Release Athens 2024: Photo-story Judas Priest

Release Athens 2024, entered its final stretch with a night worthy of the acts that would take the stage at Plateia Nerou.

Saturday Night Satan proved to be a delightful group to begin with, and managed to earn the applause of the crowd that came to the venue early enough to watch them live. Accept followed and gave us a best-of setlist that started with the best songs of their most recent LP (“The Reckoning”, “Humanoid”) and ended with some of the greatest songs in the history of heavy metal (“Fast As A Shark”, “Teutonic Terror”). The most unforgettable moment of the night occurred when Andy Sneap, the band’s producer and Judas Priest’s tour member, joined them for the epic finale of “Balls to the Wall”.

Immediately afterwards it was the turn of the first headliner of the evening, the great Bruce Dickinson. Much could be said about the Iron Maiden singer’s great performance, e.g. his excellent rendition of “Tears of the Dragon”, his overall performance of songs like “Accident of Birth”, “Tears of the Dragon”, “Darkside of Aquarius” and many others, but his appearance will go down in history as the first time one of the biggest dreams of the local metalheads was fulfilled, as we heard (at least part of) the epic “Alexander The Great” by Iron Maiden.

Finally, Judas Priest, in front of the biggest crowd they have ever attracted in Greece, not only reminded us why they have earned the nickname Metal Gods but also emphasized that they are still one of the biggest forces in today’s metal. From the opener “Panic Attack” to a series of metal classics (“Breaking The Law”, “Sinner”, “Turbo Lover”, “Painkiller”) and the encore with “Electric Eye”, “Hell Bent for Leather” and “Living After Midnight”, Rob Halford and company put on the ultimate metal party of the year.