Setlist: Exciter, White Heat Red Hot, The Ripper, Savage, Sinner, Beyond The Realms Of Death, Victim Of Changes, Better By You Better Than Me, Diamonds And Rust, Genocide
Encore: Starbreaker, Tyrant
My second ever gig was this Saturday night show with home-town heroes Judas Priest. I say that, but although they have always played up how special it is to be back in Birmingham – of the ‘classic’ foursome only Rob Halford is from Birmingham. In fact specifically he is from Sutton Coldfield – and it’s quite common for Sutton folk to ‘forget’ it’s part of Birmingham! Geographical background over, Priest were glad to be back and Birmingham had definitely adopted them as one of their own.
This was the first of many times I have seen Priest. My pre-gig meal was again at Pizzaland on New Street and afterwards we (me and Stephen Brown) joined the queue outside the Odeon. The anticipation of waiting to get in was always huge and there were touts outside selling tickets as well as merchandise to distract you.
At this point in time my knowledge of Priest consisted of two albums and that was a bit sketchy. I had heard Sin After Sin a lot and loved it, but the new album, Stained Class, had only come out the day before this gig. I had got my copy in Northfield (Studio Musica in the Grosvenor Shopping Centre) but had only had the Friday evening and a bit of Saturday to get to know it. What I had heard was a sharper production than Sin After Sin with new permanent drummer Les Binks shining right from the first track Exciter. I loved the album and it’s eye-catching cover with the first appearance of the diagonal Priest logo.
Once inside we milled around near the merchandise and bar areas and bumped into Priest’s bass player Ian Hill near the bar. He was the first musician I had ever met (unless you count The Wombles at a litter picking drive in the Grosvenor). He signed an autograph and gave us a few minutes of our time – telling him how great Priest were. He was polite and gracious and it meant a lot to us.
The support band did nothing for me at all. I honestly don’t recall their performance. I was amazed to discover a while ago that it was English Assassin, who didn’t get any success, but the vocalist was Nigel Benjamin who had done two albums with Mott. I came to this post-Mott The Hoople band later so I didn’t make the connection and I wish I had because I think he had a great voice.
When the lights went down for Priest there was a rush to the front. This hadn’t happened at Hawkwind (see the September 77 gig) so it was my first time. Basically loads of people in the middle and rear stalls rushed down the aisles heading for the front stalls. There were security in the aisles but they wisely stepped aside in the face of the surging masses. It was absolutely thrilling running down the aisles and I ended up in the front stalls near the front just as Priest started. Ahead of me was guitarist Glenn Tipton and slightly to the left vocalist Rob Halford. Over to the far left was the other half of the twin guitar attack K. K. Downing. Ian Hill (bass) lurked to the rear near to Les Binks (drums).
The smell of the dry ice was strong and it pumped from the sides of the stage over the front stalls so you got plenty of it. Priest appeared through it and launched right into Exciter – the attack and energy was just awesome. It’s ridiculous to compare this to my first gig – Hawkwind – but I was staggered. Hawkwind played and you were either in for the ride or you weren’t. There was no ‘working the audience’ or even song introductions. Priest took a very different and, as it turned out, more usual approach with playing a concert. Firstly they were hungry for success and played like their lives depended on it. Secondly, in Rob Halford, they were blessed not only with an astounding vocalist but also a charismatic engaging front-man. He was the main focus, completely in charge, and a brilliant host.
By this tour he had already eschewed the traditional rock singer look and had gone for close cropped hair and a black two piece outfit. No leather yet though! The other noticeable feature for me was K.K.’s ‘Flying V’ Gibson. I hadn’t seen one before but it looked so cool. Funnily enough the next person I saw with one was the very similar looking Michael Schenker of UFO.
The setlist was entirely drawn from the latest three albums and at the heart of it, peppered through the set, were four solid classics from Sad Wings Of Destiny – one of their very best albums. The Ripper is a catchy song and Halford looked in his element pacing around in the dry ice simulating the London fog.
I had never heard Victim Of Changes before and it blew me away. The twin guitar intro with Downing and Tipton at stage front was a stunning appetiser for this tour de force. When Halford hit that high note late in the song, I could feel my ears hurting! Brilliant!
Genocide I always felt tended to ramble a bit live but it’s still much more potent than the studio version. Now Tyrant was jaw-dropping (or jaw-breaking as Priest might say). A great simple riff and it simply roared out of the speakers, the sheer power of Priest was startling.
From Sin After Sin we got three songs which seemed a bit short shrift. Dissident Aggressor is a big big Priest favourite of mine and I really expected it to be in the set, but no! Sinner was immense on the album but live it was something else again. So much of this commentary is about the front three and that might seem unfair but that’s where your attention was drawn. Halford sang and performed Sinner like a man possessed and the guitar duel breakdown section between Tipton and Downing was just incredible.
The Joan Baez cover, Diamonds And Rust, had been such a triumph on Sin After Sin it was hard to ever leave it out and it was more exciting live. It sounded slightly faster and certainly more intense. That’s a pretty fair summary of the whole show really.
The other inclusion was Starbreaker which as well as featuring Binks’ mercifully brief drum solo also featured a spacey intro from Tipton using an electronics gizmo on the guitar. This was actually the intro to the otherwise un-played Invader from Stained Class. ‘Are you all ready to take off in Birmingham tonight’, yelled Tipton as he reached the climax. Big affirmative roars back and they then unleashed Starbreaker proper. The afore-mentioned Tyrant finished the set off – you just couldn’t follow that!
The rest of the set was all from Stained Class. Now I love the album but looking at the setlist with hindsight I would say only two of their selections really hit the peaks from Sad Wings and Sin After Sin. Exciter really marked the first sighting of Priest’s 1980s style change, while Beyond The Realms Of Death was the huge power ballad in the set. A high-spot indeed and that Bad Company (Feel Like Makin’ Love) borrowed riff for the chorus was even more potent in the Odeon than my living room. White Heat Red Hot and Savage were solid rockers but their cover of Spooky Tooth’s Better By You, Better Than Me didn’t impress me any more live than it had on record.
What Priest showed was attitude, drive and a professional quality. For me they set the bar on how good a rock/ metal band was live. I mean, I would see plenty of bands in the same field and I always compared them back to this exciting Priest performance. The turning point for Priest would come in 1979 with the wise decision to release a live album, which was the way many bands transformed their fortunes (see Kiss, Thin Lizzy, UFO, Sammy Hagar, Ted Nugent etc.). That also saw the arrival of producer Tom Allom in Priest world and from then they got to British Steel and huge success. As they marched on I always remembered this show most fondly – I think you do the first time you see a band.
In February 1978 I had really found my people. My social life from here on heavily revolved around music and gigs. The Odeon in particular would become a second home for me.