REVIEW: W.A.S.P. fries Hitler while KK's Priest summons metal gold at Midway

While a lot of us head into concerts to have specific expectations fulfilled – disappointed, even, when we don’t hear a particular song played – what we end up talking about afterwards usually leans into the weird and unexpected bits.

And there sure were a number of these at Wednesday night’s W.A.S.P. and KK’s Priest show at Midway, the opening act featuring Judas Priest co-founder K. K. Downing, who left the band in 2011 for at least “21 reasons.”

His was the first surprise, with truly charismatic singer Tim “Ripper” Owens doing a killer version of the sweaty-erotic Turbo Lover – even taking a swing at the highest notes – at the end of their set.

Which is exactly why I wanted go: To see not just the leather-clad heavy metal of a receding age defiantly lurking and thrashing in this amazing year of Edmonton hard rock shows, but to witness what a polarizing figure like singer Blackie Lawless might actually say to a captive audience of aging (and even some young and gorgeous across the genders) hair-thrashers.

The sold-out show with almost 1,500 in attendance was reasonably boycotted by a number of my longtime banger friends due to Lawless’ stated affection for the decreasingly popular (especially here and now in all-along united Canada) President Trump.

Not to mention that bit of Lawless’ out-facing evangelical Christianity that rather glitches against the raised branches of a very old tree of tradition made at most metal shows of high-raised-flesh devil horns, including on Wednesday night.

“The way you consume art doesn’t make you a bad person, or a good one. You’ll have to find some other way to accomplish that,” Claire Dederer writes in her terrific book Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma.

All of which is to say I was wondering how Lawless’ rightfully revered free speech advocacy after being tortured by Tipper Gore in Congress along with Twisted Sister and Cyndi Lauper back in the ’80s might bash up against current MAGA warriors boycotting library books and forbidding controversial words in federal documents like “elderly” and “women” and “sexuality,” each of which played no small role during the show, especially in hits like L.O.V.E Machine and Wild Child near the end.

What I did not expect was an eye-bleeding AI Adolf Hitler slowly begging then dying during W.A.S.P.’s thrash banger Headless Children with the words NEVER AGAIN flashed across three screens. This was as specifically political as the show got – hope James “Blackend/Don’t Tread on Me” Hetfield is cool with that – somewhat safely padded in the form of a universally accepted historical villain, whose habits and especially methods of grievance and blame of the most vulnerable among us are disturbing on the rise in the present. Something to chew on, right?

But I haven’t even talked about the secret protagonist of the show, Lawless’s impressive central metal skeleton he hung onto all night, equal parts microphone, motorbike, playground-equipment horsey, Halloween lawn ornament and symbolically-defiant support aid following his ongoing major back issues – it being a giant spine and all.

From this macabre pulpit Lawless kicked off the night with a still solid voice on Uriah Heep’s Easy Livin’, moving through Fistful of Diamonds and The Flame into Mr. Cool, where he stopped and recalled a bitter tale of being sued for playing his own music, how it’s important to move on one step at a time, but that ultimately “there can be sweet, sweet revenge.”

This thinking sort of bumped up against him later singing “Jesus, I need you!” during Golgotha late in the show – though perhaps not in the sense of all of us being imperfect sinners, etc.

I know, I know: stop overthinking a dumb metal show, just sit back and enjoy the vintage video of a scantily clad nurse having a nightmare of being drowned in a bacta tank with the band hovering above her.

What I will say is the production of those old videos with shimmering mirror band logos and actual flames burning around them is so inherently superior to all the generated slop.

But that bassist Mike Duda and especially Danny Trejo-vibed guitarist Doug Blair were absolute show-stoppers, everyone coming together perfectly over Aquiles Preister’s drums during the Thunderhead, Forever Free mini Medley before The Who’s The Real Me.

I Wanna Be Somebody kicked off the return from W.A.S.P.’s shockingly early “Goodnight!” 40 minutes into the set, for sure the most singalong part of their show, though man was KK’s Priest crowd going straight off for the initial medley of You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’, Breaking the Law and Living After Midnight.

Doing synchronized theatrical guitar faceoffs and coordinated neck bows, the new songs were hard and heavy and awesome, too, so do yourself a favour and get to know Strike of the Viper and Hellfire Thunderbolt so you can have the same big smile Downing, Owens and the band had all night, guitarist A.J Mills and bass player Ant Wall.

This part of the show felt the most like home, sorry about your luck, melting Hitler!

W.A.S.P. put a bow on their set with that plaintive Golgotha prayer, then the silly-fun Wild Child and Blind in Texas.

Finally, Lawless pushed his spring-base skeleton toy around like a bemused and self-riling cat, climbing on and up it with surely the best seat in the house.

The just-turned-70-year-old spread his arms out to make it all look like a giant cross for good measure, climbed down in those white-tasseled boots and that was that: Another checklist metal show off the 2026 list with Megadeth, AC/DC and G’n’R amid punkier offerings like The Offspring, War on Women at Purple City, Foo Fighters on the radio rock end of course and a whole bunch of other more intimate ear-wreckers in the clubs that have made this one of the loudest in recent memory.

Next stop, Rush. To paraphrase Midway’s zero crowd-surfing policy: be cool or be cast out!

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