Concert Reviews

Review & setlist: Judas Priest was silly at MGM Music Hall Thursday, but gloriously so

Oh, and its latest Boston stop proved the legendary heavy metal band can still roar, even 50-plus years in.

By Marc Hirsh

April 26, 2024

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Judas Priest, with Sabaton, at MGM Music Hall at Fenway, Thursday, April 25

A cynic might argue that Judas Priest has proved its point by now. The foundational heavy metal band, never particularly respected by the rock and roll establishment, can play American Idol without losing its credibility. Its prodigal frontman can come out at a time and in a corner of the music world not known for its queer allyship without losing its fanbase. It can get inducted (kinda) into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame without losing its rebel-outsider status. It can celebrate its 50th anniversary in the business and still roar.

It’s that last one that feels like the reason Judas Priest hasn’t packed it in. If it were simply about demanding acceptance, then the onetime pariahs and cultural boogeymen would have no worlds left to conquer. But their motivation seems to be both larger than that and more personal, and Thursday at the MGM Music Hall at Fenway, they spread the metal gospel to those who needed to hear it, from longtime fans who were there during the band’s late-’70s/early-’80s heyday to at least one 10-year-old already amped on the visceral thrill of metal.

When Judas Priest last played Boston in October 2022, it was an overdue make-good after several health scares within the band and, oh yeah, two years of the COVID pandemic had scuttled a planned golden-anniversary jaunt. This time, there was a new album (this year’s Invincible Shield) to tour, and once a mission-statement banner fell to reveal all five musicians packed tightly on the drum riser before fanning out across the stage, “Panic Attack” charged forward to serve as a strong opening, fleet and slashing like Priest in their prime.

Even so, it was one of only three songs from Invincible Shield the band played, and a set so light on new material is generally less about selling the new album than about appeasing fans and burnishing their legacy. That was evident when they followed the opener with vintage cuts: the grudge-keeping snarl of “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’,” the sheer velocity of “Rapid Fire” and “Breaking The Law,” where singer Rob Halford left the title chant to the crowd. “Love Bites” rode on an implacable pound kicked off by two repeated whacks of the floor tom that sounded like beating on sheets of tin, and the breakneck, shuddering “Invincible Shield” was like barreling down a highway in an 18-wheeler going 80.

Judas Priest also saluted some of its forebears and peers, whether directly or indirectly. In addition to the customary blaring of “War Pigs” to announce their imminent arrival, the bludgeoning “Victim Of Changes” tipped its hat to Black Sabbath, albeit with rather more histrionic vocals from Halford. His operatic sweep was abandoned in favor of Bon Scott’s grunting squeal in “Devil’s Child,” which from the title to the chord riff to the forward-pushing drum thump was pure AC/DC. Meanwhile, with its heavy minor-key chug and Halford’s low, throaty croak, a cover of Fleetwood Mac Mark I’s “The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown)” sounded like nothing so much as Judas Priest.

So did Judas Priest itself, no guarantee after half a century and with two guitarists whose tenures don’t predate the 2010s. But Richie Faulkner and Andy Sneap aced the assignment, from the wheedling solos to the locked-in twin rhythms of songs like “Turbo Lover” and “Electric Eye.” They became a two-headed dragon towards the end of “Sinner,” feeding off of one another and locking in with both their leads and the chugging chords.

If all of it could be seen as gloriously silly, then “glorious” was still occasionally in the mix, especially towards the end when Halford rode his motorcycle on stage for the headlong “Hell Bent For Leather” and whacked Sneap faux-dramatically on the shoulder with a riding crop several times during the song. And if closer “Living After Midnight” is ultimately nothing more than an anthemic party song, it still hit like a ton of British steel.

Openers Sabaton offered galloping old-school metal bolstered by singer Joakim Brodén’s power grumble, while adding rousing warmongering voluntaries and imagery (a drum riser mocked up as a tank here, a smoke-spewing chemical-weapons fumigator there) that might have raised some eyebrows if Brodén wasn’t lighthearted enough about it to also exploit it for the occasional fart joke.

Setlist for Judas Priest at MGM Music Hall at Fenway, April 25, 2024

• Panic Attack
• You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’
• Rapid Fire
• Breaking The Law
• Lightning Strike
• Love Bites
• Devil’s Child
• Saints In Hell
• Crown Of Horns
• Sinner
• Turbo Lover
• Invincible Shield
• Victim Of Changes
• The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown)
• Painkiller

ENCORE

• Electric Eye
• Hell Bent For Leather
• Living After Midnight

Marc Hirsh can be reached at [email protected] or on Bluesky @spacecitymarc.bsky.social.