|
THE BAND
- Ronnie James Dio - Vocals
- Tony Iommi - Guitar
- Geezer Butler - Bass
- Vinny Appice - Drums
- Scott Warren - Keyboards
SET LIST
- E5150
- The Mob Rules
- Children Of The Sea
- I
- Sign Of The Southern Cross
- Voodoo
- Vinny Solo
- Computer God
- Falling Off The Edge Of The World
- Shadow Of The Wind
- Tony Solo (Intro to Die Young)
- Die Young
- Heaven And Hell
- Neon Knights
CONCERT PHOTO GALLERY
None yet. Have any? Submit 'em!.
FAN SUBMITTED TOUR REVIEWS & REMARKS
from Mohammed Osama
<arch.ossoss@gmail.com>
to siegler@black-sabbath.com,
date Tue, Sep 4, 2007 at 3:14 PM
subject Black Sabbath - Rock wave festival - 01/07/2007
When everyone thought that the pioneers,
creators and God fathers of heavy metal were falling apart in the late
70’s , ex-Rainbow singer Ronnie James Dio stepped into Black Sabbath
replacing Ozzy Osbourne ,joining forces with the other original founding
members Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler and Bill Ward. With Ronnie, not only
the legend of Black Sabbath was resurrected, furthermore, the band was
able to explore new music grounds and reach for a phenomenal brand new
horizon of glory and success.
Released on the 25th of April 1980, Heaven and Hell is still considered
one of the most inspirational classic rock/metal albums to ever merge
the music scene influencing countless musicians and bands for decades.
During the album world tour Bill ward left the band for personal reasons
and was replaced by the Italian/American drummer Vinny Appice. It was
during this tour that Dio popularized the mano cornuta hand gesture
(better known for most people as the devil horns) which ever since,
became the symbol of heavy metal in general; Dio says that his Italian
grandmother used the sign to ward off the evil eye.
On November 4, 1981 the Dio/Sabbath line-up released their 2nd powerful
classic album entitled Mob Rules followed with a popular successful tour
where Live Evil Sabbath’s first official live album was recorded. During
the mixing process of the live album, internal band conflicts and nasty
accusations led Dio and Vinny to quit the band forming another legendary
band simply named Dio. Their first brief reunion was in the early 90’s
witnessing probably Black Sabbath’s darkest and heaviest album to date,
Dehumanizer was released on the 30th of June 1992 before Dio left the
band during their world tour when Iommi and Geezer accepted to have the
band open up for Ozzy’s two final shows at Costa Mesa. Judas Priest’s
lead singer Rob Halford was asked to take the leading vocals
specifically for those two shows only.
In late 2006, the band reunited to record three new songs The Devil
cried, Shadow of the wind and Ear in the wall to be included on the
first Sabbath Compilation album dedicated to the Dio era on its own,
simply entitled Black Sabbath – The Dio years, Dio , Iommi , Geezer and
Vinny decided to resurrect their legacy supporting the new compilation
with a massive world wide tour in 2007 under the moniker of the name
Heaven & Hell making it one of the biggest and greatest reunions in
recent history.
On the 5th of March 2007, I got invitation from a long time friend and
president of the Dio greek fan club George Galanis to join him along
with another die hard Italian friend of ours ‘Marcello Catozzi’ to catch
Black Sabbath on July the 1st 2007 headlining the 2nd day of Athens
biggest summer music event, the Rock Wave festival. Without hesitation I
decided it was finally the time and golden opportunity to watch my most
favorite Metal band live, not to mention having a big chance to meet my
all time heroes in person since my friends were already close friends to
Dio and his crew.
My first two days at Athens before the festival were quite rough and
frustrating since we had our own plans to welcome the band at the Athens
airport and book a day or two at the same hotel they’re staying at yet,
all our plans went down the hill and we had to postpone all our dreams
to the same the day of the festival.
As we arrived to venue at the day of the show, we were kindly surprised
to find our names on very special envelopes at the promoter’s area
including an after show pass and a free ticket to the festival dedicated
to us by the band tour manager Roger summers. As we quickly approached
the venue’s main stage area we heard clearly the massive estimated
25,000 crowd interacting along with one of the biggest power metal bands
in the world Iced Earth . Although the band was clearly having some hard
time on stage with all the sound problems they had, their musical output
and energy was certainly entertaining the crowd very well and it was
quite clear to everyone that they had their own huge fan base in Greece
. John Schaffer band founder and lead guitar player appeared to be a bit
angry on stage with all the sound problems he was personally suffering
from yet, managed to perform within a very professional attitude while
their lead ex-Judas priest singer Tim ‘the Ripper’ Owens was hitting
those eternal high notes with perfection proving his one of those few
true metal vocals, that can actually sing and pull something off.
Iced Earth set list in order:
Burning Times
Declaration Day
Violate
Vengeance Is Mine
Pure Evil
The Reckoning
The Hunter
Ten Thousand Strong
Jack
My Own Savior
Storm rider
Prophecy
Birth Of The Wicked
The Coming Curse
World’s progressive metal masters Dream Theater took over the stage
right after Iced Earth energetic performance opening their set with two
songs from their first ever conceptual album Metropolis part II: scenes
from a memory, as well known of the band, their music out put and
technical capabilities are second to none, the members were tight like
ever yet, it was quite obvious many members were overplaying allover the
whole set. John Petrucci
Might be one of the most technical guitar shredders on the planet but
certainly his guitar phrasing and soloing was overly repetitive and
soulless. The band performed Constant Motion, The Dark Eternal Night and
Forsaken, from their latest album Systematic Chaos
Which seemed to work out live well although their lead vocals James
Labrie still proves he is the weakest link in the band . The highlight
of the Theater set was the dual note to note interplay between Petrucci
and Jordan Rudess on keyboards and the band ending up their set with
their most well known song Pull me Under. Although am a big Theater fan
myself I can’t but admit that their short set and song selection was
absolutely terrible. Dream Theater
set list in order:
Overture 1928
Strange Déjà Vu
Take the Time
Constant Motion
The Dark Eternal Night
Endless Sacrifice
Honor Thy Father
Forsaken
Pull Me Under
As darkness started to crawl and take all over Athens skies, the massive
crowd knew it was only a matter of time before the long awaited
legendary Black Sabbath would take over the stage. I moved along with my
friends to getting as close as we can get to the main stage. As
expected, the band was having a special highly produced stage set with 3
screens displayed over an old castle background with steel fences
Positioned right on the sides.
Black Sabbath line-up:
Ronnie James Dio – lead vocals
Tony Iommi – lead guitar
Geezer Butler – bass guitar
Vinny Appice – drums
Scott Warren – keyboards
With the crowd shouting for Sabbath and another huge portion shouting
for Dio the
Instrumental E5150 music started to fade into the speakers indicating
the beginning
Of the Sabbath set, the band blasted into the heavy riffing Mob Rules
and from the first encounter Sabbath proved why they’re in a totally
different league than all the previous bands performing at the same
music fest that night.
Children of the sea was the first ever song Dio wrote with Black Sabbath
and certainly one of the main highlights of their show with its melodic,
beautiful vocals lines and Iommi’s heart ripping solo towards the end of
the song . The enthusiastic crowd was interacting very well with the
band classics, almost singing along on every single tune.
It was quite clear to my ears that the mixing was almost perfect with
Iommi’s distorted lead guitar lines as louder as ever, Geezer filling
and supporting the lead with some of the most melodic and exceptional
bass guitar lines, Ronnie James Dio in his mid 60’s embarrassing all the
rock/metal singers in the world with the most powerful, tuned and
phrasing voice ive ever heard while Vinny hitting as hard as it takes
offering Sabbath the heaviest, dark and gloomy background.
The sign of the Southern Cross was the first masterpiece epic of the
night with Dio’s voice shining brightly at the smooth intro before the
riff master bursts into one of his heaviest
Slow based tempo riffs with some extended band improvisation at the very
middle of the song.
Voodoo was another standard with extended sections, truly magical
moments with Dio and Iommi interplaying and improvising vocals / guitars
lines with one another.
Vinny Appice had his own solo spot afterwards with his drum kit almost
falling apart before
Breaking along with the band into the futuristic philosophical epic
about faith and the upcoming battle man and the machine, another time
less classic entitled Computer God
Which opens with one of Iommi’s finest and heaviest riffs topped with
Dio’s angered
And dramatic voice before the band slips into a transitional melodic
mid-part, crashing into the final up beat section out showing their
musical power, brilliance and versatility.
Loneliness, depression and gloominess are
all images that flashed through my head
On the underrated Falling off the edge of the world followed by the slow
paced ultra heavy anti drug song Shadow of the wind.
When the band broke into the power chord driven riff, energetic and
furious Die young, hell broke lose at the venue with the crowd going
absolutely nuts ,bodies were literally flying everywhere beside me . Ive
been to many music rock festivals, but I haven’t seen anything quite
close to this before.
Heaven and Hell was the Grande final epic of the night with the crowd
singing along the main operatic like power chord riff of the song, the
band and Dio getting locked up in a long mind boggling long improvised
mid section before they blasted into the dynamic fast paced ending.
The band left the stage afterwards and with the crowd begs and screams,
they returned for
One last encounter. Neon Knights was the last song the band wrote back
for the heaven and hell album and certainly the fast hard rocking
classic was the best song to end up such an amazing night.
Black Sabbath set list in order:
1. E5150
2. The mob rules
3. Children of the Sea
4. I
5. The Sign of the Southern Cross
6. Voodoo
7.Vinny Appice drum solo
8. Computer God
9. Falling Off The Edge Of The World
10. Shadow of the Wind
11. Tony Iommi guitar solo
12. Die Young
13. Heaven And Hell
Encore:
14. Neon Knights
The night was far from being over to me and my friends, as we approached
the backstage area with our special passes and that’s when I almost lost
my sanity! I had the time of my life meeting and talking to my all time
heroes and inspirations Iommi , Geezer , Vinny and Ronnie James Dio , to
whom I was personally introduced by my friends , spent my own private
time explaining my contributing related work project with Dio showing
great signs of happiness and gratefulness, he kindly signed my album
covers and box set with all the love and care before spending over 2
hours chatting along with my friends discussing the current tour and
show, his future plans, his writing process, possible rainbow reunion
and even expressing his will to visit Egypt someday, ride the Nile tour
and the most important, attend the lights and sounds show at the
pyramids.
It was around time 2:30 a.m when Dio was approached by his personal
assistant telling him that they had to leave in order to catch up with
their next morning flight, Dio hugged
Kissed and thanked each one of us and then we left the venue with my
mind still not being able to believe or realize that ive just hanged out
with the greatest metal band of all time, Black Sabbath. |
