The final week of the concert season at Shoreline Amphitheatre got underway in very heavy fashion as Judas Priest and Alice Cooper combined forces for a co-headlining show on Tuesday night.
The two titans of hard-rock/metal — both rightfully enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — performed before a surprisingly small crowd of some 6,000 fans on a cold, wet night that underscored why it’s time to put the Mountain View venue to bed until 2026. But not before it hosts three more concerts — the new wave doubleheader of Devo and B-52s on Oct. 16, corridos tumbados specialist Junior H on Oct. 18 and comedian Matt Rife on Oct. 19 (see livenation.com for tickets and information for all shows).
Although the crowd was small — with the enormous lawn area pretty much left vacant at the 22,000-capacity venue — it certainly didn’t lack in enthusiasm as it cheered on two of the genre’s all-time greats.
And Cooper and Priest certainly gave the fans plenty to cheer about on the night, with both acts delivering winning 80-minute sets of music.
Alice Cooper swings a foil as he performs at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025. (Chris Riley/Times-Herald)
Cooper — who was the one who inducted his co-headliners into the Rock Hall back in 2022 — was up first and delivered his patented high-camp, Halloween-friendly theatrical rock show. The fact that the production — complete with swordplay and plenty of staged violence — seems relatively tame these days probably says more about where we are as a society in 2025 than it does about Cooper. (Also, for personal context, I had just seen Gwar earlier this month at the Aftershock Festival in Sacramento — and everything seems tame compared to Gwar.)
Yet, Cooper — now 77 — remains a master showman/ringleader and he’s still so worth seeing in concert.
Related Articles
Alice Cooper fails in weird world record attempt at BottleRock
Wearing a tall top hat, a puffy shirt that Jerry Seinfeld fans would adore and brandishing a fencing sword, Cooper looked like he’d walked right out of a different time and place as he led his band through a cutting take on “Spark in the Dark,” from the 1989 hair metal classic “Trash,” at the start of the show.
From that point on, the frontman was in pretty much constant motion as he raced through a songbook that dates back to the 1969 Alice Cooper (the band) debut, “Pretties for You.” He’d trade his sword for a walking cane and then switch out for a crutch, which he’d use for a mean session of air guitar during a thundering take on the classic “I’m Eighteen” from 1971’s “Love It to Death,” which was the third Alice Cooper band album.
Of course, he’d also play plenty of material from his ongoing career as a solo artist, which began with the release of the iconic “Welcome to My Nightmare” in 1975 and also utilizes the same Alice Cooper moniker. (Quick-as-can-be backstory: Alice Cooper started out as the name of the band, then the singer of that band — real name Vincent Furnier — used the same name for himself once he went solo.)
Cooper brought his A-plus heavy game with him to Shoreline, intent to show the Judas Priest fans that he can rock just as hard and fast as his co-headliners, and it was on full display during such huge hitters as the title track to the 1973 Alice Cooper band offering “Muscle of Love” and “Feed My Frankenstein” from 1991’s “Hey Stoopid.”
Nita Strauss plays guitar with Alice Cooper at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025. (Chris Riley/Times-Herald)
Cooper has taken good care of himself over the decades and his vocal work is still topnotch, benefitting greatly from a musical setting that includes fiery work from a trio of talented guitarists — Ryan Roxie, Nita Strauss and Tommy Henriksen — as well as the great Glen Sobel on drums and former Ronnie James Dio sideman Chuck Garric on bass.
Related Articles
Here are 3 cool shows worth catching this month in the Bay Area
Los Gatos looks to the future with Restoration Hardware project
Vienna Teng comes home to South Bay for a new musical adventure
Bay Area events calendar for Oct. 17-24 weekly editions
No Doubt reunites for a 2026 residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas
As the show progressed, Cooper upped the ghoulish theatrics — impaling a pesky paparazzi with a mic stand during “Hey Stoopid,” crooning “Ballad of Dwight Fry” in a straightjacket while getting tased by a masked tormentor, etc. And, of course, there was the big signature moment where Cooper, once again, has his head chopped off via guillotine — only to triumphantly reappear to sing the fan favorite “School’s Out,” this time around with a little bit of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick In the Wall, Pt. 2” mixed in for good measure.
Rob Halford performs You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’ with Judas Priest at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025. (Chris Riley/Times-Herald)
After a 30-minute break to clean up the mess from the guillotine and such, Judas Priest appeared onstage and immediately amped up the metal madness with a double shot of “All Guns Blazing” and “Hell Patrol.”
Both of those tunes hail from 1990’s “Painkiller” — the platter du jour at Shoreline — as the band continues to celebrate the 35th anniversary of its highly regarded 12th studio album.
“Painkiller,” which ranks among the very heaviest in the band’s esteemed album catalog, set the hard-hitting tone for the entire evening, with the vibe even bleeding over and roughing up longtime radio favorites like “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’” and “Breaking the Law.”
The group played five “Painkiller” numbers during the 14-song set, and each and every one of those offerings was done quite well. The highlight from that batch — as well as the overall show — came with the epic drum-fueled title track that closed the regular set.
Rob Halford performs “All Guns Blazing” with Richie Faulkner on guitar and Judas Priest at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025. (Chris Riley/Times-Herald)
The group, which is led by 74-year-old vocal powerhouse Rob Halford, also took time to successfully highlight its most recent — and 19th overall — album, last year’s “Invincible Shield.” Priest played two songs from that outing, “Gates of Hell” and “Giants in the Sky,” with the latter serving as a tribute to the some of rock’s fallen heroes — as images of Eddie Van Halen, Dio, Janis Joplin, Lemmy, Ozzy Osbourne and others were shown on the big overhead screen.
Following the memorable “Painkiller” main set closer, Halford climbed aboard his motorcycle and revved right back out to the stage for his signature “Hell Bent for Leather” moment and then followed up with the always popular “Living After Midnight.”
Rob Halford performs “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin'” with Judas Priest at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025. (Chris Riley/Times-Herald)
Judas Priest setlist:
1. “All Guns Blazing”
2. “Hell Patrol”
3. “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’”
4. “Freewheel Burning”
5. “Breaking the Law”
6. “A Touch of Evil”
7. “Night Crawler”
8. “Solar Angels”
9. “Gates of Hell”
10. “Electric Eye”
11. “Giants in the Sky”
12. “Painkiller”
Encore:
13. “Hell Bent for Leather”
14. “Living After Midnight”
Alice Cooper sings with Tommy Henriksen on guitar at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025. (Chris Riley/Times-Herald)
Alice Cooper setlist:
1. “Hello, Hooray”
2. “Who Do You Think We Are”
3. “Spark in the Dark”
4. “No More Mr. Nice Guy”
5. “House of Fire”
6. “I’m Eighteen”
7. “Muscle of Love”
8. “Feed My Frankenstein”
9. “Dirty Diamonds”
10. “Caught in a Dream”
11. “Hey Stoopid”
12. “Dangerous Tonight”
13. “Poison”
14. “Brutal Planet”
15. “Ballad of Dwight Fry”
16. “Cold Ethyl”
17. “Only Women Bleed”
18. “Second Coming”
19. “Going Home”
20. “School’s Out”