Judas Priest and Alice Cooper Bring Double Punch to Pine Knob’s Final Show of the Season

Detroit’s own Alice Cooper performed to a voracious crowd of metal and classic rock fans for Pine Knob Music Theatre’s closing show of the 2025 concert season. Co-headlining with legendary metal gods Judas Priest, the combined Alice’s Attic and Shield of Pain tours did not disappoint!

Opening band Corrosion of Conformity got things warmed up with a short but powerful set of headbangers from early in their career. Original guitarist Woody Weatherman is still shredding after forty-plus years and Pepper Keenan on rhythm guitar and lead vocals are the core members still rocking from the classic lineup. The early crowd were getting cranked up for the double blast of metal legends to come.

Judas Priest was next to hit the stage with their guitar driven onslaught of metal classics. Gone from the lineup are Glenn Tipton and K. K. Downing who were with the band during its most successful years, but Richie Faulkner who joined in 2011 has made a name for himself as one of the top metal guitarists today. Andy Sneap who has filled in on tour for Glenn Tipton the last few years due to the latter’s battle with Parkinson’s, is a fantastic musical companion to Faulkner. Longest serving member, bassist Ian Hill, is still holding down the rhythm section with drummer Scott Travis.

Coming on stage to a recording of Sabbath’s War Pigs, the band launched into All Guns Blazing from the Painkiller album. It was a fitting song for the opener with its rapid attack guitars setting the tone for the rest of the set.

Shield of Pain is the name of the tour and it seemed to be the theme with a whopping five songs from the Painkiller album including the title track. All the expected fan favorites were played. You’ve Got Another Thing Coming, Breaking the Law, Electric Eye, and the big encore featuring Hell Bent For Leather and Living After Midnight. It is tradition for Rob Halford to ride out on a Harley for Hell Bent, and he didn’t disappoint, riding out on a custom painted Harley with leather riding crop clenched in his teeth.

There were a couple of songs from the latest release Invincible Shield, including the tribute song Giants in the Sky, which featured photos of musicians we’ve lost and a special dedication to Ozzy near the end of the song. It was a fitting tribute from The Metal God to The Prince of Darkness.

Headlining on this night fittingly was Detroit born Vincent Furnier, AKA Alice Cooper. The seemingly ageless shock rocker still has the energy of a man half his age on stage at the ripe age of 77 and shows no signs of slowing down.

The newest tour titled Alice’s Attic features a slightly more compact stage setup with a gigantic LED screen in the background for visual effects and large video images of the band performing. I like the impact, it’s more “in your face”. The constant in his stage shows is the wide platform at the front of the stage to feature his band members. Alice puts his band front and center during shows and interacts with them almost nonstop. He’s one of the best performers to work for in the business and it is reflected in his shows.

For this show, Alice appears from out of a giant book with the title Alice Cooper’s Attic on the front and leads with a shortened version of Who Do You Think We Are from the album Special Forces. The show was full of deep cuts and a couple of songs that haven’t been performed live in decades. Dangerous Tonight and Going Home have never been performed live before this tour.

The evening was sprinkled with hits from different eras all pre-2005 and plenty from the Alice Cooper Band era as usual. Caught in a Dream, one of my favorites from my favorite album “Love it to Death”, hasn’t been played live in 25 years and has only been played 27 times since 1972. It sounded fantastic and I loved the dream catcher visuals on the giant screen behind them. The dangling pink skulls and feathers looked three dimensional.

As I said earlier, this band of his is exceptionally talented all around and has settled in nicely the last decade or so with Guitarist Ryan Roxie and bassist Chuck Garric having been around more than two decades. The three-guitar sound which includes Nita Strauss and Tommy Henriksen really packs a punch and Chuck Garric and Glen Sobel drive the machine from the rhythm section.

It wouldn’t be an Alice show without an execution and the guillotine has been the device of choice for years now. This part of the show features a dance sequence with Alice’s wife of nearly 50 years, Sheryl, a stunning beauty and hallmark of his live performances since they met when she was hired as a dancer in 1975 for his Welcome to My Nightmare tour.

The show ended as it has for years, with the anthem School’s Out and a fitting end to the 2025 Pine Knob concert season. Long live these stalwart rock legends and cherish them and see them live while you still can!

Alice Cooper