KICK OUT THE JAMS

Thursday, February 06, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Kick Out the Jams

Halford at the House

of Blues, Feb. 1

They continue to come out for the metal singer who came out.

More than 600 metalheads gathered at the House of Blues to witness Rob Halford in all his leather-studded glory. They held neither his homosexuality nor his belated presence (Halford missed his original date in December) against him. Instead, they banged their heads and moshed, warping the space-time continuum to such a degree that by the set's final song, "Breaking the Law," I began to pine for those faraway nights of marathon Dune reading, Domino's gorging and Dungeons & Dragons gaming. Back then, Judas Priest provided the soundtrack to the daze and confusion. Has there ever been a purer male adolescent joy than decapitating an orc with a +5 sword after rolling a 20 (on the 20-sided die) in the company of other pimply pubes as Screaming for Vengeance screeched on your older brother's turntable, during which that leftover cheese blob in the center of the pizza box glistened, waiting for you to pounce and wash it down with a spritz of Sprite? I doubt it.

Despite the junk diet that metal encourages, Halford, 52, looks fit and focused. He started the show strong, plunging into "Painkiller," the title track from his final 1990 effort with Priest, his four-piece band demonstrating a musical vigor sorely lacking in today's McRap-rock. Then, without so much as a smoke machine, Halford and his hired guns made it look easy, firing off two Defenders of the Faith rounds: "Freewheel Burning" and "Jawbreaker." The rest of the brief, 10-song set included Halford's solo highlights, "Resurrection" and "Made in Hell," followed by the evening's only Vengeance song, "Electric Eye."

A couple of Crucible (2002) cuts later, Halford blamed the House of Blues' "curfew" (i.e., the venue's weekly "Boogie Knights" event) for his short, brutish performance, even though the audience had waited 30 minutes for his band to drag its ass onstage. But after enduring three opening death-metal acts--Vio-lence, Exhumed and Testament--just how much more metal could we have taken? All right, probably a lot more.

Halford's solid show suggests that metal has always been wasted on the heterosexual. Rebellion and fantasy themes have always stood in the province of the gay imagination, and Halford's ability to infuse creative life into a dead genre time and again--whether it be with Priest, Fight, Two or Halford--is proof that what metal needs to stay viable are less Limp frat boys and more hard-rockin' homos.--Eric Rohner