'98 Live Meltdown

A very powerful and well-received PRIEST concert, without Halford!

superb

RIPPER!!! This is the first Live Album with New Singer Tim "Ripper" Owens, it was recorded during the "Jugulator" Tour. Ripper does a fantastic job singing the Classic Priest Songs whilst adding his own style, I like his Version of "Metal Gods". This is an Absolute must Buy for Priest Fans and Heavy Metal Fans in General... So Buy NOW! (By The Way Ripper is in no Way a Rob Halford Clone, yes he sounds similar but he's a Metal Monster in his own Way \M/)

This album is so fast and heavy it reminds you who really are the kings of the Metal world, and the album flows with continuous momentum throughout. Ripper Owens voice is excellent. When you hear his vocals in the track 'Rapid Fire' you will realise why he was snapped up so quickly. A brilliant album with a revamped Priest feeling. If your a Priest fan, young or old, this album will not disappoint you, its awesome.

When bands are forced to bring in surrogate vocalists it can sometimes work (Marillion) or it can fail (Iron Maiden/Motley Crue/Venom) - if it works, they tend to stay around. If it doesn't they tend to last through a couple of mediocre albums then leave. At the time the die-hard fan will be grateful that the band is still operating with a caretaker singer and will look forward to the day that the erstwhile frontman will return. Judas Priest were forced to employ the talents of Judas Priest tribute band Tim Owens when main man Halford decided to leave the Priest fold and go all industrial, a la Pantera in Fight , then NIN in 2wo and then totally metal in Halford. When joining, Tim decided that he needed a more 'metal' name than a shortened version of Timothy, so decided on 'Ripper'. This was clearly idiotic as a name, as it is as intelligent as naming yourself 'Child Molester' or some other foul criminal moniker. I saw Priest with 'Ripper' on the Jugulator tour that this live effort was recorded on and at the time it was a bit of a blast (although that may have been the booze) – it even seemed a bit fresh after 2,000 years of Halford being at the helm. However, like Blaze Bailey in Iron Maiden, time has not been kind to this CD and listening to Ripper shout, squeak, bellow and screech (with the aid of swallowing tabasco) his way through the Priest's classics is quite torturous in retrospect. Add to this the airing of mediocre tracks from Jugulator (on the lamentable Burn In Hell Ripper appears to be singing – ‘Burn In Hell, you’re going to Leicester' but I later worked out that it was 'you're going to blister') and the inane inter song banter (What’s my name? Ripper! What’s my name? Ripper! What’s my name? RIPPER! THE RIPPER!) then this becomes a lesson in asking ‘why am I listening to this when I can listen to Unleashed, Touch Of Evil or Priest Live'. However, on the plus side the boisterous crowd (or various crowds) is obviously enjoying itself and there are a couple of rare treats in ‘Night Crawler’ and an excellent ‘Rapid Fire’ which Ripper does put his own stamp on with a new chorus line. The band's music is naturally point perfect and the production is excellent. So, like 'Virtual X' with Maiden, there is now no reason to listen to substandard output when time has returned the rightful singer to the fold - particularly as both Priest and Maiden went on to release cracking comeback albums. I was actually quite surprised at how dreadful this sounded when I returned to it recently, but I do recall the uncomfortable feeling of watching the 'Live in London DVD' at the time, where Ripper is clearly going through the motions, almost embarrassed to be singing about ‘The Sentinal’ or ‘The Painkiller’ and dreaming of being in a band, ironically, like Fight. One to be left in the past.

The only redeeming feature of this double album is the fantastic version of Diamonds and Rust, apart from that it is painfully obvious Priest needed Halford back-why have a Halford imitator when you can have the real thing?Ripper's voice comes across as a half assed tribute act which is essentially what it is-the musical playing is spot on but lacks the killer vocal talent needed to bring out the best in it.Especially as the album takes the tracks from different dates I expected a better calibre of song to be put on the album-if these are the best cuts I don't want to think what the cuts that didn't make the album are like.

Je ne connaissais Judas Priest qu'avec Rob Halford, une des voix magiques du métal alors, c'est vrai, j'avais jusqu'ici zappé la période où il a été remplacé par Ripper Owens. J'avais peut-être été inconsciemment échaudé par les années Blaze Bailey d'Iron Maiden. Pour les 2 groupes majeurs du métal, la question était la même: comment remplacer un chanteur extraordinaire à qui l'image du groupe et le son doivent beaucoup? Je me suis donc lancé dans la découverte avec ce live de 1998 et j'ai été très agréablement surpris! Le son est à la fois clair et très puissant, lourd comme il faut, ça joue avec une énergie gigantesque (mais ça, on le sait depuis longtemps!) et les classiques du groupe se mélangent parfaitement à des titres plus récents. Le public est chaud bouillant et donne de la voix tout au long du concert. Mais la bonne surprise est Owens lui-même, vocalement il s'en sort haut la main et sa prestation est excellente: il passe facilement des graves aux aïgus, réussissant à ne jamais jouer les pauvres doublures. Bref, j'ai beau adoré Halford et avoir salué son retour jusqu'à aujourd'hui, les fans ont là un concert de haute tenue pendant plus de 2h! Allez, vivement 2019 qu'on les revoit sur scène, c'est toujours exceptionnel!

Recibido perfectamente. Gracias.

Un live particolare, per la presenza di Ripper Owens alla voce, cantante ingiustamente sottovalutato, secondo me. Grande performance di tutta la band, per due CD di rara potenza.

Best Live album ever! Sad that they stop publishing it

When Rob left Judas priest back in the day I kind of ignored them for those few years. Lately I saw a program talking about these albums saying they were too heavy to be Judas protest albums. So I tried to stream them but none of the three the two studio and this Live album are on streaming. So I found and bought all three of the CDS here at amazon. OK for one thing ripper Opines is a great metal singer, I am sorry I missed out on this when he originally joined JP. I am glad to fond out now. This double CD live album is one GREAT set and they just tear into the whole set. This is fantastic. I can't stop listening to it. if fact it's playing right now as I type this, Night Crawler is on. And No the albums are not to heavy to be Judas Priest. Highist Recommendation. THIS ROCKS!!! P.S. I love Rob Halford and I am glad he is back in the band. But these albums are Judas Priest too.