When KK’s Priest returned to the Fox Performing Arts Center Saturday night, they technically weren’t the headliners, but this certainly wasn’t just an opening set either.

Back in Riverside almost two years after sharing the stage with Accept in October 2024, KK Downing and company returned as special guests for W.A.S.P.’s “1984 to Headless” tour. When they entered the stage, the packed house was already out of its seats and ready to make some noise for KK and crew. It was clear who many had come to see, and KK’s Priest wasted no time reminding Riverside why they were happy to have them back.

At 74, Downing has nothing left to prove as one of the guitarists who helped define the sound of Judas Priest, but what really matters is that the band doesn’t spend the evening trying to remind the audience what they did in the past. Downing still looks like he is having too much fun shredding his guitar to spend much time reminiscing about it.

That energy extends throughout the band. Vocalist Tim “Ripper” Owens has his own long history with Judas Priest, having fronted the band from 1996 to 2003, but KK’s Priest feels less like an attempt to recreate an earlier era and more like a group of musicians who simply still enjoy playing music together. Owens has the vocal power the material demands, while Downing and guitarist A.J. Mills spend much of the set trading riffs and working opposite sides of the stage.

It’s a refreshingly straightforward approach to a genre that has never really been known for its restraint. Lights, leather, long hair and all the other ingredients that make a proper heavy metal show are there, but there isn’t much standing between the audience and the musicians. KK’s Priest doesn’t need the elaborate theater of a decked-out stage to create energy because it’s all coming directly from the band into the ears of an eager audience.

Midway through the set, Owens told the crowd that the band has been recording shows throughout the tour for a planned live album, and they would be using the performances where the crowd really brought the noise. Riverside immediately set about making sure it would be immortalized on that album.

The Fox erupted, and for the remainder of the show there was no stopping the energy flowing between KK’s Priest and a crowd of fans new and old.

For a group returning to the same venue after only a couple of years, the reception felt less like an introduction and more like welcoming back an old friend. Downing seemed perfectly comfortable with that relationship. He moved easily around the stage, frequently joining Mills at the front for the kind of harmonized guitar work that has been part of his musical vocabulary for decades. There is history behind every one of those poses, riffs and screaming guitar solos, but there is also a sense that Downing would probably be doing exactly the same thing whether anyone was interested in calling him a heavy metal legend or not.

This is the most enjoyable part of watching KK’s Priest take over a stage. Longevity is certainly part of their story because there aren’t that many musicians who can spend more than 50 years playing this kind of music and still bring this level of energy to the stage. However, the performance never felt like an exercise in nostalgia. They came to Riverside to play loud, fast heavy metal, and that is exactly what they did.

W.A.S.P. followed with a production that could hardly have been more different. Where KK’s Priest kept the focus largely on the musicians, W.A.S.P. transformed the Fox stage into a sprawling piece of heavy metal theater. Chains, skulls, illustrated backdrops and an enormous skeletal motorcycle-inspired microphone stand surrounded frontman Blackie Lawless as the band launched into its set beneath a wash of red light.

The production fits the premise of the “1984 to Headless” tour, which revisits material from W.A.S.P.’s first four albums and leans heavily into the imagery that helped make the band one of the more visually distinctive acts to emerge from the 1980s metal scene. Lawless’ elaborate microphone rig alone looked like it had escaped from some forgotten corner of heavy metal history, while the lighting, costumes and scenery turned nearly every part of the stage into something happening within the frame.

But after spending the previous set watching KK’s Priest command the same room with considerably less decoration, the contrast was hard to ignore.

W.A.S.P. brought the spectacle, and KK’s Priest gave Riverside one hell of a show.