Judas Priest: Eastern Facts Unleashed!

Rightly regarded as one of the iconic live metal albums, Unleashed In The East actually introduced the world to Priest's full on S&M image. But what more should you know about the album? Here's your 35th anniversary guide...

* The album was recorded on February 10 and 15 1979, at Kosei Nenkin Hall and Nakano Sun Plaza in Tokyo

* There has always been speculation as to how much of the album was recorded live, and how much overdubbing was done in the studio. Rob Halford has admitted that he was suffering from flu when these shows happened, and this ruined his vocals. Consequently, he redid his parts in the studio.

* The album is also known by the ‘affectionate’ title of Unleashed In The Studio, because of the above!

* It was the first Priest album to be produced by Tom Allom. Subsequently, he worked on all their albums up until 1988’s Ram It Down.

* This was also the first Priest album to make the UK Top 10 – peaking at number 10 – and the US Top 100, making it to number 70.

* Unleashed… was the debut Priest live album, and the biggest seller of their five live releases so far.

* The original Japanese version of the album came with a bonus seven inch EP. This had the tracks Rock Forever, Hell Bent For Leather, Delivering The Goods and Starbreaker. The 2001 CD reissue featured all 13 tracks.

* Despite being recorded around the Killing Machine album, only two songs from the original Unleashed In The East came from that album: Green Manalishi (With The Two Pronged Crown) and Running Wild.

* Priest did six live shows on their 1979 Japanese tour. This world tour began in London, on October 23. 1978. It ended in Nice on December 15, 1979.

* The band’s set at the two shows recorded for this album were actually 17 songs long.

* The first song the band played on the opening date of this lengthy global tour was White Heat, Red Hot. The last song played on the final date was Starbreaker.

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Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021