop screen.
Also, Judas Priest are the kings of using mirror balls in a non-disco type way. You’ll notice in the photos that they came out of the circular tubes on stage, suspended by the Priest “Pitchforks” on either side of the stage for “Beyond The Realms Of Death”. Just killer!
Glen Tipton was his usual great self on stage. He was trying all night to get me singing, even to the point of crouching up to me with his guitar neck point at my face, mouthing the words in the chorus, and saying “what?” to me. He had me singing along eventually. LOL.
In years past, I met Glen at a party they had after a show in Cleveland and he was just the coolest guy, taking photos with me and Connie and signing anything we wanted signed.
I mention this because after Priest was done playing, Glen hopped off the stage with about 100 guitar picks and personally handed them out to us up front.
Rob Halford was phenomenal and I can’t believe what I witnessed coming from a 60 year old man’s vocal cords this night. I told my wife that after the show, he probably wouldn’t be able to talk until the next show. He hit high note after high note. He was also the usual great front man with the great metal moves and he took us through Judas Priest’s career album by album in the between the songs. It was really cool.
We received guitar picks from all the players in Priest, including bass player Ian Hill who came up to Connie and tossed her one.
I couldn’t have had a better night of music and my wife & I stayed downtown in a Cleveland hotel for the evening. That’s about it.
John

Setlist
1. Rapid Fire
2. Metal Gods
3. Heading Out To The Highway
4. Judas Rising
5. Starbreaker
6. Victim Of Changes
7. Never Satisfied
8. Diamonds & Rust
9. Dawn Of Creation
10. Prophecy
11. Night Crawler
12. Turbo Lover
13. Beyond The Realms Of Death
14. The Sentinel
15. Blood Red Skies
16. The Green Manalishi
17. Breaking The Law
18. Painkiller
Encores:
19. The Hellion
20. Electric Eye
21. Hell Bent For Leather
22. You've Got Another Thing Comin'
23. Living After Midnight