Thanks to my wonderful wife and her timely Craigslist sleuthing, I was able to obtain a very, very last minute ticket for the first day of Lollapalooza. I'd wanted to go since I found out that the original (more on that later) Black Sabbath was going to headline Friday's nights schedule, but tickets for that day sold out before I could grab one. Anyway, wristband on my wrist, I waltzed over to Grant Park and after a walk around the grounds and a stop by the merch tent for a Sabbath t-shirt, I headed up to the north end of the park to the Bud Light stage where Sabbath were to play. After tolerating an off-sounding set by Passion Pit (who had a surprisingly large crowd gathered), I headed towards center stage. There had been quite a few diehards camped out in front of the fence literally all day, but I was about to end up in the second row just stage left - pretty much right in front of Tony Iommi when the band came on stage.
After an hour-long break to set up the stage, the video monitors sprung to life with a short video showing clips of the band in much younger days. Then the band took to the stage to thunderous applause and went into a very fitting opener, the first song from their first album (you know, the one that launched this whole heavy metal thing), "Black Sabbath". The crowd went absolutely wild and stayed that way pretty much throughout the rest of the set - banging heads, throwing horns, and just generally showing lots of enthusiasm. The crowd around me was full of huge Sabbath fans that had come from as far away as North Carolina, Vancouver, and even Brazil just to see the band. My favorite was the girl near me that couldn't have been much more than 20 that absolutely went bananas when they played "Fairies Wear Boots" and danced her ass off. It was a great crowd and the entire band seemed to feed off the energy.
Ozzy seemed to be having a great time up on stage, stomping and clapping like a madman through the set. And his voice sounded pretty solid, much better than I had been warned, even if he did flub several notes throughout the night - but it went to prove he wasn't lip-synching. Geezer sounded great, anchoring a lot of the songs with his heavy bass work. But the real start of the show, as far as I was concerned, was Tony Iommi. Despite looking a little more gaunt than usual, no doubt due to his recent battle with cancer, Iommi tore into every single riff and solo like a man possessed. He sounded absolutely great the entire night and it was a thrill to watch him flash a huge grin at the crowd when they shouted his name. As some of you may know, there was a lot of in-fighting this year between original drummer Bill Ward and the rest of the band. Unfortunately this meant that he wasn't a part of this year's shows, so it was really only 3/4ths of the original Sabbath. He was replaced by former Rob Zombie drummer Tony Clufetos, who I thought did an admirable job give then circumstances. While he lacked Ward's trademark swing, he more than held his own and brought his own heavy touch to the songs without getting flashy and drawing too much attention his way. That flash he saved for his drum solo, but considering the other members had left the stage at that point, I think he earned it.
I could quibble about some of the songs they didn't play, but that seems a little pointless considering how great the set actually was. After "Black Sabbath", they tore their way through the rest of side one of that self-titled album, following up with "The Wizard" (complete with Ozzy on harmonica), "Behind the Wall of Sleep", and "N.I.B.". Following that, they tore through a lot of the momentous songs from their catalog including "Iron Man", "Sweet Leaf", and "War Pigs" (the latter of which initiated a tremendous crowd singalong that I won't soon forget). They even pulled out a couple unexpected numbers, including the underrated "Dirty Women" and the fantastic "Under the Sun". All in all it was a thrilling show and I'm ecstatic that I was able to see even three-quarters of the band that invented heavy metal. A great night.
Setlist:
1. Black Sabbath
2. The Wizard
3. Behind the Wall of Sleep
4. N.I.B.
5. Into the Void
6. Under the Sun
7. Snowblind
8. War Pigs
9. Electric Funeral
10. Sweet Leaf
11. Symptom of the Universe
(drum solo)
12. Iron Man
13. Fairies Wear Boots
14. Children of the Grave
(encore break)
15. Paranoid
No comments:
Post a Comment