Tag: Influential

The End: Black Sabbath live and SOLD OUT at Madison Square Garden February 25th, 2016

Posted on by Mike

I tried to see Black Sabbath with Ozzy Osbourne on vocals on two different occasions.  Now, I intended on writing about this in other blogs as I went through all the concerts I went to, but I feel that would take forever and it would make sense to write about it now since I’m about to discuss the show I just went to.  When I went to see them at Ozzfest 2004 in Camden, NJ,  drummer Bill Ward came out before the band was to play and announced that Ozzy was too sick to play and Rob Halford of Judas Priest was going to sing in his place.  You couldn’t be there and complain much after that!  The next year, before we even got in inside the PNC Bank Arts Center, the girl checking our tickets told my ex-guitarist Chad and I “No Black Sabbath tonight”.  Why this time?  “Because Ozzy’s sick.”  Sure, Iron Maiden played an extended set that night but I was convinced that night that I’d never see Sabbath with Ozzy…and that Ozzy’s voice is just toast.

So when I got wind, a few weeks ago, that Sabbath had to cancel gigs in Canada because Ozzy lost his voice, the only thing I could assume was that my friend Frank was going to have to get a refund.  Little did I know how wrong I would be…and some more.  But I’ll get to that in a bit.

I arrived last night at Madison Square Garden with high expectations for the band and incredibly low expectations for Ozzy. Fuck, I really just wanted to see Tony Iommi anyway.  But I was also looking very much forward to reuniting with my buddy Frank, who got us the tickets, as well as seeing the opening bands, Rival Sons.  Rival Sons got on stage and goddamn they sound even more like Led Zeppelin live than on record!  The most obvious sign of it on their albums is the John Bonham-like drum sound.  But live, Jay Buchanan did some loud ass wailing while barefoot – that he at least had me convinced that Robert Plant found a way to defy age and join Rival Sons.  At one point Frank and I were jokingly singing Zep song titles into two of their songs because they sounds THAT MUCH like Zep songs.  I think the last time I heard anyone sound like Zep to the T was Billy Squier when he recorded “Lonely Is The Night”.

 

To our surprise we didn’t have to wait long for Sabbath to come on.  The lights in the Garden went out at 8:45pm, definitely earlier than expected.  As the sold out crowd was ROARING in excitement  a video came up on the screen.  We saw burning buildings that represented the artwork from their most recent album, 13.  Then it got really weird, like something out of a fucking Final Fantasy game.  But you can see part of it here:

So, as you can see and hear, they opened up with the title track to their self-titled debut.  And from their the broke into the classic “Fairies Wear Boots”.  Say what you want about Ozzy’s solo drummer, Tommy Clufetos, taking Bill Ward’s place for the last few years as well as the fact that his style is not as jazzy or loose as Bill’s.  But he did a really good job emulating Bill’s parts and making him his own.  Do I wish Bill was there?  Hell fuck yeah I do!  But I have to give Tommy respect for making it clear that he was paying his respects.  His DW drum kit even looks like Bill’s Tama set to the T!

Geezer Butler, as usual, was on FIRE last night!  He bass tone, even from where I was sitting in the nosebleed section, was so strong and crystal clear.  HIs fingers were moving so fast on those strings.  His playing, both wild with abandon yet perfectly arranged.  There really is no one like him.  No one.

Which brings me to Lita Ford’s favorite Superhero…as well as the main reason I even wanted to go: Tony Iommi.  This is it for him.  He’s sick, tired, stressed.  No matter what the other guys want to do after this all ends I wouldn’t expect to see him out on the road again.  The lymphoma treatments are clearly taking their toll on him.  But he still put on probably the most amazing show I’ve ever seen from him and this was the fourth time I’ve seen Tony live overall.  His playing was so fluid, so smooth yet so BRUTAL.  His riffs – so horrifying, so scary, so BRUTAL.  This motherfucker CREATED the style of music I love so much as is the primary reason I play guitar.  There will NEVER be anyone like Tony Iommi ever again.  Ever.

Then there was that big shocker of the night that I eluded to earlier.  Ozzy Osbourne, not known to have had a great singing voice since the mid 9o’s…actually sounded good!  I shit you not!  I’m pretty sure the key was that the band played songs that Ozzy could handle, which meant not straying far from their first three albums much if at all.  If you knew anything about how the guy destroyed his voice over the years you knew there was no way he was pulling out “Sabbath Blood Sabbath” or even “Megalomania” for that matter.  Although I was surprised to hear them play “Snowblind” and even more surprised to hear Ozzy hit the high notes without struggle!  He was shockingly on point last night…I guess the third time was the charm after all, eh?

THE SETLIST:

Intro video/Black Sabbath

Jack The Stripper/Fairies Wear Boots

After Forever

Into The Void (\m/\m/\m/\m/!!!!!!)

Snowblind

Wars Pigs

Behind The Wall Of Sleep/Bass Solo/NIB

Hand Of Doom

Rat Salad/Drum Solo

Iron Man

Dirty Women

Children Of The Grave

Encore: Paranoid (well, duh!)

Like I said, the band pretty much hovered around the first three albums which the exceptions of “Snowblind” and especially “Dirty Women”.  Not that Ozzy sang high in that song; but I doubt anyone expected them to pull out something off Technical Ecstacy, which was not their best album during the Ozzy years.  Either way, it was incredibly effective.  My head hurt so much from headbanging yet I refused to stop.  After the show ended we witnessed some guy who was so drunk he nearly fell down the stairs and that would have been a fucking long way down.  He instead fell on his ass and as he when to get his cigarette, which was already lit up, he mistakenly put the lit side in his mouth!

The show was in-fucking-credible, what a fitting way to say goodbye to the band that started it all.  In fact, they are playing another show at the Garden tomorrow night and will be touring through September.  Without them, and especially without Tony Iommi, there would be no heavy metal as we know it now.  For that I’ll always be thankful.

All Hail The King

Posted on by Mike

Remember this?

 

Well…unless you were under a rock or in a coma over the last few days you already know that the most unimaginable actually happened.  God himself died this past Monday.  What a shitty way to end the year, losing the legendary Lemmy Kilmister, the Metal world’s King Badass, as the year is coming to a close as well just four days after the son of a bitch celebrated his 70th birthday.

My girlfriend read the news while I was playing my guitar that night.  She came over to me and told me to take a deep breath, that’s when she told me the news.  I initially outright refused to believe it, like I’m sure everyone else did.  Lemmy Kilmister?  Dead?  Yet Keith Richards still lives?!?!  As Mike Portnoy said on his twitter account, this was without a doubt the moment everyone feared would come yet never thought would actually happen.

For those of you who really were under a rock or in a coma; Lemmy thinned out at an alarming rate in the course of the last year, maybe even more than that, clearly a result of his lifestyle.  The guy only did speed for decades and he even told Rolling Stone in April 2014 that he still was doing it – he just lowered the dosage after being fitted with a pacemaker.  He also decided to switch out the Jack Daniels for Vodka because “vodka has less sugar”.  Oh Lemmy, you funny guy.  But you still had to respect the motherfucker because even with his declining health he still kept a grueling tour schedule with Motorhead.  No one else would do that now.

That alone leads me to speculate about his “sudden” cancer diagnosis.  According to the press he was diagnosed with aggressive brain and neck cancer just two days after his birthday and was given “two to six months” to live…only to die two days later in front of his favorite video game which the guys at The Rainbow were generous enough to transport to his condo that night.  I don’t buy it.  I think he knew “two to six months” ago that he was fucked and decided to pull a page out of Freddie Mercury’s book and keep the truth under wraps for as long as was feasible, but not for the same reasons Freddie did.  Freddie was to be the Rock world’s first ever AIDS casualty – that clearly had to be pretty scary to admit back in the late 1980’s.

So why would Lemmy choose to keep this under wraps if my theory is right?  Simple (while still stupid!)…he didn’t want us to worry about him.  Lemmy was a warrior, his home was the stage and he couldn’t be Lemmy fucking Kilmister and NOT go out with a fucking bang!  He was a man of no regrets and he knew his lifestyle had finally caught up with him; he must’ve known “two to six months” ago that there was no way chemo was going to help in anyway so he probably just said fuck it and finished what he started.  You can’t do that from a hospital bed with your hair falling out, right?

That’s why we will always remember Lemmy.  He ALWAYS delivered for the fans no matter how fucked up he was.  He ALWAYS delivered for the fans when he “peers” didn’t want to be bothered hanging out with fans after a show or on the street somewhere.  Honestly…I don’t think he really had any peers.  I was going to write about this in a future post but I got the honor of meeting Lemmy almost eleven years ago when my friend’s band Arctic Flame opened up for Motorhead and he invited me to go with him.  What did that mean to me?  Well…I got to see the band do their soundcheck….holy shit they were LOUD.  The fucking PA monitors were tied together and the floor was shaking!  I was deafened instantly and the actual show wasn’t to start for another two hours.  It was beautiful.  When they finished their acoustic encore of “Whorehouse Blues” I cheered them enthusiastically along with this 15 year old kid who was with us.  Lemmy thanked us and when I yelled out “Lemmy you’re a fuckin’ GOD!!” his reply had me dying.  “No no no – God’s a lot taller!”.

Lemmy was a pioneer.  His bass tone is undeniable and will most likely NEVER be duplicated.  Thanks to him Motorhead was most likely the first ever crossover band bridging the gap between Punk and Metal, they were fast and they were so loud.  Even the punks wore Motorhead t shirts and had patches on their vests. If it wasn’t for Lemmy no thrash metal band would EVER exist.  This especially goes for Metallica, a band you won’t always see me refer to here.  But if there’s one thing I’ll always be grateful to Metallica for it’s introducing us all to Motorhead.  If I never bought their covers album Garage, Inc., I would’ve never heard “Overkill”, “Damage Case” or “Stone Dead Forever”.  If you were a kid in the 90’s like I was you probably didn’t know who the fuck Motorhead were until you bought that CD – and don’t you lie and say otherwise.  Lemmy also wrote amazing songs with other people outside of Motorhead.  Remember “Mama I’m Coming Home” by Ozzy?  Ozzy just wrote the title, Lemmy wrote all those beautiful lyrics.  Just too bad Ozzy and especially $haron decided to shit all over him and just give him a flat rate instead of just royalties.

But more important than any of that….Lemmy NEVER did what other people wanted him to do.  He was a trailblazer and when you’re trailblazer you listen to no one.  He lived his life on his own terms.  No one could drink like him or handle the effects of speed like he could.  Even more important than that, no one before or after him kicked ass like he could.  Scott Ian said that his death leaves a huge hole that will “never be filled” and he’s absolutely right.  It’s also a bit of a financial loss for the Rainbow.  Oops.

So in ending this all I can really say is thank you Lemmy.  Thank you for the gift of your music.  Thank you for the gift of your badass attitude which will NEVER be duplicated.  Thank you for Motorhead.  Thank you for the influence you’ve had on EVERY true metal musician worth a shit including myself.  If you call yourself a metalhead in any way and you aren’t a Motorhead fan you’re just a phony and should go fist yourself while listening to Adele or the faggot bitch who sings “call me on my cellphoooooone” or whatever that shit song is.  Your music and your life will NEVER be forgotten Lemmy.  I dedicate this song – which was my pre-workout song just yesterday – to you and everything you stand for.  Thank you Lemmy!

Ian Fraser Kilmister

December 24th 1945 – December 28th 2015