In 1990 Judas Priest released the album Painkiller which featured one of the strongest vocal performances by Rob Halford. The band embarked on a world tour in support of the album. I checked several live performances from that tour and noticed that Halford is in most cases struggling to hit the high notes or to match the intensity of the studio performance on the tracks from the latest (at that point) album. One would expect him and the rest of the band to perform the tracks well, considering the fact that they had finished the recording of it not long ago, yet it was not the case. Out of numerous performances I listened to / watched, the title track was performed well enough to match the studio recording just two or so times. I also noticed that it was hard for Rob to perform some of the older songs like Victim Of Changes. I checked some of the Fight songs from the debut album and his vocal performance sounds as good as on Painkiller. When watching the post-reunion performances I realized that some of his bent-over singing and gestures, he makes while trying to hit the notes, originate from the early 90's. His post reunion performance had some great moments, but he never reached the same level of quality as in the early 90's.
It makes me wonder if it was just fatigue or the beginning of the deterioration. Yet he should be given credit for keeping his voice in good shape for almost 20 years. Not many singers from intensely touring big bands lasted that long. Opinions ?

I only saw JP live in 2005 and it was painful to hear. The band was playing VERY slowly and Rob was really struggling to reach the higher notes. Still, JP has been around, say, more than 40 years? I guess it's understandable they are getting - really - old and it's almost impossible for them to perform like they did a couple of decades ago.

I'm thinking a number of retakes were done in the studio for the Painkiller recording sessions, to ensure only the absolutely best of his vocals made it through, and that live then, or since then, he's sounded worse for the simple reason that you don't get second chances like that in the live setting, so he's really only pulled it off on live performances where he's "got lucky" or "had a good day" or something of the sort. As for vocals live since then, I think people give him a wee bit too much flak - of course he's not as good as then, guy's 60 years old, come on, and he has belted out vocals for about 40 years, I think he's kept himself relatively well all things considered. Not as great as he once was? Not really, no. The same useless old geezer some people seem to call him out for being these days? Not really that either, no.

To counter Kveldulfr's post, I saw them live in 2009 and maybe I wasn't as good a music listener then as I am now, or maybe I'm looking back to the event through rose-tinted glasses, but I seem to remember them doing relatively well, every single one of them.

I saw them live in 2005 and in 2008. The 2005 performance was quite good, but not on par with the 2008 show.

Speaking about the studio sessions. Considering the rate at which he fails in these songs, they should either be incredibly hard to perform and required an enormous amount of studio time or Rob is not as good live as we got used to thinking.

Vocals aside. I am yet to find a live version of Painkiller where the solos are performed correctly. Another downside of the studio "magick" ? Or they are as hard to perform as the vocal lines ? It seems that Painkiller album was and is beyond the band's capabilities.

How much I love Halfords vocals, Tim Owens seems to hit the notes of the higher pitched songs really good live.
Don't like the Tim Owens albums much, but I think he does a great job live in comparison of Rob Halford the last decade.

The Ripper sung lower than Halford. I can't name the exact figures, but it seems like one tone.

I saw the band on their Epitaph tour last November. I didn't expect Rob to be screaming his classic high pitches like he used to, after watching videos of other Epitaph shows. But he was absolutely incredible the entire 2 hours. His voice did not crack or sound weak at all. I was going insane and had a near out of body experience while witnessing the band perform Painkiller. Rob's singing in that blew my mind; he even did a low death growl. But he did look very worn out at times up on stage. Of course he's not going to sound like he did in 1984. But he's doing the best he can at his age.

Not sure if you're trying to discredit Ripper here, but Halford sings the same songs in the same dropped key (C# guitar tuning, I believe) these days; my reference is the recent Touch Of Evil live album. Even then, again going by this live album, his vocals are weak compared to his "prine" years. I'm fairly certain that Ripper would blow the current Halford clean out of the water, in terms of physical vocal ability.

No shame in the Halford situation though, as "father time" is simply catching up with him. No one is going to be able maintain that level of performance stamina for 40+ years.

Sure, Ripper is competent, but compared to Halford? Different ballparks. Rippers tone of voice grates on me.

I am not trying to discredit Owens in the slightest. His vocals at this point are clearly superior judging by the Hail! performances. I am not sure what tuning Hail! use, but it sounds lower. It still looks like a tough job for Ripper. I am yet to check out the live album you are talking about. Speaking about the band in their prime, early 90's, how would you explain the at-times so-so performance of Halford ?

He did great vocals on Resurrection. But then again he doesn't do very much high falsettos or screams on that one.

I just saw Priest again live last sunday and it was maybe the worst performance from Halford I've heard yet and I've seen them now five times. He basically spoke the chorus for The Sentinel and was saving up his voice.

exactly - there's no way the album is the norm; that's the absolute best extent of rob's voice at the time. Not to mention that Priest had already been putting out albums for 15 years at that point. rob probably actually peaked some time in the early 80s, but that extreme painkiller falsetto-with-nuts sound hadn't yet been invented. i've seen live videos of painkiller (the song) and he always cuts corners. but the same goes for any album with ridiculously good vocals - slave to the grind is a good example. sebastian bach was in his absolute prime during those sessions, but when you listen to them live on that tour he sounds like phil anselmo half the time. the only exception is a live clip of monkey business from SNL.

on a slightly-related note, i'm gonna go see priest tomorrow night in hamburg, so we'll see how rob sounds now.

I think I've been misunderstood here, so allow me to clarify. I should've emphasized the "physical" in "physical vocal ability"; I'm talking about who can hit the notes with power and accuracy, which I feel is a more quantifiable measure. What you're talking about is character, which is an intangible. Sure Ripper's tone of voice may grate you, but it works just fine for me-I would have no issue whatsoever with say, Ripper returning to the band upon Halford's retirement (this is hypothetical on my end here). We can go in circles on this debate (which is the last thing I wanna do) over things like tonal preferences. But I don't think it's foolish to believe that today, in 2012, Ripper is a physically superior vocalist to Halford. And that's simply an advantage brought on by age and far less wear and tear.



I don't have an explanation for this, as I've never considered it because I was unaware it was an "issue" until the existence of this thread. Best logical and obvious guess is studio trickery used on the Painkiller studio performances made it somewhat unperformable in the live setting? I don't know. And I'm not sure what studio trickery would've been employed in 1990, as pitch correction software such as Autotune didn't come into (common) play until the late 90's. Couldn't tell you.

Perhaps compiling the vocal tracks from multiple takes instead of singing the full song from start to finish at once, quite a strandard practice in studio work I would assume. Therefore wouldn't really call it "trickery" either.

Playing the devil's advocate:

Studio techniques such as copying and pasting, vocal autotuning, drum triggering, amplifier simulations, among a vast myriad of others (including comping, as you've described) are all considered standard practices in 2012, both in digital and analog situations (although some of these would not necessarily be easy in an analog situation). Yet there are those who hold the opinion that these types of manipulation are all forms of "trickery" or "cheating". To emphasize, that is NOT necessarily my opinion, nor am I saying that that is the opinion of anyone in this thread. But some people feel that anything other than an uninterrupted performance is "trickery".

Again, not my opinion; just playing devil's advocate.

At any rate, comping the vocal takes is certainly a plausible scenario for a 1990 recording session. Hadn’t thought of that.

Yeah I know, and I have encountered such people myself Maybe I should've emphasized that personally I wouldn't consider it trickery. In my opinion studio work is totally different thing than live performance, and should/shouldn't be judged accordingly.

@FirebathDan: Nah, man, I know what you meant. I was just saying that overall, Halford was better. Right now though? Ripper is undoubtedly more confident. As you said, this is attributable to the years of Halford performing. Maybe the same fate will befall Ripper eventually. Then again, there are vocalists that never lost it. Dio for example, sounded great till the end.

To be honest, I've never been a fans of Halford's vocals. Saw him live opening for Ozzy a year or two ago. He did seem to strain a bit to hit the really high notes. Guess you can't keep up that crazy falsetto forever. It was kind of a whatever performance.

Surprised this hasn't been brought up yet, but doesn't Halford smoke? Smoking will destroy much vocal ability over time, and it is definitely the worst enemy of a heavy metal singer, if high and clear vocals are required. Rob Lowe also smokes and his vocals are nowhere near as pristine as they were in the early 90s. I believe Geoff Tate is another example. Let's not blame Father Time alone for these depredations; it is possible to keep a strong voice going for many decades if you maintain a healthy lifestyle.

He blew me away when they came here in 2009. I went there for Megadeth, knowing that Judas Priest's and Halford's better days were behind them. I was really wrong. Got to see Dissident Aggressor, Sinner and Rock hard, Ride free live, and his vocals were fucking awesome. Obviously his voice is a bit battered, but he did really well.

Rob Halfords voice seemingly deteriorated all through the eighties. You can hear it in the change of technique (from a clean head voice to a more forced one).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jdvdWqTtKg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqXBOf2rZ9I

When he was good he was really good! The man is an icon, let's remember him well and not harp on negligent times when he was a bit not so iconic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... ykU#t=275s

He can still belt out some real screams when he gives it his all, damn!

In the studio, he is properly rested - there is coffee, tea, beer, water, orange juice - whatever he needs in the way of food and drink on hand. He is in comfortable clothes, etc and he can take as long as he wants with big breaks in between songs, time to warm-up, etc. Studio work is a very different dynamic than on the road where he probably isn't sleeping or eating right, he needs to do a full set (and he has just done one the night before...and the night before that, etc.) so his performance is going to suffer. I guess also, if you stuff up live, everyone has heard it - if you stuff up in the studio, you erase it and no one has to know.

However, you would think a band would perhaps see if they can perform a song in a live setting before committing it to an album - I guess part of it is what you see yourself more as, a live band or a studio band.

I cannot phantom the fact that people want to discuss the fact that rob is not hitting the high notes 20 years later. the guy is a metal genuis and legend , has nothing to prove anymore. can you fuck or run like you were 20 years old when you are 60, i dont think so , this thread is insulting to a metal legend.

Autotune always sounded like a good explanation to me.

That isn't what this is about. It is about how at the same time as pulling off those performances in the studio, Halford was unable to deliver them live.

By chance, I saw the Live in Budokan recording on cable TV last week. It's from somewhere around 2004-2007 I think. Halford's voice has definitely deteriorated over the years as you can expect for a man who had a rather "athletic" vocal style in his early career. There was one really great bit about 90 minutes in where he was seemingly "working the crowd" - giving them short phrases to sing back to him, eg: "OH-oh-oh", "oh-OH-HOOOOOOO!" etc. After doing this for a little over 3 minutes, I realised that these were his vocal exercises that he obviously does to get his vocal chords in gear. He had just found a way to cleverly work them into his on-stage performance when he felt his voice was about to give out.

All things considered, the set was 2+ hours. The old guy's still got some stamina.

I found no proof of him being a smoker. If it actually is true, then the deterioration is logical. Speaking about Lowe, he openly states in the interviews that he smokes before the gigs and while recording in the studio. This habit had a really drastic effect on his voice. He can't handle any of the songs from the first two albums. I saw early live recordings of Solitude Aeturnus and Lowe could fully match the studio performance and it quite on par with what Halford did on Painkiller.

i know halford at least used to smoke, not sure if he still does. i've also read interviews with him where he stated that he always does his vocal recordings in one take. which would explain why his last few albums have sounded a bit strained on high notes. if he cut and pasted his tracks then im sure he could do a bunch of takes and get it right, but i suppose it's a pride thing maybe?

I saw them live two days ago and Halford's vocals were excellent, he can still nail the high notes.

I don't know.
Yes, he can belt out screams.
But it doesn't sound good (relatively speaking). It's more like screeching...

10 years, on the other hand, he was still nailing the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdPiQ6Mioa4

I saw that tour (well, the Painkiller tour and then Operation Rock and Roll a few months later) twice. It's a long time ago but I remember it today as a good but strained performance from Halford. It also did lack a bit of the vocal control of his early 80s performances. I think there are multiple reasons.

The Screaming for Vengeance and Defenders of the Faith (82 to 85) era probably feature Halford at its best as a metal vocalist pushing the envelope. He was in his early 30s at the time.

After the Defenders tour, Priest worked on a much more accessible album, Turbo (86). This album featured mostly a mid-range vocal performance more palatable to mainstream audiences. They played a shitload of those songs live and the rest of the cuts chosen were also those featuring the same kind of range. This is not only easy on the ears but was mostly a piece of cake for Halford to deliver consistently night after night.

Everything was going great, I don't know what might have happened. One can speculate that they became a lot bigger and more of a commercial success and may have lived the rock and roll excess. You have to train your voice and take care of your body consistently to be a performance singer. Maybe the fact that during the Turbo tour he didn't have to deliver this kind of stuff made him take it easy on training. Maybe his age caught up to him.

I suspect it's a combination of all the above because then came Ram It Down. That album was made of a lot of songs written for Turbo (which was supposed to be a double album) and a few new tracks. The album featured more demanding vocal performances more in line with SfV and DotF. Fast delivery of lyrics, high note singing and clean screams. That tour features some of the most painful vocal performances I've heard. Stuff like Halford straining himself to the max to hit the notes from the song Heavy Metal and still being totally out of tune. It's really cringing and I suspect he hurt that voice severely on this tour. He lost a lot of power and highs in his chest voice. His mixed voice is also suffering, leading to a thinner voice tone.

Then they went back to the studio. It's important to note Painkiller (1990) is the first completely digital (DDD) album from Judas Priest. The new technology was all the rage. And YES, you could already do marvels with the technology in 1990. That album features a lot of studio magic and is heavily processed, vocals included. The Painkiller track features a new singing method for Halford, which some here have called "screechy". That's him working around the fact his mixed voice is going down the shitter by hurting his voice box even more (as an aside, I'll never understand why people are so in awe of this vocal performance... it's half as impressive and effective as the title track from Screaming for Vengeance) but the song was a hit and became an unavoidable "event" at shows.

Now Halford was really fucked because for the rest of his career, he would be linked to that type of overly processed, incorrectly sung vocals. The Painkiller tour came. Halford had just turned 40 and sang the song in a number of different ways. Whenever he would sing it more "correctly", the tone would be wrong and thin. It is also during that tour that infighting destroyed band chemistry. Things were going downhill for the Priest. Halford was going for a new image and expressed numerous times that maybe melodic metal wasn't the thing anymore.

Eventually, Priest split up, Halford was interested more and more into more extreme metal and hung around fuck ups and junkies like Phil Anselmo (a lowlife who destroyed his vocals in record time). His next record would be with Fight and Halford confined himself as "The Painkiller singer" with the first track (Into the Pit) and the title track (War of Words) being exactly that kind of straining vocals.

Over time, Halford was part of many projects and it sounds like he adapted a lot. His singing style has changed again. A lot of live performances don't try to replicate the records anymore. That might be seen as cheating but I'd rather he adapts to his current voice. But I think that five-year period between 88 and 93 (Ram It Down, Painkiller, War of Words) is when it all went downhill.

I saw Priest last year and I was a bit aprehensive. I had seen recent videos on youtube and some of his performances were - understandably - weak.

However, I don't know if the day i saw them he was on a very good day or whatever but his performance was top notch.

In fact, Whitesnake played with Priest on the same day and Coverdale's voice was also great.

He did sound sick live.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP3KXVC65ss

I always thought it was fairly obvious that the vocals on Painkiller were Halford at his absolute maximum - probably not altered, but definitely not how he sounds on an average night.

Funny, this is from the same gig and he sounds pretty horrendous http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1slEeEZ9QY

Exactly. He was all over the place during that tour. His performance tended to vary from one show to the next, one song to the next and sometimes from one chorus to the next in the same song.

The video All Guns Blazing video Folkemon is cool and there's some mighty stuff going on, but notice during the verses how his voice is absolutely strained from fatigue. You just can't sing like that night after night in a very difficult context (touring, traveling, etc...) without it taking a toll on your voice. I'm grateful he was putting on a show but Halford was destroying his voice live in front of audiences.

I'm gonna call you out here Riffs. I think you're talking shit. Cite a few sources about Painkiller being recorded in parts - like Lars Ulrich's drumming on Enter Sandman - or shut up.

To add to this conversation, I'm simply going to cite age. It's affected every singer who's been around for any length of time. Eric Adams, Ian Gillan, James Hetfield, Bruce Dickinson, Tom Araya, and anyone else who's been around long enough. No doubt Halford's fast lifestyle didn't help, but simply put someone in their 40's just can not sound like he did in his 20's night after night.

This reminded of Kai Hansen who has said he has a little crack in his voice somewhere in the middle or something, he can sing lower and really high but it cracks somewhere in between

I have noticed that Halford has the same issue now: He can sing low tones well, but then there's a crack somewhere and then from fuck out of nowhere he sing REALLY high notes.