The Live Album Section 1979
Judas Priest Unleashed in the East 1979 (Columbia)
Heavy Metal
As one the premier metal acts in the world it was only fitting that Judas Priest should release a live set to close the decade off and the aptly titled
Unleashed in the East would be that album, and would be recorded on the band’s Hell Bent for Leather Tour at the start of 1979. Judas Priest over their several previous albums had forged out one of the most identifiable sounds in metal and reached their zenith on the killer
Stained Class album with its dark overtones (see review as it’s the no.1 album of 1978) and then in the same year they had released the
Killing Machine (Hell Bent for Leather) album a far more commercial effort and in the space of those two albums they had given us the complete metal package. These two albums would of course go onto influence much of 1980’s metal scene to startling effect! The bulk of the material on
Unleashed in the East comes from the two previous albums
Stained Class and
Killing Machine (Hell Bent for Leather) along with the earlier essentials the
Sad Wings of Destiny and the glorious
Sin After Sin and I really can’t fault the song choices on the album either, as the essentials are here.
Unleashed in the East would be the band’s biggest selling album stateside and despite its negative appraisal by critics at the time who labelled it ‘Unleashed in the Studio’ due to its heavy studio enhancement, the album still ranks among one of the best live albums to be released by a metal band from this era. Personally, I would’ve liked to have seen the record label release all fifteen tracks initially instead of the nine that they actually did, but then again streamlining was the order of the day back then when it came to live albums (just think the original release of Cheap Trick’s
At Budokan as a prime example of this) and it wasn’t until 2001 that an extended Japanese version of the album was released and boosted the song count upto thirteen in total. This was a shame really, as outside a bootleg album listeners had to wait until 2001 to get a proper extended version of the concert. This was quite strange really as the Scorpions just a year earlier in 1978, had seen their
Tokyo Tapes album released as a double-set in its full glory and the album served as a perfect summary of the band’s history to date, in many ways Judas Priests' record label missed the opportunity to do the same thing with Judas Priest back in 1979.
Rob Halford- Vocals
K.K Downing- Guitar
Glenn Tipton- Guitar
Ian Hill- Bass
Les Binks- Drums
Production- Judas Priest/Tom Allom
Kosei Nenkin Hall & Nakano Sun Plaza, Tokyo