Gig Review: Alice Cooper & Judas Priest @ PNC

Rhapsody of Fire’s stellar tour finale in Brooklyn was everything I thought it would be, and then some. This concert season is poised to become a major one over the next couple of months. Still, in the meantime, we’re officially on the other end of the annual false-fall fake-out, which means, though the zeal of summer hasn’t entirely vanished just yet, the outdoor shows are exiting stage left. Glorious. I headed out to catch Alice Cooper with Judas Priest and Corrosion of Conformity at the PNC Arts Center, so it’s clear that those late-summer blooms are still blossoming. We wouldn’t have it any other way, as we attend shows we are most excited about in this shocking, trick-or-treat time of year.

Consider this an official bonus tip if you’re traveling to a tour date in your state! If owning a car isn’t in your budget, or you can’t get a ride to the show. You will, in fact, be partaking in this glorious double-bill celebration of music in all forms. Look up an alternate route to the venue and try to coordinate traveling via bus, light rail, or rail. The car service side of things definitely offers options to take a Lyft or Uber to and from the venue, and it’s even better if you aren’t shy about asking other attendees to split one with you so that you won’t be far behind on arrival. That makes sense.

Corrosion of Conformity assured a special evening celebrating the integral connection between music and the life and works of two icons – featuring Iommi-inspired riffs by Pepper Keenan live and in-person with his brother in grungy music, one of doom metal’s greatest living lead players named Woody Weatherman, and two of C.o.C’s closest confidants, Bobby Landgraf on bass and Jason Patterson, the man holding down the pocket on this tour in place of Stanton Moore. As openers, we, as a clique who showed up early, reveled in the muddy, spicy, punky bliss over just how much exceptional hardcore-meets-metal Corrosion of Conformity has manifested with a thirty-minute long set, and how lucky they must have felt to tour with two figures of heavy metal. So, when we sat down to see this band properly during their opening slot, the amphitheater was already filled with their devoted fans by 6:25 p.m., and our expectations were through the roof. You have to show up early to see them power tripping on Wiseblood, Vote with a Bullet, not to forget their two snarling hits in Albatross and Clean My Wounds.

This wonderfully knock-out band—a staple in crossover metal since the 1980s and essential to the history of diversified heft, influencing bands like Orange Goblin and the Sword—is absolutely worth being punctual for. Dark, laid back, and heavy as hell. From a crunchy half-hour set among America’s volume dealers, Corrosion of Conformity southern fried the garden state as dusk was setting in New Jersey, and for the horde to witness the British steel of Judas Priest!

Corrosion of Conformity

Photo Credit: Melinda Oswandel

The weather was proudly perfect—dry, mild, cloudless for Judas Priest—and the metal gods were not short on the hunger for enrichment and racket for a defining heavy metal time. The set-list was strikingly extensive, along with the deep cuts in the complete throttle opener of All Guns Blazing! The priest was fully back, where dozens of casuals and loyalists joined together to honour thirty-five years of their highly influential 1990 comeback album, Painkiller. Yes, the Birmingham legends with the American double bass drum pummeling from Scott Travis started the set speedily for eighty-six minutes of Judas Priest-style heavy metal. Never letting up, Judas Priest slammed the arena at speeds of raining shrapnel with die-hard favorites, Hell Patrol, and Night Crawler, as the fair-weather fans benefited from harmonizing along to You’ve Got Another Thing Coming and Breaking the Law. But that’s just how Judas Priest does it. There is no denying the crash and punch that is a well-balanced set-list.

The band is continuing the searing, shifting, and incredible metal burst by digging deeper into the group’s rich and razor-sharp live experiences. Having already mentioned the furious drum talents of Scott Travis, the drifting harmonies and the overdriving leads from some fresher blood with Richie Faulkner and Andy Sneap is still present, a terrific duo doing a magnetic job holding down the spots once filled by the behemoth-sounding guitar duality of KK Downing and Glen Tipton, where an O.G. named Ian Hill culling buzzing bass lines to maintain his aura in the background while keeping the live voltage risen. Glen Tipton is no longer in the band due to battling Parkinson’s disease, but he remains a member of the Judas Priest family. I’m sure that Glen was cheering them on from the sidelines. There is also the matured-pipes of the metal god, Rob Halford, where line delivery at his younger seventies from becoming an operatic barritone which is still going strong and can still anchor down the high notes when the song gears up for it, especially for the Painkiller selection of songs, by and large for the title cut all punched-up as the centerpiece of the album’s celebration, steamrolling the throng of metallians. But that barely covers the performance, teamwork, and utmost professionalism Judas Priest presents in a modern arena setting.

What about their gig? Priest delivered. While memorializing Painkiller, and playing the hits, another one-of-a-kind moment during their time on stage, was a heartfelt tribute to so many rock legends throughout Giants in the Sky who are no longer with us and that was a great moment—which had the faces of Chris Cornell, Jill Janis, Lemmy Kilmister, Ronnie James Dio, was just a few of the superstars shown on screen—the loudest reaction from the audience happened when Ozzy Osbourne appeared on the big electric canopy—absolute class from one of the all-time influential heavy metal bands to ever exist. The stage looked well put together. In this large music hall setting, the band uses screens displaying different backgrounds and animations that correlate with the songs—but without blocking the performative elements of the musicians—same for the light show. Everything comes together when night comes down, where the overall metal mania will stand out so much more! Judas Priest is without peer, as evidenced by another great gem, titled Solar Angels, and one of their defining set-list staples, Electric Eye. The megastars brought the house down. Judas Priest are pioneers of the metal genre, always pushing forward to provide an electrifying performance, which is always the surge of explosive auditory dynamism from Rob Halford and company.

Judas Priest deploys a full arsenal of metallic confetti to make the most of nearly two hours on stage, with something for everyone that gathers to see them, stacked with groove and might, made to be heard, without blocking your eardrums with cheap earplugs. And no Judas Priest set-list would be complete without sending off everyone feeling happy to discharge a thunderous set with two of their gigaton hits in Hell Bent for Leather and Living After Midnight before the final, menacing dosage of plasmatic night shade started to take effect for the frightmare circus from Alice Cooper.

Judas Priest

Photo Credit: Melinda Oswandel

A sinister icon of vaudevillian classic rock since putting a hex on the summer of love back in 1967, the spectral barron of the Hollywood vampires, Alice Cooper, astral projected himself from an astonishing tome found in Alice’s attic for even more of the best yet to come for an hour and then some, a shackling rollercoaster of musical surrealism and a big bloody stageshow. Now, this double-headline bill bookended by Alice sees an all-new theatrical nightmare for this shock rock renegade to trick and treat a huge Holmdel crowd with his form of malice, and to mirror the set-roll, career-spanning duality of Judas Priest.

What began with a loosely connected medley starting with Hello, Hooray and already respecting the deep cuts via an abridged version of Who Do You Think We Are, setting up the sick things of New Jersey for a song list of nineties dark swing, eighties style hard rock, and a deluge of seventies dirty diamonds, bounded together by that patented Cooper charisma. With the terrorizing parade commenced by Spark in the Dark, the Coop troupe solidified into a phantom force to be reckoned with. Never an artist to remain creatively confused when delivering cursed tales of the bizarre, an Alice Cooper production is essentially a fusing of the visions of its two principal showbiz ideals: big hooks and bigger moments. That said, Alice’s band converges for a singular performative mission—one that defines the totality on his villainous turf, not as separate parts, but as one monstrous unit. The Coop himself is obviously running the show here—but a show stopping force like Alice Cooper is only as good as the stars he is performing with, and what a wild party it really is for all four of his longtime band members—and we all know about Alice’s wailing femme fatale named Nita Strauss sneaking the shred alongside Ryan Roxie and Tommy Henriksen. There is that dark, pulsating groove for eternity, the nonstop assuring vibrations in the middle of the hot licks when Alice has his biting bassist Chuck Garric, and a lively drummer in Glen Sobel, parting shots with Chuck to keep the topsy-turvy sideshow locked in. And rightly so! Alice’s band is incredible.

This flattering quintet brings the songs to life, with everyone going along for the ride to see their favorite songs performed live. For every X that was satisfied hearing No More Mr. Nice Guy and Poison, the Ys at this NJ reception, like me, got to revel in some deep Cooper classics like House of Fire, Caught in a Dream, Dangerous Tonight, Brutal Planet, and of course, Cold Ethyl. This set-list is a maelstrom to witness, and there wasn’t a single moment when no one remained static on stage. While I will keep details surrounding the theatrics of this 2025 spectacle with Judas Priest intentionally limited, because I want you to be surprised if this tour hits your area, so you can live your dream of seeing these two titans in concert, I will mention that Alice Cooper has earned his recognition to explore a myriad of presence and theatrical performance styles. Here’s two previews though—the psychedelic classic rock foundation that was laid on 1969’s Pretties for You from the original Alice Cooper band has Alice far-reaching with the merry moments combined with a bone-chilling song-list, and deepened further with inviting his seminal bassist Dennis Dunaway to perform I’m Eighteen: another reason for you to attend this event maybe to see two-fifths of the primeval Alice Cooper group together again as the force ghost of their late guitarist Glen Buxton smiles from the ether.

Alice explores familiar melodramatic territory, offering a soul-stealing spin from his most popular stunt, yet still grounded in the intensity and skit-driven showmanship he is known for, the moment arrived for the set’s literal centerpiece from the guillotine where the diabolical strigoi got his head got seemingly chopped off by his wife Cheryl Cooper, enveloped by two more, albeit shortened versions of a handful of blood diamonds in Second Coming and Going Home, before sending his devotees home with the grand finale, his highest charting single ever, School’s Out, complete with a snippet of Pink Flyod’s Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 and band introductions, plus fittingly having Dennis Dunaway on stage again to join in on a perfect ending to this Alice Cooper show. Remember the Coop, indeed!

Alice Cooper is a critically lauded ringmaster, evidence of a surrealist still at the height of his prime, nearly six decades into a groundbreaking career. Enfeuded in entertainment and providing an appreciable set list, Alice aims to transport his admirers and die-hard adherents on an unforgettable fever dream through the subtle intention of being phone-free for a bit, forged in the live soundscape of his massively talented band of misfits.

If writing this scribed diptych connecting Rhapsody of Fire and Alice Cooper / Judas Priest has taught us anything, it’s that the breadth of music in our lives is absolutely uplifting. Where the power music gets us through difficult times, it doesn’t matter what’s happening during these fucking crazy times we are living in, inside at a gig, you and the like-minded aficionados surrounding you are one big metal family to keep the faith. If you’re a heavy metal connoisseur of the old-school variety, this is going to be the highlight of your spooky season out of the one hundred things to do in October. Two of the most significant primary influences for their respective genres are going above and beyond to create a night to remember by indulging in the blood-soaked Americana of Alice Cooper, getting sliced by the British steel of Judas Priest, and buried in doomy smoke from Corrosion of Conformity. The metal is constructing, and the theatrics are flying as you strap on the leather, slap on the spikes, and apply the grease paint for an evening of back-to-back bangers from all three acts. This tour is buzzing well throughout the best time of the year, the Halloween season. So round up your friends, family, or go solo. From reenacting as your favorite caricature in Heavy Metal Parking Lot to attending the show itself, skip the guesswork, buy those concert tickets, and make an unforgettable night out of it.