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Judas Priest
Akron Rib Burn Off
July 6th, 2002
Well, the Akron Rib Burn-off may not
be the world's finest concert venue, but that didn't stop Judas Priest from
putting on an entertaining show for the respectably large crowd gathered to
hear them. Priest played about 3 songs from their recent 'Demolition'
album ("One on One" and "Hell is Home" both coming off nicely in live
form) and drew the rest of their set from just about every phase of their
almost 30 years in rock.
Akron native Tim Owens has been the group's
vocalist since 1996 and seemed comfortable in the role of front man.
As well he should, his voice certainly the equal of predecessor Rob
Halford's. He nailed the high notes on the classic "Victim of Changes"
and easily handled the rapid fire delivery of "Exciter". Despite doing
a great job, I have to say I still miss Halford.
Of course the band played "Breaking the Law" and "You've Got Another Thing
Coming", not to mention the mandatory encore of "Living After Midnight".
For the diehards, they played lesser known songs from their catalog like
"Devil's Child", "Metal Gods", and an acoustic version Joan Baez ' "Diamonds
and Rust". Although the band's performance was excellent, the mix
tended to bury K.K. Downing's guitar in favor of Glenn Tipton's.
Everything else sounded fine.
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Scorpions, Deep Purple, & Dio
Tower City Amphitheater
July 10th, 2002
With only an hour to play Dio stuck to
his best known material, playing mostly songs from his first two solo albums
and his days with Rainbow and Sabbath, plus a couple of songs
from the most recent album 'Killing the Dragon.' Considering the
brevity of his set, I would have gladly been deprived of the drum and guitar
solos for a few more songs, but overall a good performance.
Deep Purple just blew.
Meandering jams, self indulgent organ solos, soulless blues and
boogie, and a painfully predictable set list. Purple have plenty of
good songs to their credit, and they even played several of them, but there
was just no energy to it. Nuff said.
The Scorpions, on the other hand, put
on a very enjoyable show. Last time I saw the them was Monsters of
Rock with Van Halen and Metallica at the Akron Rubber Bowl. I
thought they were too cheesy to believe, doing every Spinal Tap stage move.
Now their energy and sense of fun seems almost refreshing.
The Scorps were never really a hair
band (most of their members were in short supply of follicles even in the
eighties) but they certainly have a strong pop element to their songwriting.
That probably explains why I could still sing along with songs I hadn't
heard in ages like "Bad Boys Running Wild". Not only did they do all
the hits ("The Zoo", "No One Like You", "Rock You Like a Hurricane", etc.)
they threw in stuff like "Burn the Sky " and "Coast to Coast" for the long
time fans.
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