Judas Priest resume 50th anniversary tour – videos, set list

Judas Priest returned to action on their 50 Heavy Metal Years tour last night, after guitarist Richie Faulkner’s health alert forced them off the road last September.

He suffered an aortic aneurysm while on stage at Louder than Life, leading to emergency surgery which was soon declared a complete success. “From what I’ve been told by my surgeon, people with this don’t usually make it to the hospital alive,” he said at the time. Referring to the “mechanical components” fitted in his chest, he declared: “I’m literally made of metal now.”

As the video clips below show, he was in fine form at the Peoria Civic Center Theatre in Peoria, IL. So too was producer and life guitarist Andy Sneap, who’d been briefly dropped from the lineup until a fan backlash persuaded the band to reinstate him. The 18-song set list below was broadly the same as the one they’d been presenting at earlier shows – hardly a surprise given it was designed to celebrate the band’s five decades of musical output.

Frontman Rob Halford recently confirmed that work was continuing on their next album, saying:

We’ve tried our best not to replicate anything that we’ve done. From “Rocka Rolla” all the way through to “Firepower“, each record has had a distinctive character. And it’s tough because fans go, ‘We want another “Painkiller”; we want another “British Steel”.’ ‘Dude, we’ve already done that!’This has got probably some more progressive elements that we’ve never really delved into before. And that’s exciting… it gives us and our fans another opportunity to see a different side of Priest. But it’s still metal. There’s just more of it. There are more notes than there were before!Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford

Watch Judas Priest Perform “One Shot at Glory” “Lighting Strike” “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin”, “Freewheel Burning”, “Turbo Lover” and “Hell Patrol”

Watch Judas Priest Perform “Electric Eye”, “Hell Bent for Leather”, “Breaking the Law” and “Living After Midnight”

Judas Priest Set List at Peoria Civic Center Theatre, Peoria, IL, USA

1. “One Shot at Glory”
2. “Lightning Strike”
3. “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’”
4. “Freewheel Burning”
5. “Turbo Lover”
6. “Hell Patrol”
7. “The Sentinel”
8. “A Touch of Evil”
9. “Rocka Rolla”
10. “Victim of Changes”
11. “Desert Plains”
12. “Blood Red Skies”
13. “Invader”
14. “Painkiller”

Encore:
15. “Electric Eye”
16. “Hell Bent for Leather”
17. “Breaking the Law”
18. “Living After Midnight”