1. There should never have been any mention of SWoD or Turbo at all. Generally speaking, if someone had shown me this setlist, say, two years ago and said, “Hey, Judas Priest are going to play this setlist in Europe in 2026,” I would have been like, “Oh, that’s cool.” There are a lot of good songs here. Unfortunately, the band hinted at celebrating the 50th and 40th anniversaries. I don’t think those celebrations are actually happening at all. Sad Wings got two songs, and they’re the most obvious ones. I’ll note that two slots for SWoD aren’t some huge nod to the album, since similar situations have already happened without any anniversaries (2018, 2009, 2004...).
There’s one song from Turbo, and in my opinion, that’s a total failure - it’s hard to even comment on it xD I won’t even mention Reckless, because as you can see, that will forever remain a pipe dream, but this setlist could really use Out in the Cold and Genocide - it would instantly make everything look better. When people heard “Faithkeepers,” they were expecting DotF, and I always said that was a mistake - but honestly, just looking at the tour name itself, it’s easy to see why people would make that connection. And if the band had already decided to give the 1976 and ’86 albums the short end of the stick, they should’ve thrown in another track from Defenders, since they’ve got Jawbreaker right there.
2. At the same time, though, I’m wondering what the hell the big deal is if someone’s bemoaning this setlist, because in my opinion, they picked good songs per se. Repetition is repetition - unfortunately, I figured from the start there’d be plenty of it - but looking at it from a “European perspective”:
- Halls of Valhalla returns after 11 years
- Delivering the Goods and Steeler return after 46 years
So this is a really good deal for those who live in Europe.
At the same time, I think this setlist is still missing 1–2 deep cuts to balance out the hits. There’s Desert Plains, and that’s my all-time favorite Priest song, so I’m super excited at the prospect of hearing it again, but over the last few years this song has been revisited with some regularity, so it’s hard to call it a surprise.
Oh, and at this point Lightning Strike is just embarrassing. Please swap it out for any other song from the Firepower album, because since 2018, Priest hasn’t played anything else from that album here other than LS. There are plenty of other options waiting in the wings, like Necromancer or Traitors Gate. Seriously, there are a few better choices around and they'd make the whole thing much more interesting!
3. The order of these songs in the set is strange. Opening with YGATC sounds like a crazy idea, I don’t get the point of it, and I have no idea what it’s supposed to accomplish. It’s the first track on the new compilation album, and maybe that’s what inspired them, but doing something like this when you’re also playing songs like Electric Eye and Panic Attack (!) is strange, to say the least. Especially since Metal Gods comes right after it, so the first 10 minutes are very mid-tempo. However, I watched a few minutes of the show and YGATC works pretty well as the show opener. But it's just... An odd choice.
As for Panic Attack - to me, that last 25 minutes before the encores sound like a recipe for a vocal nightmare. I don’t know how Rob plans to handle that burden night after night, because it looks absolutely brutal. I watched a few videos, and while VoC was pretty good for the first performance on the tour, I’m at a loss for words regarding yesterday’s performance of Painkiller. The worst performance I’ve ever heard, a total disaster. Remove it from the setlist: they simply shouldn’t be playing it. Not at this stage, and not after so many demanding songs. It’s ridiculous.
4. The stage design has changed a bit; instead of a “painted” backdrop around the stage, there are now some kind of screens. And there's the fork - unfortunately not the one from 2021–2024, but I'm fine with that.
To summarize: the setlist is okay, but it doesn't live up to expectations and is, in fact, below them. It's a cool setlist for a fun concert. There will probably be some changes at the first few shows, we’ll see how it plays out.
