JUDAS PRIEST Fan Listens To 'Nostradamus' 145 Straight Days!

Friday, November 7, 2008 will mark the 145th straight day Cleveland, Ohio JUDAS PRIEST fan Jim Bartek has listened to PRIEST's "Nostradamus", a double-disc concept album based on the mysterious, world-known 16th century French prophet Nostradamus, in its entirety from start to finish since the initial release. To put his obsession in better perspective, this translates to approximately 249 hours or one-and-a-half weeks of his life listening to the album. There have even been some days when Bartek has listened to the entire album multiple times so the numbers are higher than reported. He owns all the various configurations released and mixes between listening to the 2-CD and 3-LP sets.

Asked why this album has made such an impact in his life, Bartek responds, "I wish I could answer that! I don't know, it just grabs me and I enjoy listening to it. I honestly wish I could pinpoint and give a rock solid answer but I can't." Bartek adds "The flow of the record and the way you can just feel what the guy (Nostradamus) was going through from the way PRIEST play and sing it. Rob's [Halford] vocals tell you exactly how the guy is feeling at a particular moment. It all just fits perfectly. I'm not tired of it yet. It's an epic record about a very interesting subject."

Bartek is holding hopes the band fulfills its promise to perform the album in its entirety and says if the dates are limited he promises to travel to be there. He has become a popular cult icon in the Cleveland area with PRIEST fans and is asked often while out in public, where he can be seen sporting his "Nostradamus" t-shirt (see below),if the streak is still going. He is a true "fan" in every sense of the word.

Both "The Classic Metal Show" and Cleveland's WJCU "Metal On Metal" radio programs have interviewed Bartek.

Bartek returns to the "Metal On Metal" show this Friday, November 7 at 7:30 p.m. (EST) to tell his story and give an update on the listening streak. You can listen to the program live via the Internet at www.wjcu.org.

To listen to an audio archive of his interview on "The Classic Metal Show" in September, click here.

In a recent interview with UGO.com, JUDAS PRIEST frontman Rob Halford stated about the fan response to "Nostradamus", "I think we've still got a long way to go with 'Nostradamus', as far as settling into the psyche of the listeners — it's a big piece of work. It has to be understood from the beginning to the end — although you can pull tracks out and listen to them separately. It's like watching 'The Lord of the Rings' — you have to watch all three to get the whole story. It's the same with 'Nostradamus' — you've really got to be able to delve into it and fully understand the story, musically, and where the message is, to grab the concept of it. So it's still in the early stages, and we're still on this wonderful world tour — primarily to be back out amongst our metalhead fans all over the world, who we haven't seen for two years. We're still continuing to take the music around the world, and play some bits from 'Nostradamus' and mix up the rest of the set. It's just 'left the gate,' so to speak, so I can't wait to see where we're at with it in two or three years' time."