Gig review: Judas Priest at First Direct Arena, Leeds

“Here we are then, Leeds, after 50 years,” Rob Halford intones with a small smile. He turns to face the rest of Judas Priest with a wave of his hand, then gives a small nod to himself, as if contemplating his grocery list rather than the crowd of thousands spilling over the seats of the First Direct Arena. “Fifty years is a very, very long time,” he murmurs.

Nine years on since they last toured British stages, this return is something of a minor marvel in itself. In the interim, the West Midlands five-piece has weathered a pandemic, seen guitarist Glenn Tipton forced from the road with Parkinson’s disease, almost lost Ritchie Faulkner to an aortic aneurysm and seen two attempts to tour their homeland with Ozzy Osbourne scotched due to the latter’s ill health. It almost felt like they would never get here.

Bands don’t clock a half-century in the game without resilience though, and they arrive tonight in an explosion of concussive riffs and studded black leather. Ostensibly here behind new record Invincible Shield on paper, it delivers something else in practice – a career-spanning celebration of heavy metal forefathers with a catalogue few of their contemporaries can hold their devil horns to.

Seventy-two in body, but a man half his age in spirit, Halford still attacks songs with leather-clad gusto that seldom flags over a ninety-minute show. His dynamic voice may not have the elastic range of past decades, but with an oak-cask richness behind his tone, he still growls and hollers like few others, roaring through a surprisingly early salvo of You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’ and Breaking the Law.

During Metal Gods, he mimics the rhythmic stomp with a lumbering gait; on perennial showstopper Victim of Changes, his shrieks reach glass-shattering proportions.

The rest of the group – bassist Ian Hill, drummer Scott Travis and Faulkner, plus touring member and producer Andy Sneap – serve stone-cold slabs of premium NWOBHM favourites to feast on, and the faithful lap it up, from the glorious Mad Max-esque camp of Turbo Lover through frenetic thrash favourite Painkiller.

By the time they have crashed through Electric Eye and Halford has emerged atop a motorcycle amid plumes of smoke for a one-two punch of Hell Bent for Leather and Living After Midnight, the air is thick with giddy delirium.

“You were fantastic!” the singer cries. His admiration is reciprocated.

Old-school support in the shape of Saxon and Uriah Heep meanwhile offers enough old denim jackets and hand-sewn patches to celebrate. While the latter only have just over a half-hour to rattle through selections from their back catalogue, they nevertheless hold up well thanks to an enthusiastic Bernie Shaw, while their compatriots – close to their home territory of Barnsley and delighted, by frontman Biff Byford’s admission, to finally play this venue – rock just as hard with classics like And the Bands Played On and 747 (Strangers in the Night), with a cameo turn from retired guitarist Paul Quinn too.