A heavy metal trifecta

 

“I can’t skip that one.” 

Once in a while, a concert on a calendar earns that reaction. Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, and Corrosion of Conformity delivered that evening in early October. This Colorado concert involved no travel, as they landed at the Broadmoor World Arena and not up in Denver. 

I delayed on tickets, feeling that it would not sell out, and two weeks out, I picked up two floor seats for $160. Still there was a marathon ahead - three bands with two playing headline-length sets meant an early start and a long night. 

By the time we got into the arena at 6:40, Corrosion of Conformity already rumbled away. They would not rumble long, barely a half-song and six songs, three each from its peak albums in the 1990s, Deliverance and Wiseblood. On their own, COC would have played a much smaller venue, but I imagine opening for two heavy rock legends was too strong a draw.

 They teased a new album but didn’t drop any music. Not that they really had the time. Concluding with Albatross then Clean My Wounds was pretty much what I needed to hear from the Southern metal masters. 

A lifetime ago, my mom and her sister saw Alice Cooper. My good friend from high school met him while he was touring the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Cooper greeted him warmly and gave him free tickets to the show that night. For all the raw, gnarled vocals, he has a good reputation. 

For not owning any music by Cooper, I knew a surprising amount of the set. No More Mister Nice Guy stayed fresh and cutting. Poison, Feed my Frankenstein, and Hey Stoopid all received decent airplay in the late 80s/early 90s. Not all of them connected with me – through my tinnitus, Spark in the Dark sounded too much like "Sparky the Dog" and made me laugh when it shouldn’t have. 

But the early set had few moments like that. He moved through tracks like House of Fire and Eighteen with the agility of a much-younger man. 

 

Alice Cooper’s set took some unexpected turns that didn’t necessarily win me over. The giant Frankenstein puppet that roamed the stage during Feed my Frankenstein was only the start. 

The second half of Cooper’s set veered into the theatrical, entering a storyline I didn’t really understand. Cooper performed in a straight jacket and ended up in a guillotine through a series of songs that didn’t necessarily need those flourishes. 

He did stick in Going Home before the night-ending unsurprisingly with his best-known song, School’s Out. Of the songs I hadn’t heard before, Going Home was a clear winner for me, both heavy and vulnerable, traits that have kept Alice Cooper in arenas for a half-century. 

Sure, Alice Cooper wrapped up the night. Early in his set, it became clear the audience clearly came for Judas Priest. 

A few songs into Cooper’s set, many of the fist-pumping people around us disappeared. I can only imagine what they would have thought of the late-set theatrics. I couldn’t argue with them leaving, since Priest was my primary draw. 

I had wanted to see them for the past two decades, but the opportunity never came. This time, I would not be denied. 

The twin-guitar attack rushed from the gate and barely paused for 80 minutes. Even at 74, Rob Halford’s multi-octave range remains startingly intact. I suspect Halford’s visits to the side stage involved a few hits of oxygen, but he never let up or showed age in his voice despite the altitude. 

Despite the aggressive nature of most Priest songs, Halford comes off as a soft-spoken gay uncle while he isn’t hitting glass-shattering notes. Priest knows how to construct a setlist – a few tracks from its surprisingly strong 2024 record, Invincible Shield, their chart hits from 40 years ago, and an assembly of fan favorites. 

 With a tour loosely themed around the 35th anniversary of their 1990's Painkiller, the album received the most attention during the setlist. The album has aged gently, with its brutal songs shining among more recent tracks – the title track, Hell Patrol and Night Crawler roared through the arena. 

The inescapable songs were Breaking the Law and You’ve Got Another Thing Coming. Later int he set came their classic opening from Screaming for Vengeance, the instrumental The Hellion followed immediately by Electric Eye, an all-too-prescient track about government surveillance of its citizens. Invincible Shield got less play in Colorado Springs, with just Gates of Hell and Giants in the Sky making the cut. 

For the encore, Halford stuck to tradition and rolled out on motorcycle start to Hell Bent for Leather before shifting to another inescapable track, Living After Midnight. 

The “Judas Priest Will Be Back” banner felt a little too hopeful given the band’s original members are all in their 70s. But after Priest delivered all that I hoped, I would not hesitate to spend another night with these guys and their heavy brand of rock.