{"id":326694,"date":"2025-10-23T14:39:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T14:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/326694\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T14:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T14:39:07","slug":"alice-cooper-judas-priest-tour-comes-home-for-phoenix-concert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/326694\/","title":{"rendered":"Alice Cooper, Judas Priest tour comes home for Phoenix concert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two legendary rockers who just happen to have homes a fairly short drive from the venue and each other brought their co-headlining tour to Phoenix<\/a> on Wednesday, Oct. 22, for a bit of a homecoming bash at Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre.<\/p>\n

Alice Cooper discovered his love of entertaining in the Cortez High School cafetorium<\/a>, returning to the Valley in the \u201980s after finding fame and fortune as the rock star most likely to inspire sleepless nights for the sheltered parents of Boomers Gone Wild. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The man who gave the world “Alice Cooper Goes To Hell” has lived in Paradise Valley with Sheryl, the wife he met when she auditioned as a dancer for his \u201cWelcome to My Nightmare\u201d tour, for more than 40 years.<\/p>\n

On Nov. 15, he\u2019ll play another hometown gig \u2014 the 23rd Annual Alice Cooper\u2019s Christmas Pudding<\/a>, whose proceeds benefit the free afterschool programs at Alice Cooper\u2019s Solid Rock Teen Center<\/a> in Phoenix, Mesa and Goodyear.<\/p>\n

Rob Halford thanked ‘my Phoenix heavy metal community’<\/p>\n

Rob Halford of Judas Priest divides his time\u00a0between his hometown of Walsall, England, and Paradise Valley, where he bought a home in 1986, by which point he was fronting one of heavy metal\u2019s most successful \u2014 and important \u2014 bands.<\/p>\n

He did not go to high school here. It would\u2019ve been a rough commute from the West Midlands. But he did take a moment as his portion of the evening was nearing its conclusion to address what he referred to as \u201cmy Phoenix heavy metal community\u201d before taking a seat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to sit down at this point, because I\u2019ve been making heavy metal for 56 years, man,\u201d he shouted, with a smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a lot of time, but it doesn\u2019t seem like it. That\u2019s the power of metal. The power of music. It\u2019s good to be home. I\u2019ve spoken to Alice backstage. This is where we\u2019re from and we love to be with our hometown crowd. Thank you so much for your love and support.\u201d<\/p>\n

When school was in: <\/strong>What was Alice Cooper like in high school? Friends and bandmates share their stories<\/a><\/p>\n

Metal God Rob Halford is still somehow in his 30s at 74<\/p>\n

Now, when Halford said, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t seem like it,\u201d I\u2019m pretty sure he didn\u2019t necessarily mean \u201cit doesn\u2019t seem like it\u201d when you hear him hit those high notes like the Metal God he\u2019s known to be and a 56-year veteran of this culture we call heavy metal at 74.<\/p>\n

But, just as the metal fan directly to my right did after hearing Halford lean into the high notes on \u201cHell Bent for Leather,\u201d can we maybe take a moment to reflect on how remarkable it is that he can do that after all these years?<\/p>\n

I think we should.<\/p>\n

That voice defies \u2014 or \u201cbreaks,\u201d as some would sing \u2014 the laws of science, a point made abundantly clear from the moment he started the concert by wailing the opening notes of \u201cAll Guns Blazing\u201d a cappella before the band came crashing in.<\/p>\n

It was a very heavy set \u2014 unrelentingly so, which is exactly what a Priest fan would\u2019ve wanted.<\/p>\n

Judas Priest remain the kinds of twin guitar heroics \u2014 somehow<\/p>\n

There were plenty of the twin-guitar heroics that have been a hallmark of their sound for decades, since Glen Tipton joined the fold and started harmonizing with K.K. Downing, the iconic departed guitarist the great Richie Faulkner replaced in 2011.<\/p>\n

And it wouldn\u2019t have hit with such intensity if bassist Ian Hill and drummer Scott Travis weren\u2019t up to the challenge.<\/p>\n

The setlist touched on all their most beloved hit singles, from \u201cYou\u2019ve Got Another Thing Comin\u2019\u201d to \u201cBreaking the Law,\u201d while leaving ample space for new material (two songs from last year\u2019s \u201cInvincible Shield\u201d) and deeper album cuts.<\/p>\n

After bringing the set to an electrifying climax with the title track to 1990\u2019s \u201cPainkiller,\u201d they left the stage, allowing Halford to make a grand re-entrance on his motorcycle to kick off the encore with \u201cHell Bent For Leather.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of course he did. He\u2019s Metal God Rob Halford.<\/p>\n

Speaking of \u201cHell Bent For Leather,\u201d one would be hard pressed to name a band that could boast of a higher amount of black leather per capita than Judas Priest. And it definitely suits them.<\/p>\n

Judas Priest has been closing the concerts on this co-headlining tour.<\/p>\n

Alice Cooper is as heavy metal as he wants to be<\/p>\n

And Alice Cooper definitely rose to the occasion with a set that found him playing to his heavy-metal bona fides, with three songs each from \u201cTrash,\u201d the late-\u201880s comeback drive that extended his cultural footprint by courting the Headbangers Ball demographic, and its early-\u201990s follow-up \u201cHey Stoopid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cooper got even heavier on the industrial-metal title track to \u201cBrutal Planet,\u201d a dystopian concept album that deserved a bigger audience.<\/p>\n

When he wants to be metal \u2013 or metal-adjacent \u2013 the man has proven that he knows exactly what it takes to reach across that aisle. And having a shredder as likely to melt your face as Nita Strauss on board to trade off leads with Ryan Roxie, who can more than hold his own as the only lead guitarist on that stage, is all but guaranteed to move the needle.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the thing, though. Cooper\u2019s greatest strength may be his willingness to chase whatever sound he happens to be chasing at that moment and to find his own voice in that new equation.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why 1980\u2019s \u201cFlush the Fashion\u201d is a quirky New Wave classic.<\/p>\n

Alice Cooper does the ballad because no one else was gonna do it<\/p>\n

To his credit, Cooper\u2019s setlist<\/a> on the Judas Priest tour offset those metallic moments with a handful of surprises and the closest any artist came to offering a ballad \u2013 \u201cOnly Women Bleed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cooper opened with \u201cWho Do You Think We Are,\u201d the track that opens \u201cSpecial Forces,\u201d the album that followed \u201cFlush the Fashion\u201d in the early \u201980s. He hadn\u2019t done that song in more than 20 years before this tour.<\/p>\n

He also did \u201cCaught in a Dream,\u201d the opening track on the album that introduced him to the masses, \u201cLove It To Death.\u201d That song has only made one setlist since 2001 before this year.<\/p>\n

And there were several staples of his set that would\u2019ve held their own in any Alice Cooper set, regardless of whose audience he may have felt deserved an olive branch, from \u201cNo More Mr. Nice Guy\u201d and \u201cMuscle of Love\u201d to \u201cI\u2019m Eighteen\u201d and \u201cSchool\u2019s Out,\u201d which followed the singer\u2019s death by guillotine.<\/p>\n

More: <\/strong>Alice Cooper and Judas Priest 2025 tour setlist. Songs they played in Phoenix<\/a><\/p>\n

Alice Cooper was beheaded. Sheryl Cooper rose to the occasion<\/p>\n

The shock-rock theatrics that made Cooper famous were in full effect, from the towering Frankenstein monster in an Alice Cooper mask that terrorized the stage on the \u201980s metal triumph \u201cFeed My Frankenstein\u201d to the singer in a straitjacket losing control on \u201cThe Ballad of Dwight Fry\u201d and the eventual beheading that followed the sociopathic theatrics of the necrophiliac \u201cCold Ethyl\u201d and the surprisingly sensitive narrative of \u201cOnly Women Bleed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheryl Cooper emerged to pluck his severed head from a basket and do unspeakable things that were technically only unspeakable because it was a severed head.<\/p>\n

The execution\/resurrection scene was followed, as it tends to be, by \u201cSchool\u2019s Out,\u201d on which Cooper and his touring band were joined by Michael Bruce, a founding member of the Alice Cooper group who played with Cooper at the VIP Club in the \u201860s as a member the Spiders and wrote or co-wrote any number of their most iconic songs, from \u201cI\u2019m Eighteen\u201d to \u201cBe My Lover,\u201d \u201cDesperado,\u201d \u201cUnder My Wheels\u201d and \u201cNo More Mr. Nice Guy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Michael Bruce joined Alice Cooper on a raucous ‘School’s Out’<\/p>\n

Bruce was clearly thrilled to be there, squeezing out a scrappy little solo with a grin that said it all. Cooper was clearly enjoying the moment, so much so that he lost his place just long enough to flub the greatest lyric in the history of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll \u2013 \u201cWe can\u2019t even think of a word that rhymes.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the kind of flub you love to see because it felt like bearing witness to an artist you admire getting so caught up in rock \u2018n\u2019 roll that he can\u2019t even think of \u201cWe can\u2019t even think of a word that rhymes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The singer recently released his first new album with the three surviving members of the Alice Cooper group in more than 50 years, a triumphant reunion effort titled \u201cThe Revenge of Alice Cooper.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

There were no songs from that album in the mix, which is a shame. But Cooper and those other three surviving members of the group that did so much to shape the culture of their generation reconvene on the rotating stage of the historic Celebrity Theatre in November.<\/p>\n

Chances are, they\u2019ll focus on their greatest hits. But having seen them focus on their greatest hits, I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s a problem.<\/p>\n

More: <\/strong>They were schoolmates. Then rockstars. Now they’re back for 1 more album<\/a><\/p>\n

Corrosion of Conformity are the stoner-rock messiahs we needed<\/p>\n

The stoner-rock messiahs of Corrosion Of Conformity were two songs deep into dispensing with a master class in Sabbath-worthy sludge when Pepper Keenan took a moment to address the crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou guys like heavy (expletive)?\u201d<\/p>\n

As luck would have it, yes, they did like heavy (expletive), and that\u2019s exactly what Corrosion of Conformity delivered as they rocked their way through such headbanging highlights as \u201cKing of the Rotten,\u201d \u201cSeven Days,\u201d \u201cWho\u2019s Got the Fire\u201d and \u201cClean My Wounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

They also dedicated \u201cAlbatross\u201d to a legend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis song goes out to Ace Frehley,\u201d Keenan said. \u201cNone of would be here without that guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ed has covered pop music for The Republic since 2007, reviewing festivals and concerts, interviewing legends, covering the local scene and more. He did the same in Pittsburgh for more than a decade. Follow him on X and Instagram @edmasley and on Facebook as Ed Masley. Email him at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two legendary rockers who just happen to have homes a fairly short drive from the venue and each…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":326695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[647,691,26353,37886,5229,5643,648,1587,185,665,5497,18824,30900,2488,171,2104,2487,66304,93526,425,666,728,975,50,450,1457,1589,1451,118693,983,4185,645,2490,646,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-326694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-affiliate","9":"tag-ai","10":"tag-alice","11":"tag-alice-cooper","12":"tag-america","13":"tag-arizona","14":"tag-arts","15":"tag-az","16":"tag-celebrities","17":"tag-celebrities-u0026-entertainment-news","18":"tag-concerts","19":"tag-concerts-u0026-music-festivals","20":"tag-cooper","21":"tag-enabled","22":"tag-entertainment","23":"tag-festivals","24":"tag-highlights","25":"tag-judas","26":"tag-judas-priest","27":"tag-local","28":"tag-local-affiliate-arts-u0026-entertainment","29":"tag-local-news","30":"tag-music","31":"tag-news","32":"tag-overall","33":"tag-overall-positive","34":"tag-phoenix","35":"tag-positive","36":"tag-priest","37":"tag-rock","38":"tag-rock-music","39":"tag-story","40":"tag-story-highlights-ai-enabled","41":"tag-u0026","42":"tag-united-states","43":"tag-united-states-of-america","44":"tag-unitedstates","45":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","46":"tag-us","47":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}