The band got up close and personal at MGM National Harbor’s intimate venue
Rob Halford’s voice is one of the most unique in all of music. Sunday night (May 19th), he tapped into his falsetto for the show opener “Panic Attack” at MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland on the latest stop on the band’s Invincible Shield Tour. Then three songs later, he used a low rumble to growl out those three famous words “Breaking the Law.”
Judas Priest has made a career of breaking the laws of metal. Unafraid to get heavy, they also are at home with more melodic tunes (“Love Bites;” “Living After Midnight.”) It’s this gambit that has allowed the group to endure across five decades.
Halford’s voice is able to adapt to the variety of styles that Priest presents. He can find his groove against heavier instrumentation (“Devil’s Child”) or relish a melody (“You’ve got Another Thing Coming”). And of course, there’s his famous aesthetic. It gives steampunk Santa with a leather fetish. It works for this out and proud elder statesman of metal who is unafraid to lean into the genre’s tendency for camp. Halford also enjoyed cradling the windscreen of the microphone, upside down in his gloved hand as he stalked the stage in front of the wedge monitors.
That over-the-top style was also evident in their elaborate stage show. Judas Priest used no less than six screens on stage and a moving light rig in the shape of their famous pitchfork logo, hanging and designed in the style of the artwork for their ninth studio album, Invincible Shield also adorned the stage.
Swedish group Sabaton delivered an intriguing opening set. Lead singer Joakim Brodén is comically affable. He’s known for wearing an armored-style vest as he sings the band’s songs, many about world and military history. Their drummer Hannes Van Dahl performed atop a life-sized tank replica. And Brodén wore a gas mask to spray the audience with a cool smoke machine. Think of an Alice Cooper stage show if Cooper looked more like a Viking than a scary golfer.
One interesting thing about this Sunday night (May 19th) show: it didn’t take place in one of the myriad stadiums that Judas Priest and Sabaton have been playing. Instead, it took place in the intimate and acoustically superior theater inside the MGM National Harbor Resort and Casino’s theater. The 3,000-seat room gave Judas Priest fans a unique opportunity to immerse themselves in the metal music, with the band up close and personal.
But that didn’t mean that Halford and crew performed anything less than an arena-worthy spectacle. The band was tight and dialed in, and the sold-out crowd loved every minute. Halford’s voice had not aged one iota. Judas Priest proved this night—as if they still need to—why they are among the most influential groups in hard rock and heavy metal. British Steel, indeed.
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