KK's Priest Strike Down Palladium Times Square

There are certain days when you wake up knowing the day will feel unearthly. If you wake up on a Friday the 13th feeling like all the planets are going to align as a blood moon rises, the day will have you feeling supernatural enough to fill in the missing pieces like it did for me when I got to experience a high-gear ultimate showdown of ultimate guitar heroics in KK’s Priest and Accept team up to strike down a loaded Palladium Times Square. When the poster for the Full Metal Assault tour first started circulating on social media with K.K. Downing clashing Flying V’s with Wolf Hoffmann, I thought this was a gig not to be missed.

To first turn on the juice and to see what shakes loose, I fired up my Halloween season and overall night of gossamer treats with the ghost with the most by seeing Beetlejuice Beetlejuice at the AMC Empire 25, a short walk from Palladium Times Square. I know some people are full-on done with nostalgia pandering that Hollywood does, but as someone who enjoys nostalgia in small doses, I thought Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was fun. Messy. But fun. The theater-going experience has changed a lot since I was a young man. Now gone are the days of sticky floors and sneaking in all-you-can-eat fajitas! If you’re hesitant about seeing it on the silver scream, I would wait until it’s available on a streaming platform like Amazon Prime or Max in a few months.

And now, the concert. The two hours plus was GRRRRREAT. It started at 7:40 pm with an hour and change set from the re-industrialized lineup of Accept, one of the premier heavy metal bands of the 1980s, now with fret-burner Wolf Hoffmann at the helm as the sole original member. Accept performed what was, for all moonstruck purposes, a night out at the infamous L’Amour, the Rock Capital of Brooklyn. And fucking hell, what a trip down memory lane it was for some. The bloodthirsty shrieks from Mark Tornillo broke Accept into the Reckoning. Mark even wore a L’Amour shirt to draw a parallel to his days fronting TT Quick. Accept also played on those hallowed grounds a few times at that club. The songs off their newest album, Humanoid, sounded even more distinctive live than on record. They stood alongside fan favorites like Restless and Wild and one of their finest classic cuts, Breaker. Manhattan got to witness something special with Accept inviting Tim “Ripper” Owens to celebrate a birthday while joining them to break down their set for a karaoke version of Balls to the Wall. It was a brilliant performance from Accept to prepare for the thunderous arrival of a guitar hero named K.K Downing with his band KK’s Priest.

Accept

Photo Credit: Mathieu Bredeau

Talking of L’Amour, keeping the harmonious times flowing in the classic metal sense between both sets was L’Amour’s man behind the decks. DJ Alex Kayne laid down some of the best of the best of the best from that decade, such as Angel Witch’s self-titled song, plus Iron Maiden with Flight of Icarus, as well as a heavy metal hattrick in three tracks throughout Alex’s playlist from Enforcer, one of my favorite groups of the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal.

It was time for the night to shift into ludicrous speed. At about 9:30, the opening incarnation on a giant screen played out as a Playstation FMV cutscene, wildly inventive and a little cheesy. I loved it. One of the tightest quintets in metal today, KK’S Priest then stormed out on stage towards a houseful of metallians. Before you knew it, K.K. Downing was grinding out the opening notes to Hellfire Thunderbolt, Sean Elg locking it in on the intro and led to Tim “Ripper” Owens gliding onstage with that opening line, hell breaks loose, we’re in the noose. The crowd was in for an enjoyable heavy metal party of the loudest order. K.K. Downing was back to show the heart of Times Square that he is one of the men responsible for heavy metal!

K.K. has remained an unstoppable force to deliver quality since he departed from Judas Priest all those years ago. K.K. looks and shreds like he hasn’t missed a beat, as we would witness while K.K’s Priest brought the thunder. Ripper is likewise outstanding. Although Ripper is almost in his sixties, he is vocally in the best shape he’s been in. Tim sounds as lively as he did when he first joined Judas Priest in the late nineties. Ripper sang with grace on original tracks such as Strike of the Viper and Sermons of the Sinner. That made it all the more exciting as an attendee to see them caving our skulls in with the old ways of a strong riff. Things picked up as their set list wore on, and we felt blessed to have K.K. bringing metal to the stage.

The setlist presented one knock-out punch after another from the beginning to the end. With six fast-paced heavy metal sentinal-sized KK’s Priest originals, the band dug deep into nine Judas Priest deep-cut classics as chills ran through the spines of the super-fans in the crowd while hearing gem after gem. The Ripper, Hell Patrol, Night Crawler, and more. Night Crawler felt so unreal to see live. These masterpiece hymns are as fast and soaring today as they were when K.K. performed them with Judas Priest, but no doubt the stars of the Priest anthems was Burn in Hell, an essential cut from the Ripper-era of Priest and Sinner. This set had everything a true fan would want, but the solo in Sinner encapsulates what an incredible guitarist K.K. Downing is. K.K. still performs with the same stamina he has had for nearly fifty years. There were a few slower moments – the Joan Baez cover of Diamonds and Rust showed off how versatile Ripper is as a singer, as did Before the Dawn, another balladry and great gloomy moment in the set.

After being treated to an hour plus of K.K. Downing-style heavy metal, the locomotive five-piece encored with one more KK’s Priest original in Raise Your Fists. As great as it was seeing K.K. Downing zipping around and Tim “Ripper” Owens sounding amazing throughout the performance, they never inhibited their equally skilled band members from sounding as triumphant on stage as they did. Sean Elg’s drumming is brutal and on the tier-one level of Alan Cassidy and Brian Wilson for modern metal drummers. A.J. Mills and Tony Newtown are stellar musicians who assist K.K. in unleashing the meal fury. The sum is greater than the whole of its parts in the example of K.K’s Priest – just a phenomenal, powerful performance from the entire band. Their return to New York City to headline Palladium Times Square was everything we hoped for. As for me, I would certainly say this was a benevolent concert to witness. How unplanned to see a band named K.K’s Priest on Friday the 13th, only to see five German preachers of the night provide a heavy metal mass known as Powerwolf on Saturday the 14th at the Brooklyn Paramount. That’s how life goes, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. With the world being in a different place now where people are struggling to do a lot of things like paying their rent and grocery bills being so high, this is a great package to see for a reasonable price. I suggest attending a date on this tour. Two hours of hooks, riffs, and shredding from Accept and K.K’s Priest!