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July 9th, 2005 - Koengen - Bergen, Norway |
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Bjarte Malum:
FOLK
FESTIVAL PAINTED IN BLACK According
to the local fanatics, it was a great shame that the (allegedly) ”satanic”
metal band Black Sabbath was booked for the 100-year anniversary of Norwegian
independence. An audience of 13,000 proved their ramblings wrong and the band
themselves delivered the goods. Black Sabbath Koengen, Bergen, Norway, Saturday 09.07.2005 According to the local newspaper, Bergens Tidende, the members weren’t even aware of the fact that they were in Norway on Saturday. That said, the band, and Mr. Osbourne in particular, turned out to be more joyful and energetic than ever, spitting out classic after classic in front of 13.000 people. Most of the reviews I read beforehand promised this too, in addition to “giving away” the complete set list. So there were no surprises waiting for us when the band took the sunny stage at 20:36. They opened with "N.I.B." (or "Nativity In Black", if you will) from the debut-album Black Sabbath from 1970. It was a pleasure to witness the fact that a 35-year old song can still cut it in the heavy metal-genre. Then followed "After Forever", "War Pigs", "Dirty Women" and "Fairies Wear Boots". On the latter, die-hard fans would probably object to the fact that Bill Ward changed the drum parts too much. Then again, this isn’t a cover-band, but “the real thing”. Fronted
by a vegetable However,
Bill Ward was more than competent behind the kit, despite his various
health-related problems, which disqualified him from previous reunions. Tony Iommi,
the guitarist who’s kept the band alive all these years, has been accused of
being a full-time arsehole on more than one occasion. He didn’t seem to enjoy himself that much either, wandering
seemingly disillusioned to and fro on the right side of the stage. Maybe the pay check was not satisfactory? Geezer
Butler, the man behind Sabbaths many great bass-lines, was definitively more
alive. But then he has also been in and
out of the band on various occasions. And the
main man, the reality TV star, the half-vegetable of a God-worshipping
celebrity, John ”Ozzy” Osbourne, has (according to rumours) started drinking
green tea, jogging, stopped his alcohol and drug-habits and appeared as a new
man tonight. He was, as would be
expected of a front man of a band this big, a clever showman. Ozzy showed his arse, threw water at the
audience during "Dirty Women", jumped, danced and gesticulated wildly
with his arms. But in spite of that, he
nearly talked his way through the “tranquil” parts of "War Pigs" and was
more than a quarter below/above pitch on at least one occasion. So even though no one has managed to copy
his characteristic voice, the ‘original’ Ozzy unfortunately didn’t manage to
pass the test either.
From
shady to total failure After the
"Symptom Of The Universe", "Electric Funeral" and
"Sweet Leaf" medley, we got a slow and viscous rendition of
the monster hit, "Iron Man".
First off, the audience got to squall along to the immortal riff before
we could establish that it was played at least 2 times too slow. Ergo was that the take off-part even more
climatic. Maybe that was the idea? Unbelievably
enough, the same ”mistake” was made on "Black Sabbath" and here we
witnessed one of Ozzy’s weaker moments.
Considering the tempo was waaay too slow, the slow part of the song had
to be carried much by the vocals and I have to say it did NOT work out well. And when the punch didn’t kick in either,
the song kind of fell apart in my opinion.
But things picked up and the frontman proved he can still handle the
harmonica. "The Wizard"
was the
last song for tonight before closing with an OK rendition of their monster,
monster hit, "Paranoid". The time
showed 21:46, ergo had the legends given us 10 songs in 1 hour and 10 minutes
worth of entertainment. I tip their
payment by hour was a little above your general wage. But of course, we got an extra song, one of my personal
favourites, "Children Of The Grave". They might as well cut it entirely from the set-list ‘cause
Ozzy’s vocals were more or less a total and utter catastrophe in a mixture of
mumbling, singing the wrong words and tonedeafness. Lovely! "Selling"
their souls I guess the
venue, Koengen, isn’t the ultimate place to arrange major concerts when it
comes to the sound quality. The sound
was NOT at its best where I was standing, approx 60 meters sidelong to the
right of the stage. Fortunately, no
great errors occurred and there was definitely a good thrust through the entire
show. So what should one think? I’ve seen Sabbath with the original line-up
before, so I was probably one of the less-fascinated persons this evening,
considering that it is not every day you see rock-legends alive. I assume a great deal of the audience
attended just to see Ozzy while he’s still alive? In that respect, they did not disappoint. But maybe Black Sabbath anno 2005 could’ve
played more songs. For instance, they
did just one from Volume 4? Or maybe they could have even played one of the new songs they
released in 1998 (such as "Psycho Man" or "Selling
My Soul")? Maybe too much to
expect from the money circus this surely is.
Sadly, the music takes a back-seat in this version of the band. Was this what the 4 young men from
Birmingham set out to achieve when they started out as Polka Tulk Blues Band in
1967? Assumption-wise,
this was approved. But I wish I could
experience a legendary and brilliant band as Black Sabbath under different
circumstances. NB! No photos available coz of the photo ban in
effect at this show. NNB! This review has previously been published in its original form in Norwegian at: Publish-site
#1 Pictures from the Bergen-show can be viewed here: As you probably know, Velvet Revolver has cancelled the last leg
of their tour w/Sabbath. I don't know about any other dates, but for the
Bergen show- 2 bands have been added to the bill. The bands are: [Editor's note: After reading so many overwhelmingly positive reviews from the European tour, it was sort of a downer to receive this one. Having listened to countless Sabbath shows, I've learned to be a bit more forgiving of the shortcomings that Bjarte described above (such as Ozzy's wobbling pitch center and the set list complaints). But I'll have to say that his remarks on Tony had me thinking about Alan Jones all over again, if any of you remember that whole incident. I respect your honesty here Bjarte, but I wouldn't suggest trying to ever meet Tony in person...] |
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