"I didn't know Pittsburgh was so, uh, metal."

Testament singer Chuck Billy's voice dipped briefly in hesitation as he delivered, during his band's opening set for the Monsters of Metal Tour at the Post-Gazette Pavilion Saturday night, a line he must have used in dozens of cities.

Maybe, as he looked out into the half-full crowd of indifferent dads and moms dressed straight from work, his brain flashed back to Testament's early days in 80s metal clubs. Perhaps Billy's glimpse of his younger self, thrashing leather-clad throngs of adoring, moshing teenagers to a pulp, led him to silently ask, "What, exactly, is going on here?"

There are some who say the Monsters of Metal Tour is nothing but a nostalgia trip, a cynical cash-in on par with the illustrious Styx/Journey/Foreigner package tours of summers past. If you say that to tour headliners Judas Priest, however, they'd -- well, they really wouldn't say anything. They'd just rock your face off.

Or attempt to.

Despite masterly musicianship and excellent synchronized head banging from guitarists Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing, The Priest churned out little more than a vanity set. They seemed bored and distracted, as if the timing of every eye-bulge and rock pose had been set in stone for decades. They made up for it with goofy costumes.

Gone was the gritty leather-and-studs image that served them so well in the '70s and '80s. Instead Priest singer/metal god Rob Halford popped out of a trap door in a floor-length silver monk's robe during opening number "Prophesy," one of mercifully few tracks included from the band's stunningly ridiculous new double concept album "Nostradamus." He later appeared in a sleek purple velvet smoking jacket. Halford stalked the stage in an attempt to appear menacing and instead looked more like an angry old man trying to send back a deli sandwich.

He hunched often, and sang into his chest with his head down, ruining the visual image of great songs like "You've Got Another Thing Coming," and "Metal Gods." If you closed your eyes, though, there was still the same power in his voice as he belted those classics to the khaki shorts-clad masses in the now-thickened crowd. They ate it up.

Even Motorhead, the band most representing the treasured metal spirit of anarchic abandon and wild anti-authoritarianism, looked awkward in the daylight of their third-string set. The band's guttural, fast rock 'n' roll is better suited to a dark, smoky theater.

Only second-on-the-bill Heaven and Hell hit the right chord. Consisting of three quarters of the original Black Sabbath (Tony Iommi, guitar, Geezer Butler, bass, Bill Ward, drums) with Dio on vocals, H&H came off as carefree, seasoned veterans. Two huge winged gargoyles squatted in trees on either side of the band, on the lookout for negative vibes. Iommi commanded the stage with a stately saunter, looking down and smiling on the audience as he soloed effortlessly.

Dio was the embodiment of the new family-friendly metal. Even as he creeped and crawled across the stage like an evil hobbit he was the perfect gentleman. He was downright schmaltzy at times, introducing songs as a "real great tune" and saying things like, "Hey wasn't that great? Now here's a song called 'Die Young!' "

Considering the instrumental proficiency of H&H, any criticism of their set could only lie in the dubious merit of the music of Dio-era Sabbath. But this is not the time and place for that. They played mostly the better ones, anyway, like "Mob Rules" and "Falling off the Edge of the World." None of that mattered, anyway, when the gargoyles spit out two huge torrents of dry ice vapor and Dio flashed those devil horns.

Even this reviewer was right there in front, saluting him back.