Judas Priest and the Empty Trench

The story starts where it starts or starts just before. You’re not sure how far back to go because you were asleep when the fever set in. Woke up in delirium, now you’re here.

Seeing gods. Or something.

You were offered the chance to interview Judas Priest about their upcoming show.

It’s a band name you’ve known since you were a child. One of the great and mighty metal gods of the years of origin. They’ve got some of the heaviest riffs in the business and the drummings’ progressively fast. They accidentally invented speed metal. And power metal. And probably war metal. You’re stoked.

You were elated, ecstatic even. You’d been having a hard time getting back to music journalism since DSCVRD shut down. But this was just handed to you. Almost out of the blue.

You interviewed Scott Travis. It was fun. He’s a nice and humble guy. You pulled a few good questions out and wrote a decent show preview. You doubt it sold any extra tickets, but it got some extra readers for the paper and it got you a photo pass and onto the guest list for Judas fucking Priest.

Then you wake up the day before the show feeling like you’ve been chewing on seashells and you’re not okay. It’s a bad fever. The kind where you turn your head and your eyes turn further. 

It’s odd when an illness starts with a fever, it’s like seeing the climactic scene of the horror film without the buildup. Something wicked this way went, and now you are the way you are.

You spend a lot of time sleeping or in some strange state of not-quite, sometimes trying to decipher whether you’re tripping on the fever or the cough medicine. 

The COVID test was negative so you’re just trying to stay positive.

But now it’s the day of. You wake up on the wrong meridian and know you’re still sick. You feel it before the first cough crawls its way up through your throat. 

You sleep until the last minute, tell your friends to not wait up. You ride your moped to the show and buy a pack of cough-drops on the way. It’s a cold ride, but the chilled air feels fresh in your mouth and soothing as you swallow it like water.

You barely remember the ticket window. 

You gave your name and your ID and some nice ladies gave you an envelope. Inside was a big yellow press press sticker. Fabric woven but sleek. Some material unknown.

A media rep led you down a hallway and into a dark room and then out of the darkness and past a seated crowd and there’s this great swirling vortex of lights ahead of you. It’s so massive and grand and it’s loud. 

As you approach, the security people point you to a wide open trench between the stage and the front row.

You’ve seen it before, but never this empty. The trench. Where you dig in and shoot photos of the big stages. With bright flashing lights above you like a war zone, you huddle down against the ramparts and take aim toward the leader of the performing party.

Snap. Snap. Clickety Click (that’s the sound of pictures being taken, for those who need assisted imagination).

The Trench is a coveted space. It’s what separates the amateur from the professional. 

But this time- my god. This fever. This is wild. You feel like you just knocked back too much ketamine and you’re reeling, just rolling with the punches and trying to keep sense of things.

It’s yellow, now it’s blue, now it’s blinding white.

Your lens doesn’t go wide enough for this shot and you’re wishing you picked up that fisheye in Omaha last week. You’re wishing you went to film school in 2008. You’re at a career high and you’re filled with regret. 

You’re a self-deprecating heretic.

Snap, snap. Out of focus. Fuck.

Change places. Click click. A bit too bright. Fix it in post.

You’re sweating through your shirt and your face mask. Your muscles are so tired from days of flu. You’ve only got about ten minutes to shoot so you don’t want to waste any time.

Faulkner is smiling down at you, mate. Halford gave you a wink and a nod. You may feel small down here in this trench, with your debilitating fever high, but those rock gods on that stage know who you are, and they know what purpose you serve.

You’re a messenger. If they’re the deities, then you’re the angel of their charge. Carrying their message to the masses on your sad wings of destiny. It may be melodramatic and overblown, but you’re not right in the head so go with it.

Click click, clap clap.

But really what purpose do you serve these days? 

They’ve all got phones, they’ve all got their own cameras with them and they’ve all got their own little blogs where they’ll share their part of the experience. 

You’re not needed in the way you used to be. Nobody needs you to go into that trench and report back that Judas Priest is still Judas Priest and they did a bang up job at the show last night. 

You’ll do that. Because it’s good for the paper and it’s good for Priest and it’s good for you, but nobody needs it.

You’re no prize photographer either, the only thing that cuts you from the average bloke is the quality of your gear and slight knack for composition. You’re an imposter. There’s no syndrome about it. 

No, what makes you worthwhile is this. The words. The fact that you can make that trench into a metaphor for something it both is and isn’t. So do it. Schrödinger all over it.

Impartiality is blown to bits on this one. How can you give an objective review of something you barely witnessed with clear eyes? 

That’s what you’ve seen through this fear and fire and fever and the empty trench. That few feet that separates for almost no reason other than for you to fill it. 

You’re in this space to formulate a perspective. You’re trusted to deliver something unique and you can try to reel you in, but this event is lost to that watery ketamine-like haze. May as well ruminate.

Judas Priest doesn’t need exposure. They’ve been the biggest metal band in the world and they’ll always be one of the biggest metal bands in metal history. So why do an interview with a small paper in South Dakota? The same reason they do an interview with a small paper in Michigan, or New Hampshire, or wherever else. The same reason they did Creem cover stories in the 80s.

While you were sick in bed and unsure of your place in all of this, Judas Priest wasn’t. Rob Halford wasn’t. It’s something you pick from that look he gives you.

Because the trench is there and it needs filling and whether Halford and the lads want to fill it for clout or fun or an altruistic leg-up to journalists doesn’t matter. 

He squints a little, like he can’t quite make you out. Like maybe he’s seen you before but he’s not sure. Then he decides it, you’re the one he’s looking for. He settles a little on a smile and gives you a wink and nod. 

Then you know. 

You’ve seen a metal god. 

And he’s given you a charge.

Click, click.