Judas Priest

Damn, so no North American dates until early 2021?

According to the dates in their site - yes. They probably will do them in 2021 (note that they toured a lot there during 2018/2019 - 90 dates, to be precise). I think they''ll not gonna tour a lot during 2021 (probably 3 or at most 4 months).... and Rob statement is that they will tour some of 2021 - the rest of the year they will be busy with finishing and recording the new album, I guess (they also will have time for that in early next year, as Rob said, but given that they started working on Firepower album since 2015/2016 and released it in 2018, I think they will not hurry again). Early 2022 is realistic for the new album.
Are the tour dates supporting Ozzy part of the 50th anniversary celebrations???

According to the tour posters it seems they will be part of the 50th Anniversary tour next year. These dates are going to be from the end of October to the last date (on the 2020 leg of the tour) in 7th of December next year. Originally these dates were part of the (already finished) Firepower tour (for the 2019 leg, if I'm not mistaken).

In the end the situation is: you are getting a ticket for the Firepower tour, have to wait 1 year to see the show and then you get the 50th Anniversary tour (after 1 year of waiting). Not bad. :lol:

Here are the dates with Ozzy:

 
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Kerrang interview to Rob Halford:
Here

While speaking to the New York radio station Z93, Rob was asked whether or not the band’s past members would join Priest onstage to celebrate their career.

“That’s a cool question,” says Rob, sounding like he means it. “It’s like anything in rock’n’roll. I love the kind of chaos that surrounds rock’n’roll. That’s, to me, what it’s all about. There should be no laws, regulations or restrictions. Anything can happen with Priest.

“So, just keep an eye out and a lookout, especially when we play live. So, yeah, it’s all on the table.”


Rob was also asked about the possibility of touring with Iron Maiden, which Priest bassist Ian Hill said he’d love to do “before some of us die.”

“It’s all down to the things that go on in the background, the machinery that makes it work,” says Rob. “We have a wonderful relationship with Maiden that goes way, way way back. We worked together in the States in the ’80s… what a great British metal band.”
 
Well their big reunion happened right as Maiden was coming off of an album cycle, so it seems their schedules since then have been opposite each other.
 

+ no new Priest music in 2020

=

Who knows Maiden's new album will be out in 2020?

Anyway, since Jugulator, Priest managed to release all their albums in other years than Maiden has done. Coincidence? Or sales tactics?
In case it was so…It's much better for everyone, for Priest and for metal fans that we can enjoy of their music along with the music of many other bands.
 
I just realized there's a 2012 boxset with all the studio albums and some live works on CD for like $85. Then I looked closer and realized the Ripper albums are not included. That kinda shit irks me to no end. Regardless of opinion on those albums, they are still Priest and they should own that shit. Meanwhile Maiden has not only included the Blaze albums in their remasters, but also played a song from each Blaze album live. I really wish Priest would take a page out of Maiden's book and own their whole catalog. My own I mean take accountability for and stand proud of it, even if it didn't review well.
 
I just realized there's a 2012 boxset with all the studio albums and some live works on CD for like $85. Then I looked closer and realized the Ripper albums are not included. That kinda shit irks me to no end. Regardless of opinion on those albums, they are still Priest and they should own that shit. Meanwhile Maiden has not only included the Blaze albums in their remasters, but also played a song from each Blaze album live. I really wish Priest would take a page out of Maiden's book and own their whole catalog. My own I mean take accountability for and stand proud of it, even if it didn't review well.
I couldn't agree more. Besides, I feel that, until Firepower was released, JP hadn't released anything as good as "Bullet Train" and "Cathedral Spires" since Rob returned.
 
I just realized there's a 2012 boxset with all the studio albums and some live works on CD for like $85. Then I looked closer and realized the Ripper albums are not included. That kinda shit irks me to no end. Regardless of opinion on those albums, they are still Priest and they should own that shit. Meanwhile Maiden has not only included the Blaze albums in their remasters, but also played a song from each Blaze album live. I really wish Priest would take a page out of Maiden's book and own their whole catalog. My own I mean take accountability for and stand proud of it, even if it didn't review well.
It is a good box set, I bought it a few months back.
 
"We've got the big 50th anniversary tour planned. There's been so much work going on behind the scenes since we took a breather from the last 'Firepower' date, which I think was July 1st in Las Vegas. But we're still bringing in some 'Firepower' music on the 50th anniversary that kicks off in Finland next June, I think it is. Yeah, it's gonna be a big moment for Priest next year on many fronts, celebrating 50 years of heavy metal. At the same time, we're writing new music, so there'll be another Priest album at some point in the future. We're firing on all cylinders, as they say."

From this statement from Rob (the part in bold), I understand that we will see a handful of songs from the Firepower album...? (50th Anniversary tour or Firepower tour Part 2... :blink:)

 

When you hear 50th Anniversary tour, one would expect to be played all the classics (greatest hits) + some rarely played songs - sure, they can play one or two songs from the Firepower album.... but if the setilist will have space for more...(if they rotate songs like they did during the latest tour, then yes). Probably they will add (or rotate) a couple of songs from the Firepower album for the dates with Ozzy (because these dates originally were part of the Firepower tour).

I expect some/a lot surprises during the upcoming celebration tour (given what they did on the Firepower tour).
 
In a nutshell: the previous tour already had a setlist organization that celebrated the band's entire career as well as it promoted the latest album. The 50th anniversary tour to come is just Part 2 of an unnamed Part 1, which tends to suggest that Priest makes up plans as they go along.

This is pretty much like the Legacy of the Beast, with the notable exception that Maiden's tour name did not bear any constraining mention of time, which would have limited its exploitation to one calendar year or two (and obviously, the fact that LOTB did not include any song from The Book of Souls).

In other words, while Iron Maiden will always have a legacy to promote (and one can imagine that "Legacy of the Beast" can be the name of an "official" IM tribute band in the years to come when the current musicians cannot perform anymore - what The Australian Pink Floyd is to Pink Floyd for instance), Judas Priest won't be 50 years old forever...

This, I think, further shows how better Iron Maiden is at career management than Judas Priest and explains why the latter is still behind the former in terms of commercial success, however equivalent the "importance" and the quality of the output of each band are.
 
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Rob said that for the upcoming 50th Anniversary tour:
- they will play some songs that were never played live before.
- and that he is up for singing songs from the Ripper albums.

''Those records, 'Jugulator' and 'Demolition', are both part of the great history of JUDAS PRIEST. And Tim is a good friend of mine. I've never done any of the songs that he sang on, but I'd definitely have a crack at them. I'm up for that. When? It could happen at any time; it wouldn't need to be an anniversary. Before we go onstage, we have a jam, and that's time when ideas from leftfield are thrown around. That's probably how we'll do it. It'll just happen and it'll be brilliant.''

 
That sounds that Ripper Owens will be invited at some point of the Anniversary Tour
Could also be the standard Halford-gibberish response to a direct question. You'd never get him say "no" to the question anyway. I recall reading about Halford open to sing Ripper tunes around 2007 in an issue of Sweden Rock magazine (I think I threw all my magazines away years ago so I cannot verify my recollection), and it is yet to happen.

On the other hand, they haven't done a big anniversary tour before that spans their entire career, so maybe it's finally time. I think Rob would sound great on Burn in Hell or Hell is Home.
 
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