#20thdecember2013

Birmingham LG Arena - Fri. 20th December The Birmingham heavy metallers reunite to play the first of two hometown gigs, topping a triumphant end to their busiest year yet.

Pic: Eliza Kurczewska “Is this the end of the beginning? Or the beginning of the end?” questions Ozzy Osbourne on ‘13’ album opener ‘End Of The Beginning’. No, the legendary rocker isn’t experiencing such vivid senility that he’s now questioning existentialism, and no, before you ask, he’s been sober since the beginning of the year (say no more), it’s quite the opposite in fact; Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler have been given a new lease of life, gaining the motivation to get back in the studio and give us their most up to date, suitably dark, and classically Sabbath style album in ‘13’ - not such an unlucky number after all.

Despite a cancelled 2012 tour given Iommi’s battle with lymphoma (bar two triumphant headline performances at Download and Lollapalooza – giving both sides of the Atlantic a taste of more to come), Ozzy’s now past-tense relapse (clarified back in April via his Facebook feed – having stated that he was “in a very dark place”), and an absent founding member in drummer Bill Ward (replaced for the ‘13’ tour by Tommy Clufetos, who made a name for himself as drummer for Ozzy’s solo career since 2010), Black Sabbath have burst into 2013 in glorious fashion, scoring a number one album on both sides of the Atlantic with a long awaited return to form in the Rick Rubin-produced ‘13’ - a record bringing back every grand power chord, epic vocal line and masterful bass solo we ever missed out from their 18 years of on-record absence, the ‘13’ world tour reviving a worldwide adoration for their brilliant brand of Heavy Metal in the process. The Sabbath has returned, and they’re better than ever.  

As the ‘13’ tour draws to a close with the year of the album’s release, MS venture 200 miles north to celebrate a suitably gloomy festive season at Birmingham’s LG Arena – just under 15 miles from the borough of Aston, where 45 years ago, a band under the name of ‘Earth’ came together, and after dropping a erm… saxophone player and slide guitarist, later became the band we now know as Black Sabbath, and we’re nothing if not obsessives in geographic nostalgia??? But with Ozzy casting a shadow over the year by gracing the NME Christmas cover (Glam Rock dog in tow), sufficient hype has been built up for the first of two sold out nights of real, and we mean REAL Heavy Metal, and on the opening first of the two shows? What a night it’s turned out to be.

Arriving hours before the proverbial masses (War Pigs – ed.) gave us a front row view of Sabbath support act Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats; your similarly shabby looking four-piece, decorated in classy, though raggedy suits and with the lengthy rock hair to match it, their facial expressions? We didn’t see facial expressions at all, only hair, lots and lots of hair.

Metal aesthetic aside, Uncle Acid and co. brought forth their own breed of Sabbath-style technical Heavy Metal, every intricate harmony change – both vocal and instrumental between guitarist Yotam Rubinger and frontman K.R. Starrs (or Uncle Acid, as he is known) is refined down to the finest detail, not one dud note from any guitar solo, not one unsynchronized headbang (points for style), altogether, not a foot placed wrongly; just pure, mechanically perfected music, The Deadbeats tie together a range of blistering rock riffs, from Dean Millar’s bass riffs – finally a bass player that equals the technical ferocity of the rest of the band (just you wait until Geezer gets onstage), to the vocal harmony procession, led by Uncle Acid himself. Surprisingly drummer Itamar Rubinger  (brother to guitarist Yotam) is the least musically full on of the four, laying out some classic AC/DC Rock beats to put the brakes on an otherwise frenetic band. All of which, as awesomely Rock-nostalgia-based as it is, seems somewhat insignificant in the shadow of the band they’re supporting, Acid’s mention of their name alone – “you guys looking forward to Black Sabbath?” – brings about more applause than The Deadbeats mustered during their entire performance, though a great show they put on, and certainly besting Sabbath’s unorthodox, and almost comedic choice of the (dainty, by comparison) Andrew WK for their American leg of the reunion tour.

Any other day Uncle Acid, but move aside and let Grandpa Ozzy take over.

Pic: kerrang 

The show begins with a chorus of sirens as an outstretched shadow is cast onto the black stage curtain that has been hiding everything going on backstage so far. And finally, a sober, enthusiastic legend is revealed to us in the form of one Ozzy Osbourne, magnified in front of a huge three-way screen, surrounded by decorative tree-like reliefs, he shouts “Alright! Let me see your fucking hands!” at an ecstatic crowd as the introduction to ‘War Pigs’ overlaps the sirens. The crowd, gathered in their masses shout back those immortal Sabbath lyrics while Ozzy jumps with pure elation while Tony Iommi knocks out guitar licks with startling precision, and new addition Clufetos leads the slightly inebriated crowd handclaps in between true-to-form animalistic drum fills.

Ozzy makes it an after-song tradition to pour a bottle of water over himself (dehydrated, bless) and occasionally the unsuspecting bodyguard in front of him, whom he got twice, much to the joy of the crowd, Ozzy shows that he is young at heart throughout, running to and from each corner of the stage like a maniac for the first few songs, and then joining the rest of the band in standing like cold, dominating pillars on each of their respective zones, not that we expected cartwheels or anything… After a seasonally-appropriate live classic in ‘Snowblind’ and a revisitation of the eponymous song that started it all; there’s a moment that really secured everyone’s skill in the band to a legendary level; though thoroughly present beforehand, Geezer Butler’s bass skill is highlighted for all to see in the live regular ‘Bassically’ solo that precedes N.I.B – no longer just the man who stands on the sidelines fingerpicking frantically while Ozzy and Iommi take the spotlight, Butler shows himself to be a pivotal cog in the band machine, with as much depth and instrumental class as Iommi, and as much flair and agility as the youthful live addition of Clufetos - fair to say, Butler may have even temporarily stolen the show, where Iommi stayed true to the (albeit brilliant) recorded songs, and Ozzy’s vocals were never going to be on top form – most songs being lowered in key for the sake of sub-par live vocals, Clufetos? Well, the 10 minute drum solo that would have been amazing in the original Sabbath shows was substituted for both inconsistency and keeping an exhausted (and surprisingly docile) crowd enthused in a bit of downtime for the other three band members - less of an epic drum solo, but more of a large conglomerate of varying drum solos, each one more impressive than the next, mind, but if the band have insisted on staying true to the record and their own unique style of trend-setting Heavy Metal thus-far, then your everyday Black Sabbath/Cream style solo is preferable. But no, we won’t knock the more than fluent series of solos that Clufetos put forth (we get it) brilliantly, but where’s Bill Ward when you need him?

But just as a largely over 40 crowd would begin to settle down, Sabbath break out the big guns for the final stretch, ‘Iron Man’ is met with predictable audience uproar, and a crowd singing guitar lines with as much sharply inebriated accuracy as they chant lyrics themselves, Ozzy’s stage presence met with now serious moshing, and the venue becomes the chaotic arena, claimed by the band itself in time for ‘God Is Dead?’, where Ozzy begins the largest instrumental breakdown the band created since 81’s ‘Mob Rules’ in stating “I don’t believe that god is dead”. After an 18 year gap, it almost seems rare that Black Sabbath can still produce top-notch material in ‘13’, and play it live as well as the classics that they reacquaint us with live, but the boys know how to run a show, and the purple confetti and balloons are broken out for crowd favourite ‘Paranoid’, giving both band and crowd a second wind. Ozzy ever the thankful one, having screamed ‘WE LOVE YOU!’ at the end of every song thus far, showing us that nothing has changed, not in terms of inducing pure excitement or showcasing musical skill. The band ingenuity that we all fell in love with in their early albums is shown in ending on the calming, pro-nostalgia ‘13’ filler ‘Zeitgeist’, a seemingly downbeat ending to the evening, but with the crowd still reeling off of the frenzy from ‘Paranoid’, and the commotion of the crowd lives through into the very final moments of the evening, with or without the inclusion of a movie franchise, Black Sabbath have reaffirmed their popularity in their hometown, the crowd having obeyed every command from the most awesome man in Heavy Metal, “Go fucking crazy because it’s Christmas”? Yeah. The craziness happened.

The boys from Black Sabbath have proved to us that age is just a number, and that they of all bands are more relevant today than ever before, in a world where Metal has branched off into many unpreferable areas and genres, but Sabbath have returned to bear a heavy weight, returning in glorious fashion to revive the genre, and this being a weight they carry with ease, from the impeccable effort in Heavy Metal nostalgia that was ’13’, through impeccable tour shirt designs and craftily dealing with missing members, right through to reintroducing themselves with their hometown in style, Sabbath end the year on a high, and this may not be the end of the beginning (or vice versa), but it’s the start of something big. Veryan Leaper 

Setlist:

War Pigs

Into The Void

Under The Sun/Every Day Comes And Goes

Snowblind

Age Of Reason

Black Sabbath

Behind The Wall Of Sleep

'Bassically' – Geezer Butler bass solo

N.I.B.

End Of The Beginning

Fairies Wear Boots

Rat Salad - Tommy Clufetos drum solo

Iron Man

God Is Dead?

Dirty Women

Children of The Grave

Encore:

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath intro

Paranoid