I've been going off for weeks about it to anyone who would listen. And it proved every bit as exciting as I imagined. Twenty some years after first banging my head to "Some Heads Are Gonna Roll', I got my chance to witness a Judas Priest concert. I'm still bouncing off the walls with unbridled heavy metal ecstasy.

Rob Halford is one of my heroes. In the mid 70s, he showed up on the hippy-acid-metal scene dressed as the leather daddy that he was, and influenced 30 years of redneck boys' fashion. Then he comes out of the closet, proving once and for all that metalhead boys dress like fags, and they love him for it!

He's over 50 and going like a man shot from a British Steel cannon into the mouth of a hot young stud. He roared out onto the stage for the encore on his 70s custom Harley Davidson, sporting as much chrome on his jacket as on his bike. His voice is stronger than I imagined, stronger than I remember it from recordings 25 years old.

The show drew the very best metalheads, pure and unfettered with anything but beer and balls. Picture long hair flying in synch to the hair of the guitar players on stage, all rocking out with ferocity, fists flying with the determined pace of a piston...or something like that...

I did not see, however, the other demographic I expected to be in full colours: leather fags. I predicted that Priest's (or at least Halford's) largest loyal fan base would be among the leather crowd. Perhaps they were there in metalhead drag: baseball caps rather than leather cop caps; black band shirts instead of black latex shirts; tight jeans, not leather chaps. <shrug> It all made me a little sad though. Doesn't Rob Halford deserve to be an icon of leather pride? Were the leather guys scared of the rest of Judas Priest's fans kicking their leather asses? Or maybe Billy was right: Real leather boys like house music. <shudder>

As I walked along the road back to my car after the show, still sweaty from extreme rocking, I had the pure metal experience of shouting a long high falsetto "Waaa!" while raising high the heavy metal salute devil horns and banging my head at a stream of cars. The honks, hoots and hollers of metalheads showing their appreciation for a hard rocking rang on through the night.