To celebrate my new home theatre/Smart TV, while I was "working" today , I watched Judas Priest '2012-Epitaph' Hammersmith Apollo concert on the Coda channel.
A few observations.
Richie Faulkner is a manic shredder of a player that far out-performs both KK Downing and most likely Glenn Tipton as well.
Typically guitar masturbation bores the shit out of me, but he did it well on these classics.
Unless this was sonically edited, Halford hit most of the notes in 'Victim of Changes'. He played it safe where necessary, but there were some parts of the concert that made me think that some of this was 'post production' . It was convincing enough of a performance though.
Though I cannot stomach the horrible 'Nostradamus' 2 x CD. I found the song 'Prophecy' tolerable in this set. Actually enjoyable, though I am not re-visiting that album.
I still find 'Turbo Lover' an awful song and era.
They did a very nice new take on Joan Baez 'Diamonds and Rust'.
This was probably the last passable line up of Judas Priest:
Halford
Glenn Tipton
Ian Hill
Scott Travis
Richie Faulkner