This is the best live Black Sabbath there is. They were beasts in 1975. Ozzy, Geezer and Bill Ward – No Words. Just Incredible. and it includes some of the best live guitar tones from Tony Iommi ever captured on tape. It captures the band at the tail end of their absolutely unbeatable first six album run, right before they ran into a wall (by their standards anyway) with the album “Technical Ecstasy“. This live set is basically a celebration of the incredible catalogue Sabbath had already created in just five to six years, where they forever redefined heaviness. The entire band sounds electrifying, with Tony Iommi delivering phenomenal six-string fire per usual but Ozzy Osbourne is also at his absolute best. Although Ozzy has several vocal moments that are admittedly far from perfect, I’ve never heard a show where he sounded this vibrant and ready to throw down. His spirited performance really adds the extra spark that makes this a particularly memorable gig.
I like comparing this version of “Megalomania” to the “Sabotage” take – it has to rely less on elaborate studio trickery and interestingly sounds a bit more like how the song might have come out if it had been recorded on one of Sabbath’s first four albums.
Tony Iommi really awesomely rips things up on it too and sometimes I like this live edition a bit more than the studio one. There are also a couple jams on here that essentially serve as otherwise-unreleased songs, with Tony going wild on guitar solos and Geezer Butler providing unexpectedly funky bass action at times. Bill Ward gets into the action too and I’m pretty sure at one point he humorously exclaims “All drum solos are boring!” – well, usually that’d be accurate, but I gotta respectfully disagree with Bill this time. A later Tony guitar solo also previews “Rock ‘n’ Roll Doctor” more than a year before it’d appear on “Technical Ecstasy”. My only real complaint is that the band only runs through an abbreviated 2½ minute version of “Supernaut” but that’s just something Tony does a lot in concert, you gotta learn to accept that and be thankful that he played that crushingly riveting track at all. Even “Iron Man,” which to my jaded ears feels like it’s long been run into the ground through overexposure, sounds fresh, exciting and heavy all over again.
This is a swell recording that fans definitely shouldn’t miss out on. Great sound quality too. This longtime bootleg fave has appeared on releases of varying lengths but it’s finally been officially remastered and is now included as discs two and three on Rhino / BMG’s 2021 “Sabotage” [Super Deluxe] reissue. It’s honestly worth buying yet again just to get all of this thrilling live set.
Tracklist: Killing Yourself to Live, Hole in the Sky, Snowblind, Symptom of the Universe, War Pigs, Megalomania, Sabbra Cadabra, Supernaut (partial), Iron Man, Orchid / Rock N’ Roll Doctor / Don’t Start (Too Late), Black Sabbath, Spiral Architect, Embryo – Children of the Grave, Paranoid,
The Fat Angel Sings 