March 10th At The MODA Center

- advertisement -

All Photos By Mike Lewis Photography

JUDAS PRIEST were supposed to perform in Portland, Oregon last fall, as part of ‘50 Heavy Metal Years Tour’. Unfortunately, RICHIE FAULKNER suffered a cardiac event which understandably put a halt to the tour. Six months removed from Faulkner’s cardiac event, the tour dates are back on and Faulkner is on the mend, though there was a little controversy on the way.

When the rescheduled dates were rolled out, PRIEST announced that they would perform as a four-piece for the North American dates! That’s unfathomable! PRIEST is a dual guitar attack band! Producer ANDY SNEAP [SABBAT, HELL], who had stepped in for GLENN TIPTON on previous tours, was not even mentioned. There was an appropriate amount of pressure applied by the fans and the press and just like that, Sneap was back in the touring line-up. The opener for the 2020 fall dates was SABATON, which hasn't performed on a North American tour of this magnitude. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be featured as direct support for PRIEST for the rescheduled dates.

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen QUEENSRYCHE live; festivals, cruises, arenas, theaters, etc. Growing up in the Northwest and going to shows they’ve been a concert staple. In fact, I saw the second show with singer TODD LA TORRE when they performed as RISING WEST. PRIEST including QUEENSRYCHE on the bill was a great addition. It brought familiarity for the PRIEST base, who are probably 'RYCHE fans themselves. A few things have changed in the 'RYCHE camp in recent years: Guitarist MIKE STONE is back in the line-up and drummer SCOTT ROCKENFIELD has taken a hiatus and he didn’t perform on their 2019 album The Verdict. Recently Rockenfield took swipes at La Torre and Tate! Who knows what’s going on there? One thing is for sure, guitarist MICHAEL WILTON and bassist EDDIE JACKSON aren’t taking to social media and firing back. There’s work to get done. They’ve got a new album in progress and there’s this high profile tour to complete.

Much like PRIEST, QUEENSRYCHE put together an hour-long ‘retrospective’ stacked with classics and classics alone. I was surprised that in some of the previous shows leading up to the Portland date, they had included something from their last studio album The Verdict. The last time they performed a show in Portland was a headlining show in the spring of 2019 at The Crystal Ballroom. QUEENSRYCHE included cuts from their pre-Empire days that included “Queen Of The Ryche”, which they opened with, “Warning”, “En Force”, “Walk In The Shadows”, “Take Hold Of The Flame”, “Screaming In Digital”, then of course “Operation: Mindcrime”, “The Needle Lies”, and closer “Eyes Of A Stranger”. “Empire” was wedged in about mid-way into the set and was the only tune from the Empire album. In short, solid set though I would have liked to have seen “The Prophecy” included, but it was well executed and La Torre as usual performed the material spot on.

The configuration for this show was in what is referred to as ‘Theater Of The Clouds’ which is in an arena setting but it’s configured in a way that the setting is more intimate and as such arranged in a manner where ‘every seat’ is a good seat, so to speak. JUDAS PRIEST put together a set together that is career spanning retrospective, without ignoring concert fan favorites like “Free Wheel Burning”, “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’”, “Turbo Lover”, "The Sentinel”, “Painkiller”, “The Hellion/Electric Eye”, “Hell Bent For Leather,”, “Breaking The Law”, and “Living After Midnight”. Surprisingly absent was “Metal Gods”, but you can’t please everyone. The Painkiller album is well represented prominently with intro “Battle Hymn" going into “One Shot At Glory”, “A Touch Of Evil”, “Hell Patrol” and “Painkiller”. Not a complaint by any means, but you’d think this was the touring cycle for Painkiller ‘part deux’. The deepest tracks in the set are “Blood Red Skies” from 1988's Ram It Down and “Invader” from 1978's Stained Class. The set closed with “Painkiller” which was a tall order for ROB HALFORD to end with such a vocally demanding tune. He was very respectable.

But wait. It can’t be over? And it wasn’t of course! Halford and Company came back for an encore. “The Hellion/Electric Eye”, “Hell Bent For Leather”, “Breaking The Law” and “Living After Midnight” closed out the show. No real surprises there, but they still brought down the house. Drummer SCOTT TRAVIS still anchors the band just like he’s done since he joined the band for the Painkiller album and IAN HILL does what he does, hangs back and lowers the boom. ANDY SNEAP has proven himself to the band and the base that he is a more than adequate understudy for GLENN TIPTON, and RICHIE FAULKNER is nothing short of a miracle. ‘The Falcon’ isn’t quite to the level that he was in terms of his mobility but he’ll get better with time and he’s doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Rob Halford has lost a step along the way but he still delivers an extraordinary performance considering the demanding back catalog that he’s asked to sing. Just consider “Blood Red Skies”, “Hell Patrol”, “The Sentinel”, “A Touch Of Evil”, and “Painkiller”, all in this set. And what wonderful use of a giant JUDAS PRIEST ‘pitchfork cross’ and a monster sized prop bull. JUDAS PRIEST have been snubbed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the past, they are back on the ballot in 2022 and we’ll know ‘the verdict’ in the next few weeks. Then again, to the fans, whether they make it or if they don’t…it’s really not important. They played BLACK SABBATH’s “War Pigs” as their intro music and pumped QUEEN’s “We Are The Champions” as the house lights dimmed at the end of the encore, that was brilliant selection and very fitting.

Check out some more photos from the show!
All Photos By Mike Lewis Photography