JUDAS PRIEST's TIPTON: New Guitarist FAULKNER 'Has Injected So Much Enthusiasm In The Band'

Wave 100 conducted an interview with JUDAS PRIEST members Rob Halford (vocals),Glenn Tipton (guitar) and Richie Faulkner (guitar) prior to the band's June 11, 2011 headlining appearance at the Sauna Open Air festival in Tampere, Finland. You can now watch the chat below.

When asked about JUDAS PRIEST's current "Epitaph" farewell tour, Tipton said, "I think we've confused people by saying it's not the end of the band. It's not the end of the band, and we're not saying we won't do any more dates, and we certainly will do at least one album. Now that Richie has joined us [following the departure of founding guitarist Kenneth 'K.K.' Downing], that's changed everything again, because we said we were gonna do a farewell tour before Richie joined the band. And, in all honesty, he's injected so much enthusiasm in the band, and I'm not overstating that he really has. So it's changed things a bit, but it's definitely our last major world tour. Over and above that, [we'll put out] albums and maybe [we'll play] the odd dates here and there we don't really know but we won't tour the planet again, so in a lot of areas this is the last chance to see PRIEST. But we don't wanna cause confusion or tell a lie."

JUDAS PRIEST's setlist for the Sauna Open Air festival was as follows:

01. Rapid Fire
02. Metal Gods
03. Heading Out the Highway
04. Judas Rising
05. Starbreaker
06. Victim of Changes
07. Never Satisfied
08. Diamonds And Rust (JOAN BAEZ cover)
09. Prophecy
10. Night Crawler
11. Turbo Lover
12. Beyond the Realms of Death
13. The Sentinel
14. Blood Red Skies
15. The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown) (FLEETWOOD MAC cover)
16. Breaking the Law
17. Painkiller

Encore 1:

18. The Hellion (taped intro) / Electric Eye
19. Hell Bent For Leather

Encore 2:

20. You've Got Another Thing Coming

Encore 3:

21. Living After Midnight

Fan-filmed footage of PRIEST's performance can be viewed below.

JUDAS PRIEST will launch the U.S. leg of its farewell world tour on October 12 in San Antonio and the band promises that it will go out with a bang. 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."

As for whether this is really the end of JUDAS PRIEST's touring days, guitarist Glenn 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."

Interview:

Performance: