Welp, as one of the biggest (self-proclaimed) Sabbath fans (me) went to see Sabbath last night in Philadelphia, PA, I figured I'd post a concert review!

1) Non Musical Stuff:

I was going there expecting to buy a concert shirt, and a tour program. Unfortunately, there were no tour programs for sale there. Is this a common occurance on tour? There were three shirt designs available. One was the album cover on the front, and tour locations on the back, with "Dehumanizer" and "Tour 1992" on the back as well. Second was "Black Sabbath - Dehumanizer" on the front, with a Right-Side Up Cross on it, with what looked like an "Angel of Satan" on top of the cross. Third one was a variant of the second, with the cross thing really small up around the chest area. I don't recall what was on the back of the second and third. I ended up buying the first one ($23). They had some other stuff avail as well. A black Baseball cap with the Dehumanizer Black Sabbath logo on it. That was $20, and there also was a small Black Sabbath pin available with the Dehumanizer Logo ($8). I ended up buying the hat, and would have gotten the pin as well, but I needed gas for my car to get home! :) I know it was a bit of a rip, but hell, Sabbath is my favorite band, and I've been waiting a long time for this one. There were also Prong items available (more on Prong later). I didn't pay all that much attention to that, but it appeared there were two Prong shirts, no more. What else was really cool were there were *A LOT* of old Sabbath shirts at the show. I saw some that seemed to be from the 70's either because they had old designs, or just looked old. What suprised me more were that I saw quite a few shirts from in between the two Dio eras. Saw 2 or 3 Tyr shirts, and QUITE a few Headless Cross shirts. I was glad to see the audience wasn't there just to see Dio. If you're interested, the locations listed on the back of the shirt for other concert places are (or were; as I think the Philly date was towards the end of this "mini-leg" of the tour) Miami FL, Tampa FL, Atlanta GA, Columbus OH, Toronto ON, Cleveland OH, Chicago IL, Detroit OH, New York NY, Washington DC, Philadelphia PA, Boston MA. The Philadelphia gig was technically played in a town called "Upper Darby, PA", but it's a suburb of Philadelphia, and it's EXTREMELY close to the Phila city line. It's generally regarded as Philadelphia.

2) Prong:

Prong played a really good set. I'm not a really big Prong fan, but I do know a good bit of their material, and this set was musically tight, and I enjoyed it. However, Prong had a hard time getting the audience going, and that's probably due to the fact that a good deal (I'd wager almost all) of the people in the audience were expecting Danzig to open up. When tickets went on sale, Danzig was announced as the opener, and with almost no notice, it was changed to Prong. I myself didn't find out about the change until about 36 hours before the concert. Can anyone confirm that Danzig has actually played with Sabbath, and if not, why? As I stated before, Prong isn't one of my favs, so I don't know much of their material, but the people who were right down front (I was in the 7th row), seemed to really get into it. What's nice about the Tower Theatre is that the stage goes RIGHT into the audience. There is no "pit" to speak of, and more suprisingly, I only saw one "Stage Jumper" the whole night, and it was at the end of Sabbath's last tune. A crazed, but overly well behaved group. It's too bad people had this "Anti-Prong" mentality here, as the gig would otherwise have been well received.

3) Black Sabbath: ('bout time, eh?)

Well, to start this off, I'll list the tracks they played in order. I've seen a few people post listings that were either incomplete, or not in any order. I decided to circumvent this, and TOOK A PEN! :)

1. 1.E5150 (Tape)
2. The Mob Rules
3. Computer God
4. Children of the Sea
5. Time Machine
6. War Pigs
7. I
8. Die Young (only 1/2 of the song, leaded into...)
9. Tony Iommi Solo (included Orchid, and a few other old Sab Instrumentals)
10. Black Sabbath
11. Master of Insanity
12. After All (about 3/4 of the song, leaded into....)
13. Vinny Appice Solo
14. Iron Man
15. Heaven & Hell (included the extra "Big Black Shape" verse)
16. Neon Knights (Encore)
17. Paranoid (Encore)
18. More of Heaven & Hell. (No actual lyrics, just music)
19. Fluff (Tape)

One minor complaint here. I really wanted them to play TV Crimes, and the didn't. Of course, After All wasn't in the early set listings, so my guess is that they subbed it for TV Crimes. Kind of a bummer, as TV Crimes probably would be more known than After All, but a good heavy Sabbath tune is always accepted live! :) Plus we got a mini Geezer Solo with it.

I didn't time the gig, as I wanted to enjoy it, instead of worrying about how long they played (I've ruined a few shows for myself worrying if it will be longer than x hours), but it seemed to be right around their usual 1 1/2 hour timeframe.

This was a *VERY WELL RECEIVED* concert. I was really hoping that the people there weren't there just for the opener, and actually wanted to see Sabbath. I've seen that a few times before (Born Again Tour, Seventh Star Tour). My guess is that a good deal of 'em were there to see Dio. However, on the more well know Sab tunes (especially the Heaven & Hell ones) the audience REALLY got into it. The Tower only holds about 5,000 people, and it was SOLD OUT. You could tell. The whole place was getting into the "horns salute" thing, and the fist throwing at the right points. It really FELT good. People knew the tunes, people sang, people got into it. And it was ***LOUD***. I've been to a lot of concerts before, (and Sabbath 3 times before), but I don't recall a concert as loud. In fact, I caught about 6 or 7 couples having to leave early due to it. The couple next to me definitely left early for this, as the woman was covering her ears during Iron Man, and they left about 5 mins later.

The sound was clean, heavy, but there a few feedback problems. I don't know if it was Iommi, or the sound people, but there were about a half a dozen feedback squeals during the night. They didn't last long, but you *DID* notice them. The audience really REALLY got into this show. There were a few Sabbath die hards (like myself) that knew everyhing, and didn't stop during the show at all, but for the really well known stuff, the audience really went berzerk. One of my favorite things was during War Pigs, when towards the end of the song, there's a bit that gets put in live. The audience harmonizes with Iommi's playing, and while not on the studio version, it's happened every time I've heard the song played live. Anyway, the WHOLE place was doing this, and after about two bars, Dio quit singing, and just let us do it. It was really good, and "funny" to watch Dio watching us sing the song for him. Great moment.

3) Sabbath's Stage Set:

The stage set was small, but still not bad. The backdrop was a giant tapestry with the Dehumanizer Black Sabbath logo on it, (with "Dehumanizer" in the right spot), and had the Cross/Angel thing I mentioned before on it. There were four sets of rope hanging down from the lighting truss, which I assume was supposed to simulate the pillars on the front of the album cover. There were QUITE a lot of speakers on the sides of the stage, and ON the stage, there were 2 stacks of Marshall amps, that ran across the entire length of the stage, except for the middle where Vinny's drum set was. There were frequent burts of "Dry Ice" smoke coming in from Geezer's side of the stage (the left), and it covered the whole stage when used. The tapestry was also lit at the right times, and the Sabbath logo, and the cross were indepentantly lit with different colors depending on the song being played.

4) Commentary on Sabbath members:

Vinny Appice's drum set was really small compared to sets I've seen him use in the past. The one Vinny used on the Dio "Dream Evil" tour was positively GIGANTIC, but this one was your basic drum set. It seeme to keep with the "toned down, back to basics" Sabbath feel. Vinny himself also seems to be in good shape. Drum solos usually don't do anything for me, and this didn't either, except that he kept up a good fast pace w/o the usual "small breaks" in the middle of drum solos that dummers take. He looked like he had been working out, and has gotten more "muscular" than I remembered him to be (last time I saw him was on the Dream Evil tour). Vinny gave out an awful lot of drumsticks at the end of the show. More than I remember seeing ANYONE ever give out. Looked like 5 or 6 dozen! :)

Geezer Butler was his usual self. He just stands there, jamming. His bass playing was as usual, excellent. I don't know what I can really say about Geezer. He did take a mini-solo in the middle of one of the songs, but I can't remember which one. It was either After All, or Computer God. I really can't remember. Anyway, at the end of the gig, Geezer usually just walks offstage. Well, at the end, he walked to the middle of the stage, and gave everyone a double thumbs up, and a rather large smile. Very uncharacteristic (sp?) for Geezer. A rock solid performance here.

Tony Iommi was also not like his usual self. He still didn't talk to the audience at all. In fact, in the 12 years I've been a Black Sabbath fan, I've only ever heard him speak once. About 3 years ago, he and Cozy Powell hosted MTV's HeadBanger's Ball, and he spoke there. Cozy did most of the talking, but I did get to hear Tony there. Does anyone know if he ever talks to the audience? Anyway, Tony looked his usual self. He wore the "million crosses" outfit that he wore at Live Aid, and pretty much did more moving on the stage than he's done recently. He did seem to be rather hot, as he wiped his brow MANY times, which I've never seen him do before. *AND* he was all smiles. I think this was due to the rather GREAT gig that was happening. The only other time I saw Iommi smile so much, was during the recent Freddie Mercury benefit gig, wheere Iommi was in the backup band with Queen. He smiled a lot there, especially when he shook hands with James Hetfield. Anyway, Iommi also smiled a lot during his solo, and gave a thumbs up a few times as well, along with the "horns salute". Solid playing here. His solo wasn't as boring and stale as some that I've heard of his in the past. He threw in "Orchid" from the past, and a few other old Sabbath instrumentals whose names elude me at the moment. He seemed to REALLY enjoy this gig.

Ronnie James Dio also really enjoyed the gig. He gave a small speech at the beginning of the gig about Philadelphia. It went something like this. "Turn on the lights here. I know where we are. My favorite place on the face of the earth. Philadelphia, PA". Well, most bands say things like this, and it's usally crap, just to gain a reaction from the audience. However, with Dio, it's a different story. With Dio the band, a tour either started or ended in Philly. Both of Dio's commercially available concerts were filmed in Philly, and Dio hit here at least twice on every tour he played. He really does love this town. Anyway, Dio's vocals were solid last night, and I didn't notice any cracks in it. And, surprisingly, he did the old Ozzy tunes better than I've heard him do them in the past. IMHO, Dio's voice isn't suited to the old Ozzy tunes, but he pulled 'em off really well. One thing though. I would have liked to hear Sabbath do some "Tyr" songs, as those are really suited to his voice, especially "Anno Mundi". Dio was having a lot of fun at the gig, and is one of the few singers left that actually uses a corded mike, and plays with it as a stage prop. He also did his "twirl" the mike stand thing several times, overall a classic Dio performance. All smiles here as well. During Paranoid, someone up front gave Dio a group of roses, and a shirt that I couldn't read. Dio REALLY appreciated this, as (after Paranoid), he held 'em up the audience, pointed 'em out, and gave another thumbs up. Also, during Paranoid, one of the red filters for a spotlight fell down off the light truss, and Dio picked it up, and put it in front of his face, and acted rather silly. Oh yeah, he was actually *IN* the audience to get the group of roses. I almost missed this headbanging, but I did see part of it.

There was no mention of Geoff Nicholls, but he had to have been there. There were some keyboards littered through the show, but we didn't see him, and no one mentioned him. This annoys me, as Geoff is the longest serving member of Black Sabbath other than Tony Iommi. Geoff's been there since right before the recording of Heaven & Hell. :(

5) Summary:

Overall, a FUCKING GREAT concert. One of the best I've seen before, and easily the best Sabbath show I've seen, and I've now seen Sabbath 4 times. This is *NOT* a band just going through the paces, just to get a quick buck. They were out there playing because they wanted to. All the smiles, all the audience interaction that was *NOT* part of Sabbath concerts for a long time tells me that this band likes playing together. I really wished they would have played longer than their usual 90 mins, as Sabbath now has 18 studio albums, and they need more time to cover it all. I was also hoping to hear at least one Dio solo tune, but I'm not suprised at all I didn't get one. If you get a chance to go, DON'T MISS IT. One of the best concert experiences I've had in a long time, possibly ever.