Dan Goes To Black Sabbath Concerts

It's hard to determine whether or not I've seen Black Sabbath twice or four times. From a legal standpoint, I have only seen Black Sabbath twice and Heaven and Hell twice.


When Ronnie James Dio got back together with Black Sabbath to put on a tour, and eventually go on to write and record 'The Devil You Know.' Black Sabbath ran into legal issues with Ozzy Osbourne. It may go without saying but Ozzy is the original lead singer of Black Sabbath, and felt that he owned the rights to the Black Sabbath name. To avoid further legal issues, Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Vinny Appice wrote, released, and toured with new material under the name Heaven and Hell. I find this to be silly due to the fact that they already had two studio albums under the name Black Sabbath with that same lineup of musicians. There is also the 'Heaven And Hell' album, which was the full Sabbath lineup minus Ozzy. Drummer Bill Ward was even present on the first Dio-Sabbath release as opposed to Vinny Appice who first appeared on Mob Rules then to be featured on Dehumanizer and then Heaven and Hell album 'The Devil You Know' other Dio-Sabbath releases. I can't speak for others but I find the name change to really confuse everything. 'The Devil You Know' really should have been released under the Black Sabbath name.


The first time I saw Heaven and Hell was during the "Heaven and Hell" tour in 2007 with openers Queensrÿche and Alice Cooper. This was at Verizon Wireless, Irvine. I'm not the biggest Queensrÿche fan, however, I appreciate that I had a chance to see them with Geoff Tate before he left and started touring as his own version of Queensrÿche. The first time I got the opportunity to see Queensrÿche was during a Judas Priest tour, however, the group I was with intentionally wanted to show up late to miss Queensrÿche and I wasn't in total disagreement because I was really going to see Judas Priest anyway. Alice Cooper on the other hand I am a fan of and was very excited to see! This is the first of few opportunities for me to see Alice Cooper. I'll never forget the first time because Alice Cooper completely delivered. This was an instance where there is a lot of build up. Alice Cooper is a classic in the Rock N' Roll community. His stage performance is hard to compete with; snakes, top hats, guillotines, explosions, his beautiful assistant and daughter Calico Cooper, and of course Alice Cooper himself.

The second time seeing Heaven and Hell was 2008 at the San Manuel Amphitheatre on the Metal Masters tour. This show kicked off with Testament whom I totally missed unfortunately and Motörhead who I barley got to hear perform 'Ace of Spades' as I made my way into the venue. Seeing Heaven and Hell and Judas Priest back to back is a dream come true as far as I'm concerned! I believe by this time I had seen Judas Priest twice already. I've seen Judas Priest more than any other band so they will get a post all to themselves someday.

 I greatly appreciate the fact that I had the opportunity to see Ronnie James Dio before he sadly passed in 2010. The two performances were so overwhelmingly good. Dio was absolutely on top of his game the two times I saw them. Dio was such an amazing vocalist and front man. The most unfortunate thing is that I never got the opportunity to see Dio perform solo. Sure I got to see him sing classics like 'Children of the Sea' and 'Neon Knights' but I'll never get the opportunity to see 'Holy Diver' performed live. I appreciate the music Dio brought into this world that I can continue enjoying though he is gone. 
 




Fortunately, my favorite Black Sabbath formula is still alive. I am much more a fan of Black Sabbath with Ozzy Osbourne on lead vocals. After so many years, Black Sabbath reunited with the original "madman." It was one thing that Black Sabbath would be performing live, but the fact that they were carrying a new album through the world was incredible. '13' was the title of the most recent Black Sabbath album, making it the first Black Sabbath album with Ozzy on vocals since 1978's 'Never Say Die' album. Sadly due to contract disagreements Bill Ward did not participate in the reunion and so it still stands that there hasn't been a full fledged Sabbath album, but we will all cross our fingers that Bill Ward can climb back in and make at least one last complete Black Sabbath album. The first time I saw the Ozzy incarnation of Black Sabbath was at Verizon Wireless, Irvine. I had actually accumulated a large group of friends to have a little tail gate party before the show. It was one of the largest gatherings I've managed to get together for a concert. It wasn't hard to gather people to the masses of Black Sabbath! The performance was great, though I'm not the biggest fan of the most recent album it was still a blast to see classic Black Sabbath tunes performed live. Let me make it clear, I have seen Ozzy perform live but I can't get into that right now as that is a whole blog post in itself if not more! Ozzy is my absolute favorite and I will be required to put together a post entirely dedicated to the Ozzman.

The second time I saw Black Sabbath would be at the Hollywood Bowl. Those tickets were given to me by my girlfriend. I hope to take her to an Ozzy show soon only because I think it's a bit more fun to see just him. The Black Sabbath concerts felt like there was just too many holes in the sails of their ship; Bill Ward was missing and poor Tony was battling lymphoma. That isn't to say they didn't still do an outstanding job because the audience definitely loved it. But any true Black Sabbath fan should be a little bit affected by the drama amongst the heavy metal gods. Hopefully in the future I can see them a little more on top of their game. Ozzy also seems to tone it down a little bit on stage for Sabbath, and the same goes not only for live performance but on the '13' album. 'Scream' was Ozzy's most recent solo work, just a couple years before Black Sabbath's '13'. I know the vocal performance on '13' was not the best Ozzy could do only because on 'scream' he sounded great. Although I'm a big Sabbath fan I'm an even bigger Ozzy fan, so I did really miss hearing his classics on stage.  I look forward to his 'Hell Gate' show in Vegas this coming October.