Thanks to this thread I'm reminded of the Asbury Park '75 show, which I haven't played in ages. I have a few hours of desk work ahead of me now, and I'm gonna start them playing that show because no one said we can't have fun while we work.
Holy *****. Ozzy said earlier that day, "We're not gonna set the stage on fire or anything like that." That's very eerie and creepy. Love that little flying leap. It looks almost choreographed.
Not true. In fact the contract for Sabbath’s performance at Cal Jam was posted online some years back. I don’t remember the numbers, as other people’s money tends not to interest me, but if memory serves it was a very big payday. As of course would be expected.
A rip-off?An awful release? It could be more complete, less mixed-up, and soo much better (all of which is fairly understandable) - but it's not plain bad, at least IMHO. It's the only official (besides the already included "Live At Last") audio-only live-document of Sabbath in their 70ties heyday, and it's full of great performances. I think most complains (including this one) are not about the album itself but what we'd prefer instead of it. I mean, besides its flaws, it still shows Black Sabbath's impressive live skills in great shape, doesn't it?
I agree but for serious fans it was a letdown. Using Live At Last for disc 1 alone was a joke. This after they fought the release and then panned it for years? My guess is that they were still pissed off that Meehan was making money off of it and figured they’d finally make some money on those recordings. Disc 2 was such a hodgepodge, but yes, it is nothing but stellar live material.
With Led Zeppelin, for years we had nothing but the mediocre "The Song Remains The Same", up until "How The West Was Won" was released. I'm not talking mastering/editing here, but the band's overly convincing playing. It was such a revelation!!! Black Sabbath really need and even more deserve the same care/treatment! It's about fookin' time!!!! It's about legacy!!!!
I'm not by any means knocking the performances, mind you. But yes, even though it shows the band in great form this release blows. It is plain bad to me. Awful and rip-offy. No details on the cover or back insert, so you didn't know what you were getting until you actually purchased it and got it home. All it had was a sticker saying "Live At Last - Deluxe Edition". (Ha. What's so deluxe about it?) So ye olde Blaec Sabbathe fann picketh it off the schelfe at the shoppe, looketh at the tracklyste and thinketh, "oh well, at least disc 2 may be stuff I haven't got". Take it home, open it up, look inside the booklet... No details of recording location or dates. Hmmmm. Play said disc 2... Find a handful of Bruparissels '70 and Asbury Park '75 tracks arranged in a completely silly sequence and garnished with fake stadium-audience type noise. You know... That's just the kind of job bootleggers used to throw at you - slap whatever they have lying around on a disc and hope it sells. You bet I'm gonna hold a full-price official release to a higher standard. Whoever put Past Lives together clearly didn't give a f@ck. And, of course, both CDs are mastered as hot as my oven when I bake cookies. Difference being, cookies smell delicious and Past Lives stinks. Awful and rip-offy.
Totally agree. Terrible release. Disc is just the '96 mastering (which I do like but misses the spoken intro) but here it has been jacked up to hell with heavy digital limiting. Then disc 2 has a few tracks from the most bootlegged shows, which have zero to do with the original Live at Last album content, and they sound like they simply grabbed bootlegs and then poorly remastered them. There was no reason to only release a handful of tracks from the '70 and '75 shows. They have the full shows and both deserve a release in full. Which they've finally done with Brussels '70 but the great Asbury '75 show is still not officially released and honestly, I don't care. They'd probably just screw up the mastering and the common as dirt bootleg source would end up still superior. Past Live is total amateur hour.
Question #19 After Cal Jam, what was the next thing for the 4? Did they immediately start work on "Sabotage"?
As I said before, I totally get your POV. I don't think it's that appalling, but to each his own. So here's some questions: - What CD pressing has the best sound/mastering for the "Live At Last" stuff? - I don't know of an officially released "Brussels '70" release. Where can I get it?
My favorite Live at Last is the '96 but it's missing the spoken intro. If you want that, there's the Castle '86 which is also good but I don't like it as much overall. The full Brussels show was released in the 2016 4CD Super Deluxe of Paranoid. You also get the Montreux '70 soundboard.
Obviously it’s a different perspective but I remember the original single vinyl release after being starved of any live Ozzy era recordings it was a revelation to finally hear them in all their glory!
Slightly OT (okay totally OT) but I just watched episode 1 of the latest Peaky Blinders (Season 5) and was pleasantly surprised to hear Sabbath's The Wizard playing in one of the scenes. Seems the band's music will be used again this season as well. Excellent choice by director Anthony Byrne. Killer show with a killer soundtrack. Check it out if you haven't yet. As you were.
D'oh! That got past me completely unnoticed! I was totally unaware of this! As it's an Andy Pearce remaster, the sound quality is also fine, I guess... Wow, so there IS an alternative to "Past Lives"!
I absolutely LOVE this show. I just watched since episodes last night and saw the one with Wizard. The only problem with the show is that there is only 6 episodes this season.
I always thought of The Wizard as a lesser known deep cut. Was very surprised to hear it in that car commercial recently.
Agreed. Six episodes is not enough. Still, more than happy to have them. Peaky is the best thing on TV. This headline was more than a little misleading though: Ozzy Osbourne set to appear in Peaky Blinders season five as show returns to BBC
Yea, that's phooked up. The very next thing he says is that Ozzy's not appearing in the show. I would think stunts like that boost ratings temporarily but do nothing for a long term career. Anyway, now we have to wait how long for another season? I'm also watching, Versailles. It's pretty awesome too.
Question #20 What dates did the Ozzy Era guys play The Hollywood Bowl? And wasn't one of the times a time when TI collapsed from physical exhaustion?
Mind you though, there are two Pearce Sabbath remastering series, 2009 and 2012, and the results were surprisingly different: dark sound vs. bright-sounding. The 2016 WB/Rhino CDs, including the Paranoid Super Deluxe, use the 2012 masterings, which I find too bright-sounding, and strangely have the low end summed (probably a vinyl move baked into the mastering which was originally created for a vinyl collection). Anyway, its brightness notwithstanding, the 2012 Paranoid sounds still much better than the 2009 Paranoid (which strangely turned out to be NOT mastered by Pearce, instead being sourced from the rather bad-sounding 1996 Castle remaster with only superficial changes), and the bonus discs of the Super Deluxe package are definitely worth having. Don't expect a miracle though: the Brussels CD sounds very nice but only marginally better than the best bootlegs, and the Paranoid Quad mix, while great-sounding (especially compared to the awful needledrop they used for the 2009 Deluxe bonus DVD), has been downmixed to stereo. The Montreux CD has been available in bootleg form for a while, but those were all lossy-sourced, while this one's lossless. It is a very nice package, but at the same time it's a pain that the Quad mix isn't included in multichannel format and the Brussels show is, once again, audio-only, missing the fantastic footage. According to the most complete, but now very outdated list of Sabbath tour dates compiled by Rob Dwyer and available on Tour Dates – Black Sabbath Online , the original line-up played the Hollywood Bowl only once, on September 15, 1972. It was a rather special gig as they allegedly played "Changes", and according to the tourdates list, Tony did indeed collapse during the show. The band played Hollywood again on November 05, 1978, but used the Hollywood Sportatorium rather than the Hollywood Bowl. Sabbath feat. Tony, Geezer and Ozzy played the Hollywood Bowl two more times, but without Bill: on April 26, 2014, and September 19, 2016. But again, the list is very outdated, so it is possibly that they did more Bowl gigs that aren't listed. Rob has been planning and starting to prepare a major update of the list , but is busy with other things, so I wouldn't expect it to happen very soon. I remember I read an interview that happened a few years ago max where Tony and maybe Geezer talked about that gig, but somehow I don't find it anymore. Anyone have a link to that interview? The Hollywood Bowl gig is also mentioned in the following articles: Redemption for Black Sabbath at Hollywood Bowl – Orange County Register Fear And Loathing In Los Angeles: The Story Of Black Sabbath's Vol. 4 | Louder And Tim posted some very nice pictures from the show: Black Sabbath Deluxe Editions January 22, 2016
Thank you, it's always remarkable how much effort you put into your informative posts! I should have been more clear, I only meant the mastering of the bonus content (don't really need another Paranoid). And to mix down an existing quad mix to stereo is beyond my comprehension, really... in the end, you simply get something like a remix, or an alternative mix, done the cheap way... Other bands in the same league would have done a proper remix (maybe even with Steven Wilson onboard) and the original Quad-mix on top, but our brummies here seem to be too eager counting their riches... Alright, I'm a bit too harsh, but crap like that annoys me. (edit: imagine the messy Vol 4 in Steven Wilson fashion!)
But has the bonus content been remastered by Pearce at all? (I am not saying it hasn't, I just don't know.) As for remixing Paranoid or any other Sabbath album, I am not really interested in that. I like the mix of pretty much every Sabbath album other than Born Again and maybe Forbidden. Complaints I do have about some of their albums usually concern either the mastering (e.g. Paranoid, TE, NSD, 13) or the musical content (e.g. Seventh Star,13, The Eternal Idol, TE, NSD, Forbidden).
