Tim Ripper Owens - Gig Review & Photo Gallery February 24th @ Amplifier Bar, Perth WA

Tim Ripper Owens
Amplifier Bar, Perth WA
February 24th, 2025
Support: Silent Knight

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but there were enough old dogs at the Amplifier Bar to negate the need. I guess it’s easy to come out on a work night if you don’t have work the next day. (Okay, that’s enough of the ageism - us old blokes have to let what’s left of the hair down once in a while.)

What better time than Monday night in Perth at a Tim Ripper Owens gig, because this man has earned legend status in the metal world. Not bad for a singer plucked from obscurity as frontman to a Judas Priest cover band, to front the actual band. After a tumultuous tenure with Priest, a slew of other bands followed. Ripper, by his own admission, has been fired from more bands than most people have been members of. Those experiences have given him an armoury of metal songs to choose from, and having peeked at the setlist, I, like many others here, was excited to hear what the loudest voice in metal could deliver. 

First, though, we have a band with a knack for jumping on high profile tours. Fresh off their Australian tour with HammerFall, Perth's own Silent Knight are at it again, opening for the Ripper. I’m not sure if frontman Dan Brittain was having trouble hearing himself, but he did seem to struggle to find his pitch during opening number ‘Into Oblivion’. The high notes he hit effortlessly as usual, but when he dipped into his lower register things got a little wayward. None of this seemed to bother the punters who turned up early as that song, and everything that followed, was met with rapturous applause. Early hiccups out of the way, it was clear the power metal quintet weren’t here to fuck spiders. Brittain found his voice and the band delivered song after song with speed and fury. It was a solid set of bangers, with the final cut ‘Power Metal Supreme’ a fitting track to close their set. 

With a shout of ONE TWO THREE FOUR! Tim Ripper Owens hit the stage. To be honest, the first three songs (as much as they’re classic examples of the genre): ‘One On One’, ‘Metal Gods’ and ‘Burn In Hell’ are mid-tempo rockers which didn’t exactly whip the crowd into a frenzy. However, at the first break, Ripper wished Silent Knight guitarist Stu McGill a happy birthday by getting the crowd to all yell “Happy Birthday cunt!”

‍With everyone obliging, it was a truly touching moment. 

By the time another Judas Priest classic, ‘Beyond The Realms of Death’ rolled around, the crowd had well and truly warmed up to the band’s atmospheric, epic and heavy live rendition. In a puzzling move, though, just as the set was really heating up with ‘The Mob Rules’, Tim left the stage and his band took over with guitarists Joel McDonald and Voya Milutinovic trading solos backed by the rhythm section. It reminded me of the scene from Spinal Tap where the band performs a freeform jazz odyssey in front of an outdoor festival crowd. The Spinal Tap crowd was smaller, but not by much – maybe that was on a Monday as well. To be fair no one booed, but it did give a few people a chance to head back to the bar for another pint.

Ripper did return to the stage and pulled it back again by paying respect to his good friend, the late Paul Di’Anno, with a scintillating rendition of ‘Wrathchild’. During his intro, Owens, to the delight of the crowd, reminded them of Di’Anno’s last performance at the very same venue where he called a number of fans cunts, and threatened to send a few home in an ambulance. It was like the American had read this review… 

Overall, it was a gig of ups and downs, highs and lows. When they were on, the band was absolutely on fire. But there were a few misfires: the aforementioned jazz odyssey, and the addition of a lengthy drum solo. Ripper sounded as good as he ever has, but for me, the structure and setlist was lacking.  A quick survey at the conclusion had opinions split between “Holy shit that was amazing”, “That gig was fuckin’ sick” and “I don’t really have the attention span for long solos.”‍

I really wanted to love this gig. Ripper through his talent has quite rightly earned the respect of the metal community, but I feel so much was left at the wayside...

Review by Gareth Williams

Photo Gallery by Emanuel Rudnicki. Insta: @emanuelrucnicki
‍Please credit Wall Of Sound and Emanuel Rudnicki if you use published photos