Judas Priest rolled into Dallas on the third leg of their Firepower tour and they brought with them a number of surprises.  Sure, the stage set looked similar to the previous dates, but the set list was much different.  For this leg of the Firepower dates, the band dug in and played deep cuts that would make any old hardcore fan, like myself, happy.  Judas Priest has released 16 studio albums with Rob Halford fronting and they performed a set that touched on all but four albums (Rocka Rolla, Stained Class, Ram It Down and Nostradamus).  The tracks that they did choose were some of the older and non “hit” songs that many of the hardcore fans were craving.

Since this is still the Firepower tour, the band opened the show with “Necromancer” off the new disc.  Right off, the band proved they are still a force with which to be reckoned.  Rob Halford came out as not the “metal god” but as the “metal voodoo priest” and commanded the stage with ease.  I must give credit to Richie Faulkner because he performed brilliantly from the opening chords all the way through to the last notes of “Living After Midnight."  I really enjoyed that fact that while they were still promoting Firepower, they chose to play tracks that were not performed last time around.  “Spectre," “Traitors Gate” and “No Surrender” were all new to this leg of the tour.  If you happen to see Judas Priest multiple times on the same tour (as this concert was for me), you get to see other new tunes performed.

While those songs were peppered throughout the set, the older material really made up the meat of the show.  One record that often gets overlooked is Point Of Entry, and I’m grad they dusted off “Heading Out To The Highway” for this tour.  It’s a great track and was missed from previous shows.  Other deep cuts performed were “Out In The Cold” (a great tune off of Turbo), “Starbreaker," “Tyrant” and “Steeler." They even chose other tunes off of popular albums like replacing “Painkiller” with “All Guns Blazing” and “(Take These) Chains” instead of "You've Got Another Thing Comin'." Even newer Priest albums got a showing with “Judas Rising” and “Halls Of Valhalla” from Angel Of Retribution and Redeemer Of Souls respectively.

No matter how many deeps cuts the band plays, they still need to play some of their hits, and they were performed during the three-song encore of “Hell Bent For Leather” (complete with motorcycle), “Breaking The Law” and “Living After Midnight." Glenn Tipton did not make it out onto the stage as he did last time around but he was there in spirit.  The band proved once again that they have plenty of gas left in the tank.