Heaven and Hell-Wacken!

[nofi]

good quality videos.

[uwe]

I saw that Heaven & Hell/Dio Black Sabbath incarnation on their first German tour in the 80ies and on their last one some years back. Little Ronnie hadn't let up between the decades.

I never took sides in the 'Sabbath with Ozzy' vs 'Sabbath with Dio' schism, to me they were like two different bands which shared the same guitarist and bassist. Though ironically I found the Ozzy line-up even with the one-trick pony voice of their Brummie singer musically more variable than the Dio incarnation with the more flexible singer (which shaped its own original sound, but that was kind of samey).

Of course 'Sabbath with Ian' is my favorite ...  No, it's not really, they just made one damn fine album, live Gillan was always ill at ease conforming to the Sabbath frontman expectations.

Heaven and Hell's The Devil You Know was a fine piece of work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HfDfYMACcc&list=PLoPt-EHdz1JubG7Suhzt2hXWbBYG04_d7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thMNK-uKxzc&list=PLoPt-EHdz1JubG7Suhzt2hXWbBYG04_d7

"My sunshine is wind and rain and thunder ...". Whatever you say, Ronnie-mate, whatever you say!!! 


Incidentally, my all time fave Sab song is sung neither by Ozzy nor Dave nor Ronnie nor Ian nor Glenn nor Ray nor Tony nor Robert (Halford) - I think that was all the lead singers they had -, but by Bill Ward:





You can run, but you can never hide (your love away) from the Liverpudlians. Ward even looks a little like post-Beatles Lennon did in that vid. Didn't even know there was a promo of that lovely song in existence. It was totally untypical for Sabbath and it sure didn't fit the punk-crazed times - Technical Ecstasy (the album with the song) came out in late 1976.

[uwe]

Piccolo Ronaldo when he way young(er), prego!

[Basvarken]

good quality videos.

I still think it's kinda weird to hear an obvious second guitar, but see only one guitarist on stage.

[Highlander]

Saw all the UK tours from Tech Ecstasy to Born Again, and the first two RJD tours post Sabbs, but by then I was too involved with playing and working to see any others...

I still regret passing on seeing Ozzy with RR, and have never seen any of them since...

Rob... I'm sure I saw them with a keys player back then... Geoff Nichols...?

[nofi]

once again you missed the good tours, kenny. you were born too late.

[Highlander]

Cheers Tom...  seen plenty of good gigs, but yes, if I'd been maybe five years older (wishing myself past sixty?!?) ...


All I need now is Mark to remind me about seeing the BDB's tour and me only seeing Alice on the WTMN tour and post that point...
BDB was one gig in Glasgow...
Loved to have seen the two earlier Sabbs tours from the time I saw them first...

And missing Foghat (yes I know, loads of you have, Free (and BSC with Koss), GFR, ABB with Duane (naa... to young... may as well say Jimi too, not), BOA, DP#2 the 1st time round, etc...

Has anyone here seen Free...?

[uwe]

I still think it's kinda weird to hear an obvious second guitar, but see only one guitarist on stage.

In that case it is good that you haven't been to a Sabbath concert since the midseventies, Rob, because that is when they started using an off-stage keyboarder (which they still had when I saw them last year), around the time of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath/Sabotage. And except during the Glenn Hughes/Ray Gillen/Tony Martin line up, they have never let that keyboarder on stage though. For the most part their unseen keyboarder has been Geoff Nicholls (who also plays rhythm guitar and has played bass on the Heaven and Hell sessions when Geezer was awol - he also contributed to the songwriting, but had his rights bought off him).

The first guy was Gerald Woodruffe who joined them mid-seventies (always unseen on stage, but mentioned and pictured in tour programs)



followed by Geoff Nicholls (the Sabbath keyboard and guitar player with the most stage appearances, far right in the pic)



followed by Adam Wakeman (whose dad played on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath)



with Scott Warren (ex-Dio) doing some of the Heaven and Hell tours:



That is probably not all though and discounts studio keyboarders such as Don Airey who even co-wrote on Never Say Die.

When I saw the Ozzy line up last year the unseen keyboards were there in nearly every song - and louder than in many a band who openly features a keyboard player. Sabbath's argument that their doom-gloomy four man image is ruined by a fifth man playing keyboards on stage has never convinced me - what's unsatanic about some guy behind a seventies style keyboard mountain?

Yet Ozzy was that way too, except for Don Airey on some tours, keyboarders were either unseen or nearly unseen. I remember seeing Zakk Wylde on his first Ozzy tour and they had John Sinclair (ey Heavy Metal Kids and Uriah Heep) tucked underneath the stage in a small compartment/mock cave with bars before it. I thought it grotesque if you think of how prominent the keyboard intro of, say, Mr Crowley is. But then that was the tour that also had the rumor that Michael Kiske of Helloween was "helping out" Ozzy a little with the vocals - also unseen.

Hated the Whitesnake line ups with behind the curtain keyboard players (ex Magnum/Trapeze Richard Bailey). How can you come from a Deep Purple legacy and not have the keyboard player prominently on stage? It was probably most likely John Sykes' do who once had the nerve to say that Jon Lords's Hammond sound "dated Whitesnake by about 10 years". If you listen to eighties Whitesnake recordings today, those synth sounds have aged a lot worse than anything Jon Lord ever committed with his organ (pun intended in part).

[FrankieTbird]

Who da heck are all those poseurs hanging around DA MAN?
 

 

[amptech]

Who da heck are all those poseurs hanging around DA MAN?
 

It is very cute that the two guys to the right are holding hands

[Basvarken]

In that case it is good that you haven't been to a Sabbath concert since the midseventies, Rob, because that is when they started using an off-stage keyboarder (which they still had when I saw them last year), etc etc

Who said I haven't been to a Black Sabbath concert? 
I still think it's weird. No matter how many Ozzy / Sabbath / ZZ Top / Aerosmith / etc  gigs I have seen with hidden keyboard and/or guitar players.

[uwe]

I never said I liked it - I think it's an exceedingly silly practice.

[uwe]

Who da heck are all those poseurs hanging around DA MAN?
 

Hey, that is a future Kiss member, a very close relative of Anthrax, a former Deep Purple member with PPP (penchant for Peruvian produce) and no less than 2/5 of Black Sabbath all through the 80ies and 90ies! Give at least Nicholls some credit, he has played on more Black Sabbath songs than you think (all studio albums since Heaven and Hell with the exception of Heaven and Hell's The Devil You Know and the Ozzy line-up's recent "13"; that is 10 Sabbath studio albums, both Ozzy (9) and Dio (4) played on less!) and a lot of Sabbath's melancholic doom and gloom atmosphere was due to his keyboard layers.

Just listening to Eternal Idol in the car (last heard it when it came out), that album is severely underrated and has some really good Iommi riffs on it. Even Ozzy and Dio diehards admit that Tony Martin had a set of pipes, bit like a more adventurous Ronnie Dio.

[Basvarken]

Great album. But all the vocal melodies were note for note carbon copied from the demos that Ray Gillen sang.
When I hear that album I just hear Ray Gillen sing. He had very recognizable way of singing / building up melodies.

[uwe]

I have the Deluxe Version that features the original Gillen tapes as well, just haven't gotten to those yet!