The “Redeemer of Souls Tour” was one of the most successful ones in the entire career of the band as all of us who were lucky enough to catch them during one of their stops, we witnessed the Metal Gods being at the top of their game. In addition, “Redeemer of Souls” was one of the finest albums that Priest had released in the last 25 years thus the inclusion of the new songs on the set list proved to be a fitting choice as they sounded as classics as…the classic cuts! “Battle Cry” captures Priest’s show at the prestigious Wacken Open Air Festival that took place on the first day of August 2015. I am sure that everybody has seen at one point, various DVDs from Wacken and naturally one can expect the usual technical (and not only) aspects: the huge stage, the flawless light show, the crystal clear sound, the brilliant camera views and all these in front of a frenzy audience the estimated number of which was more than 85.000 people…and, mind you, that’s the official number.
Back to the Priest DVD…the band absolutely kicks ass and proves that they are still the undisputed Metal Gods! As a matter of fact they reminded me a lot of the Greek show; especially Rob Halford was sensational as he handles the demanding vocals in a brilliant way and his overall presence is nothing less than majestic! Tipton and Faulkner unleash the trademark guitar assault and Hill/Travis provide the ideal rhythm section. As for the set list, it has a little bit of everyone, really! From the new album we are treated with “Dragonaut”, “Halls of Valhalla” and the title track and the pleasant surprise –apart from the usual classic songs- is the presence of the rarely performed “Jawbreaker” and “Devil’s Child”.
All in all, this is a really enjoyable DVD and we must point down that it is accompanied by an audio CD that includes 15 songs from the same concert plus one can find in the bonus section of the DVD, three live songs from Priest’s show in Poland in December 2015.
