From: Sunlion

Hi Joe...

You're welcome to add this to your site, and you're free to edit as appropriate:

Riverfront Coliseum, Cincinnati, OH February 4, 1977. I think. It's what my ticket stub says, but I remember that that show had been canceled then rescheduled ... I think due to the extreme Winter that year... I believe the concert was originally scheduled for January, but I can't rule out the possibility that my stub was from the originally scheduled date.

It was my first real rock concert, and it was held at Riverfront Coliseum (now called The Crown) in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. The venue probably officially holds 10,000 to 15,000, but in those days they seriously oversold the place and packed the place to the very max. The crowd was unbelievably large, and it was certainly like a street-convention of freaks (I mean in the good sense- that's what hippie types were called then). I remember police huddled in a group for safety, hoping no one would mess with them. They seemed to get more and more nervous each time they'd hear a bottle crash to the ground. Drug and alcohol use and abuse was open and defiant. I was only 16, and this was turning into an interesting experience, a great place to watch people! This was also the site of the April '77 riot at the first of two Led Zeppelin shows, and the 12/3/79 Who concert, at which 11 people died. Like all concerts back then, the crush going inside was a bit unnerving...

Target, a band from Memphis, was up first, and all I recall about them was that by the time they were finishing, it was already getting hard to see the stage through the haze of pot smoke. Bob Seger was the second act, and came on and played a good set; he was a fast-rising star at the time, riding high on his first superheat Night Moves. The most memorable moment for me was when he played the song Sunburst: "The crowd without a face begins to fill the space in the arena..." Something went CLICK in my= psyche and I was confirmed as a rock fan for life.

Black Sabbath came on, and it was sheer bliss. It seemed as if they played practically every song from their Paranoid LP, which was one of my favorites back then. War Pigs sounded particularly good, and even today the song brings back an indescribable feeling that I relate to that night... Winter... Adventure... Youth. They seemed to play every song I knew, except Planet Caravan, which I didn't like then (but love now!). The volume was extreme. EXTREME. I loved it! At one point late in the show, the volume was so ovewhelmint that... someone was soloing, either Tony or Geezer, and he kept making his axe groan at this one specific audio frequency that [does this sound good?] caused the nasal ethmoid bone, or maybe just the nasal cavities to resonate perfectly. No, it wasn't painful, but it makes it feel like rock and roll is making your whole brain and resonate. All of a sudden no one was looking at the stage- the audience was all looking at each other as if to say "Wow is this really happening?" Very weird. I also remember bats flying free inside the show- I had assumed at the time that the band had turned them loose, but in retrospect I'm pretty sure they lived in the rafters. Those poor bats...