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Judas Priest @ Prudential Center (3/20/2018)

Artist: Judas Priest
Venue: Prudential Center (Newark, NJ)
Opener: Saxon and Black Star Riders
Date: 3/20/2018
Label: Epic Records

As a card-carrying Heavy Metal fan for pretty much four decades now, I was super excited that 2018 would not only find us receiving a brand-new Judas Priest album, but also a healthy tour that would visit a lot of states on our side of the pond. The tour was sure to be an exciting one since The Priest had lined out that both Black Star Riders and the legendary Saxon would be joining them as they celebrated “Firepower”. Sadly, the band wouldn’t be hitting any of the Big Apple arenas outside of Long Islands Nassau Coliseum but that was fine since the nearby Prudential Center in Newark, NJ would be on the docket. Here’s my summary of the rock-solid event.

Black Star Riders: The BSR were up first and if you don’t know too much about the band, you should know that this began as an offshoot to a rebuilt Thin Lizzy. After a brief reunion tour by that famous moniker, the new material was released under a new branding out of respect of their storied past and would find Damon Johnson, Robbie Crane and Chad Szeliga joining up with Scott Gorham and Ricky Warwick. The band is a solid one and has been signed to Nuclear Blast Records for a few years now. Their set is a blending of new sure to be classics along with numbers that are long in our musical hearts from the Thin Lizzy catalog. Tonight, they would not deliver too many of the legendary bands numbers outside of “Jailbreak” and instead would focus on their new albums material. Speaking frankly, I would have preferred that they mixed it up a little better since there was a lot of people coming in tonight that would be getting into place by the time Saxon would hit and I think more would have tried to be earlier if they knew more of the songs. That being said, the early and short set that they delivered was a solid one. I still need to get the new album myself and once I do you can count on a comprehensive overview here on the website. Now it was time for Saxon so all the excite right? You betcha.

BSR Set: All Hell Breaks Loose, Jailbreak, Heavy Fire, Soldiertown, The Killer Instinct, When The Night Comes In, Kingdom Of The Lost, Bound For Glory.
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Lynch Mob @ B.B. King Blues Club (1/31/2011)

Logo - Lynch Mob

Artist: The Lynch Mob
Venue: B.B. King Blues Club (New York, NY)
Opener: Sonic Bliss, Willie Basse
Date: 1/31/2011
Label: Frontiers Records

It was exactly six months to the day when I last caught a once again touring Lynch Mob and that was when the band was acting as direct support for the Michael Schenker Group back in July. The show was great but Lynch and his merry mates only played about seven songs which left the fans that were excited to see him up there again leaving slightly disappointed with the short set. That made tonight’s appearance at B.B. King’s something that they were looking forward to because it was announced that he would be performing a combined “Best Of” set of both Lynch Mob and Dokken material with his band. I had to admit that this interested me very much especially when you considered how drummer “Wild” Mick Brown was once again working with the axe slinger. That made this particular configuration of the group as close to the original as possible with the exception of original bassist Anthony Esposito. The second change in the lineup for tonight would be on bass, as Robbie Crane from Ratt was in place for this go round. The openers listed for the show would be both Sonic Bliss and Wille Basse but I would not catch them and only focus my attention on Mr. Lynch.
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