Judas Priest/Alice Cooper/Phil Campbell & The Bastard Sons

So who won the day on this three-band bill? No, you're wrong.

- Ian Fortnam

It's always a lot harder to sell a show as a co-headliner when there's just the one date. There's no possibility of revolving the bill in the name of equality and someone's always got to - for want of a better word - support. Yet while it's Judas Priest who come on last and get to do a conventionally hit-packed encore, you'd be forgiven for thinking you're attending an Alice Cooper show from the look of the audience. Fans of The Coop are way more obvious than most. Never knowingly under-dressed, they wear the makeup, accessorise top hats with fetish-wear and, as I live and breathe, fluffy snakes (available from the merch desk, of course). Yet as that first, and probably last, £9.50 pint slides down the gullet it remains to be seen who'll emerge victorious at the end of the night.

But before the giants grapple for glory, Phil Campbell & The Bastard Sons deliver a crowd-pleasing high-voltage rock'n'roll set that makes them a lot of friends, and while Joel Starr's larger-than-life Ben Ward-alike charisma makes for a significant asset, it never hurts to have Ace Of Spades in your armoury.