At tonight’s rather fantastic show at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, towards the end of the evening Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford made the following announcement (the words may not be 100% right but the topic is very interesting):

“Let’s just clear up one or two things….The Priest will be back!”

This would seem to indicate that contrary to previous announcements that their Epitaph World Tour, of which tonight’s London show was the final date currently scheduled may not be Judas Priest’s farewell from the live stage after all. There was absolutely no mention of the tour being their farewell tour, so the plans for retirement (from live shows, not totally as a band) may be cancelled or on hold. It may just relate to a future album but Rob Halford’s comments very much seemed to indicate there will be more Judas Priest concerts in the future. If we can get further clarification on this we will update everyone as soon as we can.

*Update* A few kind people have clarified matters for us in that Judas Priest announced awhile back that they will indeed continue to play live shows, but the Epitaph World Tour is the last extensive world tour and only small tours or one off shows will follow from this point forward. Thanks to our friends at EspyRock for clarifying this for us in detail!

A review of Judas Priests’ show tonight with Saxon and Kobra and The Lotus will be available here in the coming days so keep your eyes peeled for that as well as any other live rock & metal show reviews here at Rocksins.com.