JUDAS PRIEST: New North American Tour Dates Announced

JUDAS PRIEST will embark on a North American tour in the fall with support from THIN LIZZY and BLACK LABEL SOCIETY. The trek which was announced last month during a press conference at the Renaissance Hotel at Highland and Hollywood in Los Angeles, California will kick off on October 12 in San Antonio, Texas and conclude in early December.

Newly added JUDAS PRIEST North American tour dates:

Oct. 27 - Sleep Train Pavilion, Concord, CA
Nov. 08 - US Bank Arena, Cincinnati, OH
Nov. 09 - Prairie Capital Convention Center, Springfield, IL
Nov. 10 - The Family Arena, St. Louis, MO
Nov. 15 - Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland, OH
Nov. 16 - The Armory, Rochester, NY
Nov. 22 - Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON
Nov. 23 - Colisee Pepsi Arena, Quebec City, QC
Nov. 24 - Bell Centre, Montreal, QC
Nov. 26 - Sovereign Center, Reading, PA
Nov. 30 - 1-800-ASK-GARY Amphitheatre, Tampa
Dec. 01 - Bayfront Park Amphitheatre, Miami
Dec. 03 - Hard Rock Biloxi Hotel & Casino, Biloxi

For the full list of "Epitaph" tour dates, click here.

In other news, fan-filmed video footage of JUDAS PRIEST's June 19, 2011 performance at Hellfest in Clisson, France can be seen below.

The band's setlist was as follows:

01. Rapid Fire
02. Metal Gods
03. Judas Rising
04. Starbreaker
05. Victim Changes
06. Never Satisfied
07. Night Crawler
08. Beyond Death
09. Blood Red Skies
10. The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown) (FLEETWOOD MAC cover)
11. Breaking The Law
12. Painkiller

Encore:

13. Hell Bent For Leather
14. You've Got Another Thing Comin'

Singer Rob Halford said, "We're pulling out all the stops. We've built a brand new stage set, we've got all the effects that people love us for the lasers, the fire, the bombs, the smoke, new costumes, and the bike. It's just a full-on metal extravaganza."

Guitarist Glenn Tipton added that the group will play something from each of its albums, including a few numbers that have never been performed live before. "Obviously it's the farewell world tour, so we've really gotta put a lot of the old favorites in there," he said. "We got a lot of feedback from our web page, we requested what people really wanted to hear, so we put a set together based on that. Plus we're playing at least one song from every album and we're doing stuff that we haven't played before, such as 'Never Satisfied', 'Blood Red Skies' and 'Starbreaker'. So there's a real mixed bag. Our mission, really, was to play at least song off each album each year and we tried to pick the songs that everybody wanted to hear. Obviously they'll always want 'Painkiller', they'll always want 'Hell bent For Leather'. We've got so many songs, it's really difficult to choose, and somebody is always disappointed. [But] I think we've covered most of them."

As for whether this is really the end of JUDAS PRIEST's touring days, Tipton added, "We don't plan on retiring. We've said that this is our last world tour. It takes a chunk out of your life 18 months. We won't be doing any more world tours as such and in many parts of the world, it will be the last time people will get a chance to see us. But we're not gonna stop. We've got an album in the can now, we will start to write with Richie, there will be more albums, and who knows?! There might be a string of dates that we can manage to do. We're just not gonna do another major world tour. We've been doing it for 40 years and it's time to let the younger bands have the chance."