This tour and the Screaming for Vengeance tour in 82 and the Turbo Tour in 86 is the absolute best era for Judas Priest. This is when bands played real instruments from the deepest part of their souls for the sheer adrenaline rush. Nowadays it seems like all the artist do it for money. There will never be a time like the early to mid 80s again. I'm just glad I was at that prime age in this era. 19! When I saw this tour in Madison Square Garden I was only 19. I'm 51 now!! This took place 32 years ago people!
I was only a baby then, but I discovered priest when it was mid 90s and very uncool. But they became my most favourite band ever. I personally think the tours you mentioned with the addition Mercenaries of Metal tour for the Ram It Down album are the best period. Check out the bootlegs floating around from that your I mentioned, they're awesome. Still love all the 70s stuff too but from 82' to 90 was crazily special for me at least. Like magic or something.
I’m partial to the 1976-83 era myself actually; like when they had Les Binks playing his specifically designed drum set starting with the Sin After Sin album onto Unleashed In The East Tour.. sadly his last one ☝️ Sincerely, DJP Anal C__t; Postmortem and Kilslug Sony; Earache 🇬🇧 Columbia and TAANG!! Records @ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED by copyright infringement law worldwide Boston Massachusetts Amerikkka quite literally and obvious by this point of our history! ❤ Yeah.? And I think quite a lot of people would disagree with you only because the eras they discovered a band is usually gonna be their favourite one.58 in June, but I have been to see them on a half dozen occasions where they headlined with Maiden on the latter’s 1981 Killers release touting their first time in America and imho with the greatest lineup ever. Di’Anno and Clive Burr on vocals and drums respectively. Next year they did that same thing on the albums both Screaming For Vengeance and The Number Of The Beast with Dickheadson and Pat Travers Band’s former drummer: Nicko McBrain replacing the former two members and as the genre of Speed/Thrash Metal was becoming bigger in this filthy industry I too am involved with; bands which these others were influenced by aren’t as in fashion anymore and then came the alternative bands into the early’90’s gaining more popularity, but like they say. History always comes back again and after 30 yrs here we are, yes? ❤
THE METALLIAN 00:00:00 - Love Bites 00:05:52 - Jawbreaker 00:09:57 - Grinder 00:14:27 - Metal Gods 00:19:00 - Breaking The Law 00:22:08 - Sinner 00:30:03 - Desert Plains 00:35:16 - Some Heads Are Gonna Roll 00:40:00 - The Sentinel 00:45:45 - Rock Hard Ride Free 00:51:46 - Night Comes Down 00:56:05 - The Hellion + Electric Eye 01:00:25 - Heavy Duty + Defenders Of The Faith 01:05:55 - Victim Of Changes 01:14:35 - FreeWheel Burning 01:20:09 - The Green Manalishi with the two-pronged crown 01:25:32 - Living After Midnight + (John Arthur Is Riding On his Wind) 01:31:20 - Hell Bent For Leather 01:36:48 - You've Got Another Thing Comin' Rising From Darkness Where Hell Hath No Mercy And The Screams Of Vengeance Echo On Forever, Only Those Who Keep The Faith Shall Escape The Wrath Of The Metallian . . . MASTER OF ALL METAL
Francisco Soberanes look at this fuckin playlist...unbelievable! all these songs all live!! I can't imagine how it would be to be in this concert with halford at his prime... wtf what a playlist to listen to halford at his prime... those lucky sob's... I hope they knew what they were witnessing
Abrar Qureshi you Millennial.s missed Out! Sorry! This tour and the Screaming for Vengeance tour two years before this and the Turbo Tour two years after this were the absolute best era for Judas Priest. I seen all three of those tours. And I knew at the time that I was witnessing a Legacy! The early to mid 80s were not only the best era for Priest but Iron Maiden too. And I saw them with Judas Priest. I also saw the Piece of Mind tour and Powerslave. And like Priest, I knew I was watching a living legacy.
These guys were fucking pros! Not many bands who play like this in the studio let alone live. A band like Motley Crue would be totally lost trying to play a set like this or even play their own songs as good. Priest was just a bad ass band and still is.
i saw them hammersmith odeon same year i think or 83 i wasnt a fan before i was an acdc freak with blinkers on and believe me they took them off they were technically amazing.
FreeMTrider early motley crue played well. I think they had alot of potential playing good live if Vince stepped his game up. in fact the band is good. it's just Vince that sucks live.
Headbanger Metal You bring up a very interesting point. If my ears rang for three days after just one show, how do guys in rock bands do it all the time. Is it not as loud on stage because they are behind the big speakers? Ear plugs maybe? I’ve often wondered how they are not complete deaf after a few shows.
a true live experience--no in ear monitors just pure stage volume! All Hail the Metal Gods! and huge staircases to run up and down with no broken bones!
Great White opened this tour in America. I had the pleasure of seeing this tour at the infamous Madison Square Garden show where people tore up the seats. That's how epic the show. People went crazy from the energy.
i saw them at garden & 2 days before in Nassau Coliseum. they both were insane. but m.s.g. was worse. fights before show broke out all over the floor seats. fireworks . blockbusters were thrown down to floor seats people were getting hurt.. i was actually scared. excellent performance! at end almost everyone ripping out seat cushions & like frisbees all made to stage . pile was about 3 foot high across the stage.. most insane show i ever saw .. as far as people acting like animals!
My first real rock concert in my life I was 15 I had goose bumps half of the show!! One of the best concerts I’ve ever been to in my life!!! Saw them at the Spectrum in Philadelphia!
Hello good morning Dave. Your comment made me laugh because when I was also 15 years old I saw our Defenders in Barcelona on the Fuel Tour. opened the Warlock concert (Doro and her people). from RockaRolla to Painkiller I have all their records. I met them when I was 12 years old with Screaming,,,. It is beautiful to remember our Judas Metallian, my gray hair disappears. Health and Freedom to all metal headbangers.
Saw them live twice back in the 80's. Once in '82 on the SfV tour in the Seattle Center Arena. Then again a couple years later on this tour in the Tacoma Dome. Absolutely one of the best live bands ever. And this tour... I mean, what a set list!
Judas Priest. At long last getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Astounding live recording, "Defenders of the Faith" by FAR my favorite album! So freaking blessed to have been around for this HISTORIC metal band. Special love out to the baddest of the bad, GLENN TIPTON.
I saw this concert in Johnson city Tn. @ a little venue called Freedom Hall (less then 10,000 seats) on 07061984 with Savoy Brown. @ the end of the show when Halford came out on the bike, it viberated so much that i nearly threw up. I saw them again 2 days later in Knoxville Tn, @ the Colosioum, a 15,000 seat hall. MUCH BETTER! My wife ask, "Why is it, the more people, the better a band sounds?" I didn't know the reason until i played a full 3,000 seat Moose club in Nitro West Virginia after playing to the bartending staff the night before.. People absorb sound!
I was at this freaking awesome show in SAN Antonio. TX Freeman Coliseum. 1984 i was 14 years old One of the best concert in my life My ears were ringing for days my brain switched a . Judas priest 👍 my number one and great band.
Thanks for your comment. 1984 i would love to live this day all over again . great white and special guest Megadeth main event ( JUDAS PRIEST!!!! ). Concert
You and i went to the same show man, I was 21, high on brick weed from Mexico. Halford was at his best during these years. You cut your teeth on the right stuff ! Went to a JP show last year and i could tell it took a lot out of Halford, in his 60s and still bang'n it out. Hope you enjoy the rest of your life dude. Have a happy!
Yeah I was 13. My brother came up one day and asked me if I wanted to see Priest. Had no idea who they were buy said "well yeah". ( We saw a LOT of random bands together back then.) Have been a fan since that day.
This was my first metal concert, in Irvine Meadows in California. I've been a die hard priest fan ever since. The best part about priest as a band is, the older they get the better they get!
Wasn't expecting to like this show... they are great here! Drumming is much stronger than on the records (looking back 30 years). Amazing how tight and flawless they are as a unit!
I went to the Toronto show and meet Rob,KK and Ian , my ears were ringing for over a week, I was 12 rows back, one of the loudest shows I seen in the 80;s
My first concert ever was during this tour, at the St Paul Civic Center in St Paul, Minnesota. The first song was Love Bites, and the sheer amount of bass in that arena was unbelievable. This mix is great, but in no way does it do justice to the killer bass in that venue at the time. I was in row 9 main floor, and I was nearly deaf for 3 days. It was unbelievable. I have never experienced a concert like this since then. Best $20 I ever spent.
To see this footage, and level of performance from the Defender's tour is absolutely incredible. Honestly, how awesome is this ?? I was supposed to see them in Biloxi, Ms. on this tour, but at only 13, Dad wasn't having any of it. :P Thanks for uploading this vid, it is greatly appreciated.
SZPWS1777 Halford just got clean before this tour, you can already tell if you compare the British Steel tour performances (which are still great) with the ones from this tour.
que de souvenirs cette époque, j'avais 17 ans quand ils sont venu a PARIS a l'espace Balard 11 février 1984 , nous avions eu le droit a la HARLEY en ouverture . Mon premier grand concert
Amazing show!! Thanks so much! VOC and The Sinner absolutely slay!!! lml Saw the Philly show of this tour. My first show ever. All the boots of this tour still hold up. This is the peak of the Priest for sure! lml lml
Saw them on this tour in Worcester Ma and twice on Turbo tour and then most recently, one of their Epitaph shows. By far this tour was the best I saw, Rob hit every note and the band was tight. Love these guys. Thanks for posting, audio is great.
I was at that show. Great White opened up. It was my first concert and I was 15. We had killer seats on the risers to the right of the stage. Rob looked right at us a bunch of times cause we were going fuckin nuts. I saw them on Turbo, Ram it Down, And Painkiller too. I have the best memories from this tour though.
Per Lofgren Rob really struggled with his voice due to his addiction sometimes during the 84 tour, but this was pretty good. Great White was great too at this time. Lol, wish I could have been born in the mid sixties so I could have seen these tours. They were all great.
***** I didn't' notice any problems with Rob's voice at any of the shows I saw (84, 86, 88, 91). Of course, I was so excited to be watching them live I may have overlooked any imperfections. I thought the 91 show at the AJ Polombo Center in Pittsburgh, PA was especially good. When they played "Beyond the Realms of Death" I was in heavy metal nirvana!
Per Lofgren Rob was extremely excellent in both 88 and 91. 90 was a little shaky, seemed like he was forcing some of the notes. IMO, 91 was his last year where he seemed to be at the best he ever could be every show. He only started to have issues at some shows in 84, you can tell from the live version of Night Comes Down from one of the remasters that he was having a lot of problems with his high range and some mid range stuff. I know what you mean by being so excited to see them live, I overlook any shortcomings when I see them today (I saw them in 2011, and I just saw them again on the fourteenth of this month). I first remember that Rob is still insane for being 63 years old. He sounds better than a lot of people do in their prime still to this day, and his low range is exceptionally improved, which is astounding. Some of the growls he lets out during Victim of Changes and Valhalla put me beside myself, and some nights when they do Victim it rivals some of the performances they did in the early 90s and, IMHO, blows the 82 - 86 versions out of the water.
J. Ross Davis Saw them with Kick Axe also. Did the guitarist for KA stand up on the bass drums? He did that here, and they slid apart, and down he went.
Thanks for remastering the sound. Just wish it was done in between, to make things consistent. This was such a magical time for Priest (even when Rob was severely out of key). They had such incredible energy back then. Can't think of one band today that has this ind of talent today. Amazing.
Saw them on this tour in Detroit when I was 14. Iron Maiden World Slavery tour at 15 and Metallica Master of Puppets era opening for Ozzy when I was 16. Needless to say, my teenage years were heavy duty. I love modern metal genres, death, black, doom, etc., but those 3 shows probably due to my age have never been matched.
They will never be matched because all three were legendary tours. JP. DOTF tour was 80’s era JP. IM Powerslave tour led to one of the greatest live albums ever made. Then you saw Metallica promoting their third album and opening for Ozzy The Godfather of heavy metal and Cliffs final tour: You saw all three of these tours in a row. I was born in 1979 and those three tours ended before I got through second grade.
Awesome this actual show was my first major venue metal show.. It was pretty cold that night back in Montreal and I still remember the smell of hash burning..lol
Yeah, they’re playing every single number faster due to the generous amount of cocaine and vodka Rob was ingesting at the time and since has been cleared up for nearly 33+ years. I mean, it’s hard enough to come out of the closet and he’s still finding himself when he forms Two; whatever the fuck that was lol; Now C’mon. You mean to tell me nobody in Priest’s fold knew about his lifestyle as a gay man? Isn Hill had said that he would never step foot on stage with Halford ever again after he had. Funny thing about money and popularity though, isn’t it.? Rob the true gentleman that he is forgave those comments and still kept his ass in the band’s lineup, didn’t he? He gave an interview saying “ I’m going out there every night dressed up like Glenn from the Village People and nobody was the wiser? Jesus Christ almighty man!’ Not to mention he began the entire Heavy Metal outfit looks with denim and leather as unsuspecting kids are wearing a BDSM outfit without a clue of what gay men’s fashion apparel looks like lol!’ Saxon named an album called this specifically from their looks 👀.50+ years later they are still touring together despite some serious changes without K.K. Downing being in their band and sadly now Glenn Tipton’s development of Parkinson’s disease is a mighty blow for them as well. They were from Birmingham alongside Black Sabbath’s housing project which was right down the road from a few of their families too. Priest had more in common with bands like Budgie and Status Quo up until they found their own sound post-1975; and indeed the Sad Wings Of Destiny showed their creativity off in spades and they kept that very same song list from the mid-70’s until the British Steel Lp and cranked it out on the Screaming For Vengeance album especially with The Hellion/ Electric Eye and the title track showing Halford’s range and then continued on Defenders Of The Faith along with some cooler licks from both Downing and Tipton with songs like Jawbreaker and The Sentinel going full throttle playing some of their fanciest material in almost an entire decade’s time. I was so grateful for their recognition of perfection earning them the induction into The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame. Even acts whom should’ve not had to wait as long for their own music to be appreciated like Sabbath and Pink Floyd needed to be patient ( like they gave two shits about it), but it is still a prestigious institution that I knew they’d deserved a lot earlier than when they actually did get accepted/ voted in. So it goes. Sincerely, DJP Anal Cunt; Postmortem and Kilslug Sony ; Earache 🇬🇧 Columbia and TAANG!! Records @ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED by copyright infringement laws worldwide via Boston Massachusetts Amerikkka quite literally and obvious by this point in our history 🇺🇸 sad but true indeed. 🥂
great concert i was at the tacoma dome show the same yr when i was a sr in high school!!!!!!!!!!!now rock shows are pretty much just a big video screen behind the performers sad really.bring back stuff like this this shit ROCKS not lame video screens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Brings back great memories. I saw them at Reunion Arena in Dallas, Texas in 1984 on this tour. Great White opened for them. At the time Great White's most popular song was Stick It. The entire Defenders of the Faith album was fantastic IMO. Rob Halfords range is incredible. Thanks for posting this video..
The Defenders of the Faith Tour came to Toronto, Canada on April 2nd, 1984, almost a week after this Montreal show & it was one of the best concerts I've ever been to in the almost 40 years I have been going to concerts! The Priest were in top form, the Metallian stage set was incredible, & the crowd at the Gardens that night was in fine form! Haha, back then, there was so much pot smoke & cigarette smoke that you could hardly see the other side of the arena! Amazing memories!
I saw this tour in Dayton Ohio. I was 15. Kick Axe opened up. One of the best concerts I ever saw. I still think about it. The "Vices" album by Kick Axe is awesome also.
31 people are just jealous they didn't see this tour LIVE. Thanks for sharing. I saw it at the Capital Centre. I actually caught a drumstick from the opening band Great White. I was crammed up on the stage in front of Tipton
Damm I was there, I was on the right side in front of glenn, had a Montreal Canadiens red hat and a priest defenders shirt. What a blast from the past. I was 18.
shit i wish i was there.... well i was 1yo at that time, so no chance i could distinguish what was played and what was i listening to back then. To my surprise, I find this concert to be much more powerfull than thought. Great time, great songs and i was always a big fan of the covers put on the vinyls... That time (i mean 80s and early 90s) was the specific moment where you were actually considering buying some album or not just by looking at the cover (and sometimes you really knew shit about the band... this is how i discovered JP... without internet, yes, there was a time there wasn't internet at all :-D)
karaczurin i was there,saw it all,saw the next tour,then the next,then the next etx etx. they truly are the metal gods ,and listening to it on youtube sucks compared to being there.the sights,the sound,the applause.
I almost went to the Tacoma Dome show that tour, but I didn't, then I heard someone got stabbed (later died) in the crowd. I saw them the 3 previous tours (British Steel, Point of Entry, Screaming for Vengeance) and those shows were great. These were the days when bands were real and tickets were very affordable! Thank goodness for sites like youtube so we can see how it used to be! Thanks to all who post these shows!
George Perez Oh hell yeah!!!! I went to that show too. I was 14, (first JP tour was Screaming for Vengeance in '82 and I haven't missed one since!, well okay with the exception when Halford was gone) Remember they broadcast this show on KMET???? I told a bud of mine to record it on cassette or I wasn't going to get him a shirt! LOL. I still have that original tape, I listen to it about once a year.. still sounds crisp and clean just like that night. Sorry for the rant, it's 1:20am, had a bit of coffee (oops, I swear I thought it was decaf!) and now I'm in Priest mode! LOL Have a good one! \m/
JUDAS PRIEST this is the lineup I want too see LIIVE soon as possible WE ARE DEFENDER'S OF THE FAITH. o yeah singer needs to. grow his hair long ROCK METAL friends 🍺 cheers !
great video Ricky.I saw this show with my buddies at the old Winnipeg arena.Back when I was young and I had hair on my head and none on my chest.thanx for the memories
This was a great tour....rob was at his pinnacle.,.then came the Turbo tour...Rob went above his pinnacle...turbo years is when he quit drugs/drinking,.his voice was a caged lion ready to be released. Rob was certainly a freak of vocal nature...no one else ever came close to his tone, range, and articulation as a vocalist
Wow this is a crazy flashback! My father took me to see Priest for my first concert at Market square arena Indianapolis. I think was about 8 years old!!!
Defenders Tour was my first concert, in Lakeland Florida with Kick Axe opening. First and only time I ever went on the floor...lol. First row on the sides from then on. Became more interested in the music and production of the show than being shoved all over the place. Went from about third row when Axe came on to about 50 yards back by the time Priest came onstage. All in all, a great time. First of many times seeing Priest. PS. The audio on this vid is really great.
