Earlier this year I picked up an Ozzy live bootleg from the Rock Brigade label. The cover art for that Ozzy boot was amazing. The black and white cover design with the gold OBI strip was a great look, and as soon as I saw that the label also released a live bootleg for Black Sabbath as well, I jumped on it.
Back in 1978, Black Sabbath went on tour to support their Never Say Die album, and they took Van Halen out with them as the opening act. Seems that most people love to talk about how Van Halen blew Sabbath off the stage each night... that Sabbath were dinosaurs and could not keep up with those young guns from California. Fuck that noise. Sabbath may have been on the verge of crashing during this tour, but this bootleg shows that the band could still bring some heat live from the stage. The band is tight and Ozzy sounds fantastic. In fact, this may be my favorite live recording of the song Black Sabbath ever... when Ozzy says "Let's dance with the devil" mid-song, it gives me chills. Plus live versions of Shock Wave and the title track from Never Say Die, plus Dirty Women and Rock 'n' Roll Doctor off Technical Ecstacy make this well worth the price of admission.
This live boot does have it's flaws though. It is a bit rough for me to sit through the drum solo, guitar solo, instrumental of Orchid, and then another guitar solo. Ugh...it is not interesting at all to me. Plus there is a drastic cut at the end of Dirty Women and Electric Funeral, to end Side B and Side C, that is jarring as hell. Still, overall, this shows how strong Sabbath still was on the road at the time, especially when you think that in a little over six months, Ozzy was out of the band and Dio came in to take his place.
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