Judas Priest (opens in new tab) are planning on celebrating their 50th anniversary with a set at Wacken Open Air next summer (opens in new tab).
And, according to frontman Rob Halford (opens in new tab), the band have a few other surprises up their sleeves – and he’s been delving into Priest’s back catalogue in preparation of something “very special” in 2020.
The Metal God tells Rolling Stone (opens in new tab): “I’ve been feverishly working over the last few weeks and months with our stage designers to make something very, very special.
“We’re going to go deep, deep, deep into the catalogue and try to find songs that we’ve never played before and wrap it up into the history of Priest and the 50th anniversary.
“The official Priest 50th spectacular starts next year, so it’s going to be a great show. We’ve got some really big surprises and it’s going to be a wonderful celebration of Priest and British heavy metal.”
In August last year, Halford confirmed that Judas Priest were putting the pieces in place to mark the “incredible milestone” (opens in new tab) this year.
However, those plans were curtailed when their planned tour with Ozzy Osbourne were shelved after Ozzy was forced to postpone his 2019 live shows (opens in new tab) after he was badly injured in a fall at his home.
Next year could also be a double celebration for Judas Priest as last week, they were nominated once again for The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame (opens in new tab).
They’ll find out if they’ve been successful early next year.
Meanwhile, Halford released his Christmas album Celestial last week and recently spoke to Classic Rock on why he loves the festive period so much (opens in new tab).
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