Farewell: Judas Priest Epitaph Tour

British metal stalwarts Judas Priest have a busy few months ahead: The band recently just announced a farewell US tour and have welcomed a new guitarist, Richie Faulkner, to replace the recently retired KK Downing.

Guitarist Glenn Tipton tells us "Doing these world tours takes a big chunk out of your life. We've been at it for almost 40 years. We love that moment on stage, but it's difficult to be away from home all that time. Bottom line is we won't be doing any more world tours."

Does this mean they'll complete stop performing live? Only time will tell. The band wants to make at least one more great metal album and hopes to get it out by Summer 2012.

But the first order of business will be the upcoming tour, which as of now kicks off October 12th in San Antonio and wraps up November 18th in East Rutherford, New Jersey with supporting acts Thin Lizzy and Black Label Society.

Confirmed Dates (more dates to be announced):

October:

12 – San Antonio, TX

14 – Corpus Christi, TX

15 – Houston, TX

16 – Dallas, TX

18 – Tucson, AZ

19 – San Diego, CA

21 – Phoenix, AZ

22 – San Bernardino, CA

23 – Las Vegas, NV

25 – Los Angeles, CA

26 – Oakland, CA

29 – Seattle, WA

November:

4 – Salt Lake City, UT

5 – Denver, CO

12 – Chicago, IL

13 – Detroit, MI

18 – East Rutherford, NJ

This could be your last chance ever to hang with JP, so request your passes today.

Member Review: Amos Lee

BPD member Tupelo Honey checks in with this review:

I went to see Amos Lee expecting to enjoy a somewhat mellow performance by the singer/songwriter and instead Lee turned out to be a true showman bringing an energy that had the audience on its feet for most of the night.

I saw Lee for the first time when he performed as part of last fall's Farm Aid Concert. However, I was disappointed that I wouldn't be meeting him backstage. Lee had strep throat and didn't want to give it to any of his fans.

I'm sure this caused Lee to adjust his performance a bit but it didn't stop him from giving a crowd pleasing show. For this tour, Lee added a backup band consisting of five members made up of a pedal steel guitar, standup bass, drums, guitar and keyboard plus two singers which added an rich and energetic dimension in comparison with his solo Farm Aid appearance.

The evening opened showcasing Lee's songwriting talent with "El Camino" from Mission Bell and went on to include several songs from this introspective collection but also a spattering of songs from all three of his previous albums. This brought a variety of moods and tempos to the show - the defiance of "Truth," the breeziness of "Sweet Pea," the melancholy of "Arms Of A Woman" and the soulful emotion of "Windows Rolled Down."

The band took a break from the stage for a solo acoustic set including "Kid," "Listen," "Out Of The Cold", a cover of Paul Simon's "Peace Like a River all leading up to his unrecorded "Johnson Boulevard." The band returned to the stage bringing the fans back up on their feet for the rest of the show.

The encore was a bluesy cover of Neil Young's "Are You Ready For The Country" followed by "I Learned A lot." A return to the stage for a second encore treated the audience to a rousing "Won't Let Me Go" which Lee turned over mid-song to his backup singer Angel who playfully took over the stage to give a soulful performance to finish the night.

Setlist:

El Camino
Supply And Demand
Truth
Dreamin'
Bottom Of The Barrel
Flower
Keep It Loose Keep It Tight
Kid
Listen
Out Of The Cold
Johnson Boulevard
Peace Like A River (Paul Simon)
Violin
Cup Of Sorrow
Seen It All Before
Sweet Pea
Windows Rolled Down
Arms Of A Women

Encore:

Are You Ready For The Country (Neil Young)
Learned Alot
Won't Let Me Go

Tupelo Honey, thank you; sorry about Amos' strep.

So many good shows still on the docket. So many passes still to be offered to members. But if you don't join, you can't get. So sign up today.

Member Review: Adele

BPD loyalist Late Bloomer wrote:

Adele could initially be heard singing backstage while a spotlight shone on her pianist before she walked out to huge cheers from the audience.

By the next song, I’ll Be Waiting, her entire seven-piece band was revealed.

With a noted reluctance to play larger venues, she kept her surroundings as intimate as possible with Tiffany lamps and area rugs decorating her otherwise bare stage - no oversized video screens for her.

Backstage she confessed “I have no idea how to dance unless I’ve had quite a lot of vodka." She also told me that she and the band were out the night before doing karaoke and that they were all a bit hoarse. "My high notes probably won't match my high notes, if you know what I mean".

But her big, soulful voice was in good form, for the most part, despite a wayward note at the end of Turning Tables.

By the next song, Set Fire To the Rain, the audience got into the groove with a spirited clap-along, and afterwards she turned up the house lights so she could get a good look at everyone.

Adele, who sometimes sat on a stool, sometimes stood, occasionally with an acoustic guitar, does have a knack for connecting with her audience as she happily - perhaps nervously - chatted away in her thick, hard-to-understand accent between songs and let the occasional cackle rip.

She seems determined, despite her rising fame, to remain just one of the girls.

Adele’s disposition, look and voice definitely recalls another time.

Other musical highlights from her 80-minute set of songs from 21 and its 2008 predecessor, 19, included the driving Rumour Has It, the bouncy Right As Rain, the torchy ballad One and Only, and her breakthrough hit, Chasing Pavements.

Her eclectic, if well-chosen list of covers were If It Hadn’t Been For Love, by Nashville band The Steel Drivers, an excellent bossa nova take on Lovesong by The Cure, which is on 21, and a heartfelt rendition of Bob Dylan’s Make You Feel My Love, included on 19.

But everyone was waiting for her thrilling monster hit, from 21 - Rolling In The Deep - and had to wait for it to close the show after a beautiful rendering of the ballad, Someone Like You, in which she played acoustic guitar while accompanied by her piano player and the crowd, who sang along.

SET LIST:

Hometown Glory

I’ll Be Waiting

Don’t You Remember

Turning Tables

Set Fire to the Rain

If It Hadn’t Been for Love (The Steel Drivers cover)

My Same

Take It All

Rumour Has It

Right as Rain

One and Only

Lovesong (The Cure cover)

Chasing Pavements

Make You Feel My Love (Bob Dylan Cover)

ENCORE

Someone Like You

Rolling in the Deep

Thanks Late Bloomer. We always appreciate members writing in about their experiences.

If you're not yet a member, why not sign up today?

Tosh on Tour

Comedy Central funnyman Daniel Tosh follows up his Las Vegas show later this month with a US tour in July and August.

He of Tosh.0 fame kicks it off as follows:

07•22•11 Boston, MA Citi Wang Theatre
07•23•11 Atlantic City, NJ Borgata Event Center
07•24•11 Uncasville, CT Mohegan Sun
07•25•11 Reading, PA Eagle Theater at Sovereign Center
07•31•11 Columbus, OH Veterans Auditorium
08•03•11 Duluth, MN Duluth Ent. Convention Center
08•04•11 Fargo, ND Civic Theatre
08•10•11 Billings, MT Alberta Bair Theatre
08•11•11 Missoula, MT University Theatre
08•12•11 Kennewick, WA Toyota Center
08•14•11 Bellingham, WA Mt. Baker Theatre
08•15•11 Tacoma, WA Temple Theatre
08•16•11 Salem, OR Historic Elsinore Theatre
08•17•11 Sacramento, CA Memorial Auditorium
08•18•11 San Jose, CA San Jose Center for Arts
08•19•11 Fresno, CA William Saroyan Aud.
08•20•11 San Diego, CA Copley Symphony Hall
08•21•11 Anaheim, CA Theater @ the Honda Center

Tosh from "the back" has got to be something special Don't miss out! Request your passes now.

Member Review: Elton John

Member Tilde follows up on last week's setlist with a full EJ review:

The piano-rocker’s latest tour was billed as All Hits, All Night. But it wasn’t. It was much more than that. And much better.


Oh sure, there were hits aplenty during the epic 160-minute show. Everything from his 1970 breakthrough Your Song to eternal radio staples like Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting, Candle in the Wind, Bennie and the Jets, The Bitch is Back, Crocodile Rock and more. But that was no surprise; at this point in his career, John has more hits than he could possibly play in one sitting.


But just as clearly, the 64-year-old singer-pianist was not content simply to go on autopilot and churn out note-for-note oldies like some musical Xerox. So the flamboyant rocker — sporting red-lensed shades and decked out in a Nudie-meets-goth-meets-Mariachi black coat decorated with a glittery skull, cross and red, white and pink flowers — led his five-man band (featuring veteran drummer Nigel Olsson and guitarist Davey Johnstone) and his four female vocalists (including Rose Stone of Sly & the Family Stone) through a set that sprinkled new material and arrangements in with the familiar favourites.


John’s creative intentions were clear almost from the beginning. After opening with the one-two punch of Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding (whose lengthy instrumental beginning not only built some tension, but allowed stragglers to get to their seats) and a raucous Saturday Night's Alright, John switched into the earthy Levon, stretching it out with an extended gospel segment at the end. The title cut from Madman Across the Water also boasted an expanded arrangement. Both it and the opening to Take Me to the Pilot served as showcases for John’s impressive and often underappreciated playing, which seamlessly melded elements of classical, jazz, blues and honky-tonk. But the real eye-opener was Rocket Man, which has evolved into a massive multi-stage piece that brought the crowd to its feet more than once.


John tossed in a handful of tunes from his most recent album, last year’s Leon Russell collaboration The Union. Backstage, he admitted to me “The new songs are the hard part. Sometimes the audience isn't ready for them. But if I don’t play them, I’ll go nuts.” I appreciated his honesty.


There was a time during his career when Elton was a real prick to his friends and his fans. It seems as if age has mellowed him out.


Hey Ahab and Monkey Suit went over surprisingly well with the crowd, earning him more standing ovations. It’s just too bad Leon wasn’t there to share the moment.


Ultimately, of course, the night was about entertaining the fans, and Elton didn’t fall short. While he’s not quite as spry as when I first saw him in 1976, he was still fairly active, leaping to his feet to coax applause out of the audience, standing up to bang away on his grand piano now and then, and and even climbing onto the instrument and carefully jumping down a couple of times. Later he thanked fans for their decades of loyalty, and even spent a few minutes signing autographs near the end of the show.


Could it have been better? Sure. Despite the changes, the performance felt a little rote now and then — no surprise, given that John and some of his band have played many of these songs literally thousands of times. There might have been one too many new ballads in that Union section. And sure, a little more zip or a slightly bigger show — the requisite video screens and cornucopia of swirling, twirling lights were the extent of the production — wouldn’t have hurt.


But so what if it was just probably another night for Elton? Nothing wrong with that. His average show still tops the best a lot of artists can do. Ultimately, the fans got their money’s worth. In fact, they got more than they bargained for.


I sure did.

Glad to hear it Tilde. And thanks for taking the time to provide us with both the setlist and the review.

The meat of the concert season is just getting started. It's not too ltae to make your requests for backstage passes. Join today.

Member Review: Paul Simon

2Old2B writes:

It was really great to be backstage with Paul. He was friendly and made himself available to answer the endless questions my fellow backstagers and I put to him .

Onstage, he’s still got expert guitar playing on his side, both on acoustic and electric, along with a warm stage presence, but his voice was noticeably thinner and weaker in the higher and lower registers.

Simon is touring in support of his 12th solo studio effort, So Beautiful Or So What, which has been garnering some of his strongest reviews in years and the album was well represented by such standouts as the title track, Rewrite, and The Afterlife.

The concert was pretty low-key and lacking spark until it finally kicked into high gear with a double shot of reggae - Jimmy Cliff’s Vietnam and Simon’s own Mother And Child Reunion.

From there, Simon, a fairly static performer, picked up considerable steam with the zydeco-driven That Was Your Mother, followed by two back-to-back  country covers of Little Junior’s Blue Flames’ Mystery Train and Chet Atkins’ instrumental, Wheels.

Simon wears his wide-ranging influences on his sleeves and seemed determined to pay tribute to them by playing the gospel number, Gone At Last (originally a duet with the recently departed Phoebe Snow). He lovingly covered George Harrison’s Beatles song, Here Comes The Sun, during the first of two encores with multi-instrumentalist Mark Stewart providing beautiful harmonies.

The world music bent, which Simon successfully brought to the fore with 1986’s Graceland, was also well represented by such fan favourites as The Obvious Child, Diamonds On the Soles Of Her Shoes, Gumboots in the main set, and Late in the Evening and The Boy In The Bubble in the two encores.

I had one helluva time.

SET LIST:

Crazy Love, Vol. II

Dazzling Blue

50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

So Beautiful or So What

Slip Slidin’ Away

Vietnam  (Jimmy Cliff cover)

Mother and Child Reunion

That Was Your Mother

Hearts and Bones

Mystery Train  (Little Junior’s Blue Flames cover)

Wheels  (Chet Atkins cover)

Rewrite

Peace Like a River

The Obvious Child

The Only Living Boy in New York

The Afterlife

Father and Daughter

Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes

Gumboots

ENCORE

The Sound of Silence

Kodachrome

Gone at Last

Here Comes the Sun (Beatles cover)

Late in the Evening

SECOND ENCORE:

Still Crazy After All These Years

The Boy In The Bubble

Hang out with your faves just like 2Old2B.

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Setlist: Elton John

Member Tilde sent this to us from a recent Elton John show; she promises a full review to follow :

Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding

Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting

Levon

Madman Across the Water

Tiny Dancer

Philadelphia Freedom

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Daniel

Rocket Man

I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues

Hey Ahab

The Best Part of the Day

Gone to Shiloh

Monkey Suit

When Love is Dying

Sad Songs (Say So Much)

Take Me to the Pilot

Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word

Candle in the Wind

Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

Bennie and the Jets

The Bitch is Back

Crocodile Rock

Encore:

Your Song

Member Review: Lil Wayne

Long standing member Beefkayke writes:

There are 8 of us in the back with BPD passes. Lil Wayne comes over and explains that he's got seats for us in the front row and that we oughta go there 'cause he prefers to talk to his fans that way. Talk about unconventional. So, out front we go.

Lil Wayne comes out about 10 minutes later and started talking to the audience. I’ve been to a lot of concerts, and most of the time, artists come out to one of their songs to get the crowd started. Well Lil Wayne decided to have a sort of monologue before performing any of his songs. It was amazing, he talked about his life and how without his fans, he would be, and have, nothing. It was f'ing inspiring.

Then he began performing his music: everything from his old stuff to his newest songs. The stage was one of the biggest I had ever seen before. It had 15 television screens in rows of 5 horizontal and 3 vertical. Each screen must’ve been 10 feet by 10 feet because they were humongous. Not only that, but they also had stairs in the back because when Lil Wayne wasn’t on the floor next to the crowd, he was up at the top in front of the screens. Again, nothing I had ever seen before.

He changed clothes like every 3 songs or so, rising from the floor, or walking next to the crowd. His energy was through the roof. All I could do was jump up and sing along with him. Whoever the live sound engineer was, knew what he was doing, because all of his music sounded just like the CD, and you could hear his voice crystal clear over the microphone and the sound systems. Not to mention, the air conditioning must’ve been cranked because it was actually rather cold in there, making it comfortable enough to deal with being surrounded by thousands of people.

Nicki Minaj came out and performed a couple songs of her own, as well as a few with Lil Wayne. I swear I felt like she was a cartoon character. She was so random in her clothing, and her stage movements, I felt as if I was watching a play of some sort. She was wearing tie-dye spandex, with a white corset over her stomach, white puffy Marge Simpson style hair, and of course radical shoes and jewelry.

I will admit she has a fantastic voice, and great stage quality. I didn’t think she was going to be that good but I was surprised how good of a show she put on. Finally Lil Wayne came back out and performed a song with Birdman, one of his original mentors, again putting on a fantastic show. If you’re even remotely a Lil Wayne fan, his concerts will surely blow you away. I have never had so much fun or enjoyed such a great show in all the concerts I had been to.

The experience was amazing.

It's always great to hear about unexpected surprises from members. Thanks Beefkayke.

Join BackstagePassDirect today and hook up to the best concert experiences you can imagine.

Setlist: Metallica

BPD member SatinDeath19 sent us this Metallica setlist from a recent Metallica/Anthrax/Megadeath/Slayer extravaganza:

Creeping Death
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Fuel
Ride the Lightning
Fade to Black
Cyanide
All Nightmare Long
Sad But True
Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
Orion
One
Master of Puppets
Blackened
Nothing Else Matters
Enter Sandman

Encore:

Am I Evil? - (Diamond Head cover) w/ Megadeth, Anthrax & Slayer
Hit the Lights
Seek & Destroy

Rock on, SatinDeath19. Thanks so much.