There's no need for me to write an incredibly detailed report on just how excellent Judas Priest was live on their 1984 Defenders of the Faith Tour of all over the world because if you saw them you would know that they were ear-splittingly sharp and that Rob was magnificently masculine and that K.K. and Glen were intensely inspired and that Dave Holland packed an amazing boom and that the Metallian was truely beautiful and that the pyrotechnics were awesome and that the crowd ate it all up and burped their adulation right back at them as Rob smiled like a schoolboy playing hooky
as the band grinned knowing that for right now no one can touch them because they are Judas Priest and they've never sounded better beacuse this is the year of heavy metal and they will defend the faith until their hair completely falls out and they are old and crinly but still cranking out "Victim of Changes" in wheelchairs. You know it, I know it, we all know it.
As for Kick Axe... well, let's say these guys were a good warm-up band. Firstly, I must admit I like Kick Axe and their debut album, Vices.
It's got a helluva lot more personality than the hordes of hair-spray product oozing out of L.A. these days. This band's obvious shortcomings, however, are that they need much better material and, live, they shouldn't imitate Judas Priest as much. Lead singer George Criston's Rob-like stage patter was truely laughable. These guys have got promise and any band that's got the sense to do a Humble Pie cover ("30 Days in the Hole"), instead of the now mandatory Slade/Gary Glitter tune scores points in my book. Overall not bad, but after the Priest, all I could think was: Kick who?
