Judas Priest is coming to South Africa

26 Sep 2018 - 17:43

Published under the Creative Commons Licence

British heavy metal band Judas Priest will make its South African debut next year. The five-member band, which has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide, will perform at the Grand Arena in Cape Town and Ticketpro Dome in Johannesburg on 20 and 22 March respectively.

Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford. Photo: Scott Nathanson

The group will tour courtesy of Big Concerts, which is also bringing British singer Ed Sheeran to South Africa in the same month.

“South Africa we are coming! 20 March at Grand Arena, Cape Town and 22 March at Ticketpro Dome, Johannesburg,” Judas Priest wrote on Twitter.

With 18 albums to its name, Judas Priest is ranked as one of the greatest metal bands of all time. The group gained worldwide success following the release of its fifth studio album Killing Machine in 1978. The 11-track offering was the first of the group’s albums to go platinum.

Other well-known Judas Priest albums among the band's diehard fans include Stained Class, British Steel and Painkiller. Fronted by 67-year-old falsetto master Rob Halford, the band is expected to perform songs from a catalogue spanning more than four decades.

This year Judas Priest dropped Firepower, the band's latest album that sold 49 000 copies in the US within the first week of its release. Firepower debuted at No 5 on the Billboard 200 chart, making it the band's highest-charting album in the US.

Judas Priest won a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance for 'Dissident Aggressor' in 2010, 33 years after the song's initial release on the Sin After Sin album.

Tickets to the Judas Priest concerts in South Africa will go on sale on 28 September via the Big Concerts official website.