Judas Priest
Whitesnake
Chevrolet Theatre
Wallingford, Connecticut
July 5, 2009
Tony Pijar
The trend regarding this year’s summer tours is to package two or more headlining bands and hit the road. Aerosmith and ZZ Top, Heart and Journey, REO Speedwagon and Styx, etc all have done the business on the road so far. Now Priest and Whitesnake are rolling across the US on an exquisite primetime metal tour.
As a fan of Whitesnake’s older material from the late 70s and early 80s, I didn’t enjoy the set list, but it appeared that the other 7, 000 or so in attendance did. The likes of “Bad Boys”, “Love ain’t no Stranger”, “Here I go Again” and “Crying in the Rain” are prime slices of polished 80s metal, but “Slow an Easy”, “Fool for your Loving”, “Lay Down your Love”, “and “Still of the Night” hit the spot. I just wish we’d have gotten more in the way of “Bloody Luxury”, “Wine, Women, and Song”, and “Ain’t no Love in the Heart of the City”.
The Priest has chosen to play the entire “British Steel” album in order! A great idea considering that the lesser played songs on “British Steel”, in my opinion, are the better ones. “Steeler”, “The Rage”, “You don’t have to be Old to be Wise”, “Grinder”, etc – can’t beat em’! Halford is still remarkably fit and capable, and Tipton and Downing remain stellar. Add “The Ripper”, “Freewheel Burning” and “Victim of Changes” to close out the set and life seems perfect!
So, while Whitesnake chose to play it safe and roll out the hits, Priest embraced its metal past, to the delight of many. How about an encore act of playing the whole “Sad Wings of Destiny” album now!?
