For the first time in their 35 year history, New Wave Of British Heavy Metal legends DIAMOND HEAD will be touring the US. Previously their only appearance was at the NJ Metal Fest in 2002 for a sold out show with fellow British stalwarts SAXON and WITCHFYNDE. Now for the first time ever, Diamond Head’s US fans, and fans of the Big 4 – METALLICA, SLAYER, MEGADETH and ANTHRAX – will get the opportunity to see the band that influenced them.

A band update about the tour reads as follows: “For those of you who may have seen advertised dates, or purchased tickets, for the US NWOBHM Tour featuring Diamond Head, GIRLSCHOOL, AL ATKINS HOLY RAGE, and HYDROGEN, we apologize for the change in line-up. It has always been our intention to tour with our fellow NWOBHM mates, but sadly it turned out to not be financially feasible at this time. Diamond Head will be making the tour and are looking forward to seeing all our US fans. It is going to be an exciting, and busy, year for the band, it is also a year of firsts for them. Their first appearance ever with the Big 4, the artists who they had a major influence on, at the Sonisphere Festivals in the UK, and France, then heading off to their first performances in Canada, performing with MOTÖRHEAD, and MEGADETH at the Heavy TO Festival in Toronto, followed by a performance with Girlschool, Motörhead, and KISS, at the Heavy Metal Festival in Montreal, followed by their first US Tour, with a stop in Istanbul, Turkey in the September, which will also be another first for them.”

Diamond Head tour dates include:

August
15 – Seattle, WA – El Corazon
16 – Portland, OR – Aladdin Theatre
17 – San Francisco, CA – Elbo Room
18 – Santa, Ana, CA – The Galaxy Theater
19 – Tempe, AZ – The Club House
20 – Ramona, CA – Ramona’s Main Stage
21 – Las Vegas, NV – The Bunkhouse
23 – Kansas City, MO – Knuckleheads
24 – St. Paul, MN – Station 4
25 – Wisconsin Rapids, WI – The Pour House
26 – Detroit, MI – Blondies
27 – Chicago, IL – Tailgaters
28 – Milwaukee, WI – Shank Hall
29 – Dayton, OH – McGuffy’s House of Rock
30 – Pittsburg, PA – Club Diesel
31 – Baltimore, MD – The Otto Bar

September
1 – New York, NY – BB King Blues Bar & Grill

Professionally filmed video footage of Doro Pesch‘s entire June 19, 2011 performance at Hellfest in Clisson, France can be viewed below (courtesy of Arte [Association Relative à la Télévision Européenne], a Franco-German TV network).

In a recent interview with Rocksalt.mx, Pesch spoke about a new song she has written as a tribute to legendary heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio. “I was always such a big [Dio] fan, like so many other people, [I] just adored him and loved him,” she said. “But there’s one song, we will be working on that and I think it will be wonderful. But I first want to show it to Wendy Dio [Ronnie‘s wife/manager] and let her listen to it, so that’s one thing. I kind of want to make many versions of that song, I think it’s beautiful and I like it a lot . . . It’s called ‘Hero’ and it has a beautiful melody and I would like to make many versions of it, like an acoustic version and a full-blown band version and maybe an orchestral version… and we are just working on it. I definitely want to take care of that one — that song’s nice. But first I want to let Wendy listen to it. I’m really hoping… but I’m sure she will like it a lot. Every time everybody is listening to it in the studio everybody is crying and so — wow — so touching.”

Doro Pesch‘s recently released 2DVD/CD set, “25 Years In Rock”, features Doro‘s entire 25-year anniversary concert, including guest performances in front of about 10,000 enthusiastic fans in Düsseldorf, Germany as well as a China special, outtakes from Doro‘s 2500th concert and a whole lot more. The DVD was released in Europe via Nuclear Blast on November 26 and will be made available in the rest of the world sometime in 2011.

“Fear No Evil”, the latest album from Pesch, was made available in North America in June 2009 via AFM/Dismanic/Ryko Distribution.

Released in Europe in January 2009 via AFM Records, “Fear No Evil” entered the German Media Control chart at position No. 11. This was the highest chart entry for Doro in her home country in almost 20 years.

http://liveweb.arte.tv/fr/video/Hellfest___Doro/

JUDAS PRIEST will embark on a North American tour in the fall with support from THIN LIZZY and BLACK LABEL SOCIETY. The trek — which was announced last month during a press conference at the Renaissance Hotel at Highland and Hollywood in Los Angeles, California — will kick off on October 12 in San Antonio, Texas and conclude in early December.

Newly added JUDAS PRIEST North American tour dates:

Oct. 27 – Sleep Train Pavilion, Concord, CA
Nov. 08 – US Bank Arena, Cincinnati, OH
Nov. 09 – Prairie Capital Convention Center, Springfield, IL
Nov. 10 – The Family Arena, St. Louis, MO
Nov. 15 – Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland, OH
Nov. 16 – The Armory, Rochester, NY
Nov. 22 – Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON
Nov. 23 – Colisee Pepsi Arena, Quebec City, QC
Nov. 24 – Bell Centre, Montreal, QC
Nov. 26 – Sovereign Center, Reading, PA
Nov. 30 – 1-800-ASK-GARY Amphitheatre, Tampa
Dec. 01 – Bayfront Park Amphitheatre, Miami
Dec. 03 – Hard Rock Biloxi Hotel & Casino, Biloxi

For the full list of “Epitaph” tour dates, click here.

In other news, fan-filmed video footage of JUDAS PRIEST‘s June 19, 2011 performance at Hellfest in Clisson, France can be seen below.

The band’s setlist was as follows:

01. Rapid Fire
02. Metal Gods
03. Judas Rising
04. Starbreaker
05. Victim Changes
06. Never Satisfied
07. Night Crawler
08. Beyond Death
09. Blood Red Skies
10. The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown) (FLEETWOOD MAC cover)
11. Breaking The Law
12. Painkiller

Encore:

13. Hell Bent For Leather
14. You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’

Singer Rob Halford said, “We’re pulling out all the stops. We’ve built a brand new stage set, we’ve got all the effects that people love us for — the lasers, the fire, the bombs, the smoke, new costumes, and the bike. It’s just a full-on metal extravaganza.”

Guitarist Glenn Tipton added that the group will play something from each of its albums, including a few numbers that have never been performed live before. “Obviously it’s the farewell world tour, so we’ve really gotta put a lot of the old favorites in there,” he said. “We got a lot of feedback from our web page, we requested what people really wanted to hear, so we put a set together based on that. Plus we’re playing at least one song from every album and we’re doing stuff that we haven’t played before, such as ‘Never Satisfied’, ‘Blood Red Skies’ and ‘Starbreaker’. So there’s a real mixed bag. Our mission, really, was to play at least song off each album each year and we tried to pick the songs that everybody wanted to hear. Obviously they’ll always want ‘Painkiller’, they’ll always want ‘Hell bent For Leather’. We’ve got so many songs, it’s really difficult to choose, and somebody is always disappointed. [But] I think we’ve covered most of them.”

As for whether this is really the end of JUDAS PRIEST‘s touring days, Tipton added, “We don’t plan on retiring. We’ve said that this is our last world tour. It takes a chunk out of your life — 18 months. We won’t be doing any more world tours as such and in many parts of the world, it will be the last time people will get a chance to see us. But we’re not gonna stop. We’ve got an album in the can now, we will start to write with Richie, there will be more albums, and who knows?! There might be a string of dates that we can manage to do. We’re just not gonna do another major world tour. We’ve been doing it for 40 years and it’s time to let the younger bands have the chance.”

Published by rbtaleman

Heavy metal (fiend/friend?) Writer, frustrat(or), frustrat(ee), decorated U.S. Navy veteran, Husband(twice), father(three times), grandfather(of seven), FM radio veteran, Concertgoer, music collector, muscle car aficianado. Grown up since five. Child since 45. View all posts by rbtaleman