That performance — “Rapid Fire” live at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta on July 10, 1981 — is more than just a bootleg or a lost tape. For Judas Priest fans, it’s a sacred artifact. A metal holy grail, sealed in mystery, whispered about in forums, rumored to exist in vaults or on aging reels somewhere deep in the archives of Sony Music or the private collection of a diehard tape trader. The show itself was part of the Point of Entry tour, but that specific night in Atlanta… something electric happened.
It was the height of Priest’s molten era — Halford’s voice was at its peak power, Tipton and Downing were locked into a twin-guitar attack that defined the genre, and Les Binks had just left, replaced by Dave Holland, bringing a tighter, more deliberate drumming style. “Rapid Fire,” a blistering opening track from British Steel, was not always a staple of the live setlist. But on that night in Georgia, they let it rip.
The crowd? Absolutely unhinged. Bootleg accounts claim the Fox Theatre was a thunder dome of denim, leather, and raw energy. Stories from fans who were there talk about Rob Halford stalking the stage like a demon priest, wielding the mic stand like a weapon as he unleashed lines like:
“Pounding the world like a battering ram / Forging the furnace for the final grand slam…”
There are audio snippets out there — distant, scratchy, fourth-generation cassette dubs — passed between collectors like contraband. But a full, high-quality recording? A crystal-clear video? That’s the dream. Whispers from the underground suggest the show was filmed. Some say it was professionally captured by a local Atlanta crew for a planned live release that never happened. Others claim it was merely part of an archival sweep by CBS Records, shelved when the band moved on to Screaming for Vengeance. Maybe it’s even sitting in a mislabeled canister in Sony’s vaults, unnoticed, gathering dust.
If it were ever to see the light of day, now would be the time. With Judas Priest recently inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and the band now entering its final touring years — with “The Metal Titans Final Roar” farewell tour alongside Iron Maiden slated for 2026 — demand for unreleased footage is at a fever pitch. The legacy is real. The fanbase is hungry.
Could YouTube ever be the vessel? It’s not impossible. Sony has been combing its archives for legacy releases, often uploading rare live footage through official channels like the Judas Priest YouTube page or the Legacy Recordings platform. In 2022, they unearthed unseen material from the Turbo tour. In 2024, a remastered clip of “Sinner” from the Unleashed in the East era suddenly appeared out of nowhere. So… maybe.
But here’s the rub: legal rights and red tape. Sony owns much of the Priest back catalog, and any footage filmed by a contracted crew would likely fall under their ownership. If the Atlanta 1981 video was never cleared for release, it would take a minor miracle (or major fan demand) to cut through the bureaucracy. The band themselves may not even have the footage — many artists from that era weren’t given access to their live recordings, and some weren’t even told they were being filmed.
Unless someone breaks the silence.
Maybe it’s an engineer who kept a private copy. A roadie who found a box of tapes in his basement. A long-retired CBS exec who digitized old reels before retiring. The holy grail may not be buried — it could just be forgotten.
Some fans even speculate that Rob Halford himself has a copy. The Metal God is known to have a vast personal archive, and he’s hinted in past interviews that “there’s a lot of stuff the fans haven’t seen yet.” Could “Rapid Fire” live in Atlanta be among them? If so, imagine the impact: one of the most legendary heavy metal performances, finally unleashed online — high definition, full volume, pure Priest.
And if not? Then it remains a myth — the kind that keeps metal history alive, breathing through the stories and speculation, passed down from generation to generation of headbangers. Just knowing that somewhere out there, a tape might exist, a reel might still spin, a performance might yet scream back into life… that’s enough to keep the fire burning.
Until then, we wait. We search. We ask. We hope.
And we crank “Rapid Fire” from British Steel at maximum volume — because Judas Priest never left us. They just keep forging forward, leaving trails of molten steel in their wake.
🔥🦅⚡
“Up here in space, I’m looking down on you…”But maybe one day, we’ll look back up — and find that missing piece of heavy metal history staring right back at us, screaming:
