Glenn to serve up a feast with Priest

Glenn Tipton can clearly remember his first concert with Midlands heavy metal legends Judas Priest back in about 1974.

"The very first gig I ever did was at Birmingham Town Hall and during the performance the PA blew up!" he laughs

"It was a homemade PA and it blew up and disintegrated. Something exploded and there was like a blizzard of snow across the audience and they thought it was great.

"They thought it was an effect and, of course we couldn't afford effects like that in those days!"

Things are a bit different in 2008, with Priest undoubted flag bearers for the whole heavy metal movement and their shows rammed to the rafters with special effects - as fans will find out when their 'Priest Feast' tour arrives at the LG Arena at Birmingham NEC on Saturday, February 14 next year.

Click here to buy tickets for the Priest Feast at the LG Arena

Yes, that's right, instead of my partner and I spending a quiet, romantic, candlelit evening on our own, we'll be sharing Valentine's Night with 11,000 metalheads and three of the loudest bands on the planet!

Glenn chuckles when I inform him of this news and ask him where the tour name came from.

"We just thought it had got a nice ring to it," he says.

"We'd just done the Metal Masters tour in the States and we had Heaven and Hell on the go with us and Motorhead and Testament and we just felt it's great to get a classic metal bill and the audience is united and unified. It really worked in the States so we thought we'd do the same in Europe."

Glenn joined Judas Priest after playing for the Flying Hat Band in Stafford, with the other members being drawn from the working class West Midlands, singer Rob Halford from Walsall and guitarist KK (Ken) Downing and bassist Ian Hill from West Bromwich - the two going to the same nursery school.

They still have the same line-up today, with the addition of American drummer Scott Travis.

Judas Priest really hit their stride with a string of classic albums and singles in the 70s and 80s - the days when heavy metal regularly made it on to mainstream radio and the pop charts.

They combined a flair for heavy, sometimes brutal rhythms and anthemic, melodic singalongs in songs like Living After Midnight, Breaking The Law and Freewheel Burning.

But Rob Halford left the band in 1991 and was replaced by Tim 'Ripper' Owens - who had been the singer in a Judas Priest tribute band.

This line-up recorded two albums which, in truth, divided many fans, and in 2003 Ripper was out and Halford was back to front the classic Priest line-up.

The release of their "comeback" album, Angel Of Retribution, was greeted deliriously by fans and press alike, seeing the band embark on a world tour which included a sell-out show at the NEC with The Scorpions as special guests.

This year saw the release of a new critically-acclaimed album, Nostradamus - which has garnered two Grammy nominations - and a triumphant appearance at the Download Festival at Castle Donington, 28 years since Priest appeared there at the first Monsters Of Rock festival in 1980.

Click here for our photo gallery of Judas Priest at Download

So what can fans expect from Judas Priest in 2009, a similar show to the one they have been touring with around the world this year?

"It'll be more or less the same," says Glenn. "We'll probably change a couple of numbers but it'll be more or less the same, because this is quite a different set for us.

"We've brought a couple of 'new old songs' back like Devil's Child, Hell Patrol, Dissident Aggressor and The Sinner and we've still got a lot of the classic songs such as Painkiller and Hell Bent for Leather.

"We've also injected some Nostradamus in there. We open with Dawn of Creation which is the intro tape and we play Prophesy and we do a track called Death, so we're introducing people to Nostradamus slowly and that's the way we've always done it when we have a new album. Three tracks is enough while we wait for people to really get to know it."

As those Grammy nominations show, Nostradamus was a huge and ambitious project for Judas Priest - telling the life story of the famous 16th century seer. and was quite a history lesson for the band themselves.

"Nostradamus was great album to do," enthuses Glenn. "It was a mammoth task and it was very ambitious but once we started to write we were very inspired by the man and his life.

"We didn't start out to write a two-album concept project but before we knew we were so inspired and we became so prolific that it just flowed from us.

"I think it was the choice of material and the man himself. Whether you believe in his prophecies or not he's still remembered vividly today 500 years on, so he was a very intelligent person.

"And his life was full of tragedy in the sense that he lost his wife and daughter in the plague and the church exiled him and then he found a whole new life. That combined with the alchemy and the mystery surrounding his prophesies, it made for very good inspiration."

There has been talk that Priest might at some point perform the whole two hours-plus of Nostradamus in concert.

"We'd like to do that," says Glenn. "Our intention right from day one when we started to compose it was at some point in the future to play it in its entirety in special venues around the world and that's something we've still got in mind, something we really want to do. It'll either be late 2009 or 2010."

Priest played on the opening day of the Download Festival at Castle Donington, an event which seems to go from strength to strength.

Tipton says: "Download was great. It was 28 years since we played Donington so it was a very special event in the calendar of Judas Priest.

"It never ceases to surprise us just the popularity of heavy metal across this planet. Metal and music in general is such a leveller, everyone finds common ground and everyone loves each other. They're there for one thing, which is music and I think a lot can be learned from that."

He is also delighted that today's teenage metal fans are turning up to support the band.

"We've found more and more in recent years that we've got younger kids there. They've been turned on to the band by their parents or they've discovered the band themselves. A younger generation definitively are into Priest and that's great, it bodes well not just for us but for heavy metal and a lot of other bands out there."

Judas Priest were among the rock vanguard that sprang up from the Midlands in the 70s, along with the likes of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Slade and the band is looking forward to playing Birmingham again.

"A lot of great bands and musicians have come from the Midlands," says Glenn.

"I think it gives you a lot of determination. I think we're very passionate about our music. There must be something in the air in the Midlands that breeds very genuine musicians who have got a lot of feel and a lot of emotion. It's great to be part of that."

So there's no temptation to go and live in the Hollywood Hills?

"Oh no, I'm British through and through. I love the English countryside and that's where I live with my dogs and I love it. I wouldn't live anywhere else in the world."

Between now and Christmas, Glenn plans to take a break and recharge his batteries before Priest head out on the road again.

"It's going to be great to play to our fans again. We just can't wait. It's been what, two years, now, but our fans are great they're very patient and loyal and we want them to come along and enjoy a great night of metal. We're really looking forward to it."

Click here to buy tickets for the Priest Feast at the LG Arena

Click here for our photo gallery of Judas Priest at Download