Living After Midnight Guitar Lesson – Judas Priest
In this guitar lesson video, we will take an in-depth look at the Judas Priest classic "Living After Midnight". Released in 1980 off their British Steel album, it has become one of the band's most popular songs.
In this Living After Midnight guitar lesson, I will show you how to play all of the guitar parts of this rock classic, including Glenn Tipton's guitar solo note-for-note.
The guitar enters with a very infectious riff consisting on mostly straight power chords. The chorus then enters and we continue to play the same riff underneath it.
The verse has a pretty interesting rhythm in that the first half of it requires you to play on the up beats. If you keep your hand strumming in a constant down/up 8th note feel, you would be hitting all of the chord strums with upstrokes.
The second half of the verse riff contains a straight 8th note feel but the upbeat rhythm is still there so you will need two guitarists to completely recreate the verse. I will show you to play both of those parts though.
We then have a short pre-chorus that leads us back to the chorus. Nothing really all that hard to play here.
For the bridge of "Living After Midnight", you will be playing a riff that was obviously inspired by another British band, The Rolling Stones. It requires you to play a D major to A major chord sequence that is very catchy but may be awkward to you if you have never played this kind of rhythm style before. Just make sure you keep your first finger bar down for both chords and you will be fine.
To finish of this Living After Midnight guitar lesson video, I will demonstrate Glenn Tipton's guitar solo at full speed, then I will break it down for you note-for-note.
There isn't anything too flashy in this solo but it does have a few awkward finger stretches to contend with. As always, I recommend learning it phrase-by-phrase just like I teach it in the lesson and then you can simply put them all together and be playing the full solo in no time.
Have fun!
Carl...
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Living After Midnight Guitar Lesson - Judas Priest
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Any chance of doing ” You got another thing coming” !
Great lessons thanks!
Sure why not?? 🙂
Hey Carl!
You make this stuff look so easy! LOL!
Quick question,
I just got a Spider V 120 V Line 6 amp and was wondering (if you are familiar with it?) how I should set it up to play….. I.E. “Living after midnight”? OR…is it strictly just strictly by experiment and personal preference? Your amp is amazing in how it sounds EXACTLY like Priest.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated!!!?
Thanks man,
Bud
Hey Bud, thanks for watching the lesson! I wish I knew about that amp but have never played through one.
Have you checked YouTube for tone tutorials with that amp? I am sure there are many. 🙂
Carl!
Any chance of Judas Priest “Parental Guidance”?
Thanks man,
Bud
Hi Carl!
I’m a huge fan, your lessons have made me a million time’s the guitarist I was, thank you so much for putting so much effort into these videos. After practicing technique etc I decided on Living After Midnight as the first song I want to learn. It’s been slow going but I can finally play it too. My only issue now is that my guitar (MIX Fender Tele) only has 21 frets so I can’t do the last lick in the solo. Is there anyway to transpose the lick to a different part of the neck or am I pretty much screwed.
Again, thanks for all the great material.
Regards,
Thomas
Hey Thomas, thanks a bunch for the kind comment!
For that lick you can kind of cheat it a bit, but it is a little difficult to pull off.
First, do a whole-step bend at the 17th fret on high E string with your index finger. Then when you get to the top of the bend, hold it and quickly grab the note at the 20th fret on the same string using either your ring finger or pinky. This move isn’t the easiest thing in the world but it will sound the same once you get it together. You can also try doing the bend with the middle finger and using your pinky for that top note.
Good Luck!
Carl…
I’m in awe that you actually replied, thanks so much! Your speed training has helped me a lot too. After I mastered this song what do you think would be a good step up? I’ve been working on some Stairway To Heaven as well for finger picking (excellent series of lessons by the way).
Whatever inspires you is the best so it shouldn’t be my choice. There are just so many to choose from it would be impossible for me to guess. 🙂