Rock the city, Constitution Square, 03.07.11

I have no idea what to say about Metrock because they barely got up on stage and they came down immediately. They seemed like a nice enough band, but I didn’t get a chance to get into it (it was shorter even then the usual opening acts).

After just seeing Trooper a month ago opening for Scorpions and being slightly disappointed by them, I wasn’t exactly ecstatic about seeing them again. They came, did their job and left. I don’t seem to have any recollection of the event whatsoever, it just… happened.

Hatebreed were an infusion of vitality and I had tons of fun during their concert. It was one of the best concerts of a band I never heard before (and probably never will again :P) that I attended until now. Core-ending genres are alien to me and I don’t think I would ever have the patience to listen to them at home, but in a live setting their were excellent. I headbanged like crazy, screamed like crazy and I was seriously considering entering one of the many mosh pits created near me, but I figured a 1.6m skinny girl and some 1.8-2.0m blokes wasn’t exactly the happiest combination when it came to slamming into each other, no matter how much adrenaline was going through me at that point.

Whoever had the brilliant idea of scheduling Whitesnake after Hatebreed needs to seriously reconsider a career change. After “banging my head against the wall”, as instructed by the lead singer of Hatebreed, syrupy Whitesnake was the last thing I was in the mood for. I was actually anxious to see them, but after the aggressiveness and energy of  Hatebreed, singing along to Is this love was just weird and I noticed other people had the same problem. I think the organisers pretty much kicked Whitesnake in the nuts because they weren’t from the same picture with the rest of the bands at all, so obviously their audience was bored and apathetic. Half of the crowd didn’t know other songs except Here I go again, anyway. I went to eat something during that song (I know, blasphemy!) and the faces of those around me screamed „are you crazy, are you leaving the show during the only song I actually know?”. Coverdale sounded better then I expected (the reports from his last concerts weren’t too encouraging, apparently he sounded like shit, to put it mildly) and he tried to act like in his golden years, but giving the microphone a handjob doesn’t quite work when you look like you could be the grandfather of half the members of the audience.

What can I say about Judas Priest? It wasn’t the first time I saw them live, but it was definitely the best. Maybe I was too excited about the fact that Halford can still produce his legendary screams, but I thought he was great. He avoided some of the higher notes here and there, struggled a bit with Painkiller  because he’s, you know… sixty (although the fact that he pulled it off even at decent quality is still a victory for that song), but considering that this was basically a retirement tour, he was exceptional. Compared to Coverdale who seemed soaked in formalin, Halford didn’t even have wrinkles! (yes, I was close enough to see his wrinkles :D). The man was really impressive! And something I just noticed, most of the time I refer to singers by using their birth name, but Halford is so majestic that calling him „Rob” just doesn’t sound right :))

The show was the regular, with badass outfits from Halford, with the famous Harley on stage and with all the greatest hits. Even though the tour was meant to mark the end of Priest’s large scale world touring, we treated it pretty much like a farewell tour because if it took them almost 40 years to get to Romania, we figured they’re not really coming back for the smaller tours that they’ll do from now on. So we screamed our lungs out, sung Breaking the law (I’m not sure if Halford let us sing the whole song because he was tired or because he liked our enthusiasm in singing it – I guess you know which option I prefer :P), cheered loudly and again, headbanged like crazy. A special mention goes to Diamonds and rust, which is a song that I always found rather boring, but that gave me the chills when I heard it sung live with so much emotion from Halford and especially to Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler was simply epic, I never lived it so much as I did this night, it felt straight out of a horror movie.

I must say, hats off to Halford (yes, this was more a review about him then about the band, it’s not my fault he stole the show!), he is basically the main reason why this concert was so insanely good. Not to diminish the importance of the other band members, but most of the things I loved were due to his magnetic and overwhelming presence. The man is a legend and he has nothing but the utmost respect from me.