By Lisa Burke
February 11th 2016, The Forum, Los Angeles CA: One of the greatest heavy metal bands on this planet is none other than Black Sabbath and on February 11, 2016 at The Forum I had the privilege of seeing ‘The End’ tour with one of the greatest front men ever go to hell and back, Ozzy Osbourne.
Opening for this tour is bluesy rock band Rival Sons. I must say, for a band that’s only been active since 2009 to be opening for Black Sabbath is a major accomplishment. I think it was a decent fit and they are really top quality in terms of musicianship. I feel these guys can appeal to a very large demographic with their inviting jams and strong charismatic vocals. From the addition of keyboards, to the tambourine to enhance the intricate guitar riffs and wide range of vocals, these guys never fail to deliver the goods. For me personally I did find myself slightly bored at times, perhaps only because I was really in high anticipation mode for Black Sabbath and because I’m not super into bluesy hard rock unless there is something really unique about it. Nonetheless they had a decent turnout and got a very generous set length for this sold-out show.
Finally it was time for what is known as the first heavy metal band in history and interestingly, they call this tour the end in the year Ozzy Osbourne is 67, and significantly or not, the band originated in 1967 which makes them end at the beginning in a strange sort of way. Of course the show starts with the song ‘Black Sabbath’ as we watch the giant video screen backdrop with the added pyro stage effects of flames getting higher and higher along with the lyrics. In comparison to the last tour where they ranged from new songs from the ’13’ album to older songs, this time it was all the old goodies from ‘After Forever’, to ‘Into The Void’, to ‘Fairies Wear Boots’, to ‘Snowblind’, to ‘War Pigs’, to ‘Dirty Women’ to ‘Iron Man’ etc which I definitely have no complaints about, yet I would have loved about six more hours of it all and they had the material to do it. Sadly, despite sounding as wonderful as always, Ozzy seems not in the best of health since he cancelled a couple of Canada shows due to what was described as extreme sinusitis and refrained from wearing a bra on his head, dumping a bucket of water on his head, and jumping five feet in the air as I witnessed him do on the last tour. He definitely is still a child at heart though, and with his favorite stage banter being “I can’t fucking hear you” he can make you feel like you are watching the prince of darkness. I am a huge fan of live stage performance mixed with surreal and abstract video. The mixed media enhancements at this show were beyond exciting, innovative, and visually stimulating. Anyone dabbling in hallucinogenics before this show had an amazing time with the video screen with its close ups and warping of images in a very trippy way. ‘Fairies Wear Boots’ and ‘Iron Man’ were my favorite video screen enhancements, but the entire show was full of great surprises in the visual realm.
Tony Iommi’s guitar playing was more phenomenal than ever and to me without him there can be no Black Sabbath because it is so perfectly him that no one can really try to replicate it with the intention of copying him. For this reason I can respect Zakk Wylde in his covers of Black Sabbath because he isn’t trying to copy Iommi, he is simply playing Black Sabbath in the style of Zakk. Anyway, for almost 50 years of professional guitar experience, actually probably even more than that, Tony Iommi earns the title of guitar master god. Between Tony with his custom crosses on the frets of his guitar to Geezer Butler with his 13 customized on his bass frets these guys played beautifully satanic melodies off each other and blew my mind with their skills and talent. Now for the debate of the century question: Is it Black Sabbath without Bill Ward? Why yes it absolutely fucking is! Yes it would have ruled to see him play on this tour but this Tommy Clufetos dude is a badass maniac from Detroit whose drum solo was among the best I’ve ever seen. He also plays with a gong drum behind his head, you know, just in case, and so my point here is I was excited for this guy because he had enough of the Black Sabbath magic to compete with Bill Ward and neither Dave Grohl nor Animal have anything on him either. Best songs of the night for me were ‘Fairies Wear Boots’, and ‘Dirty Women’ for all reasons imaginable. Also wonderful was having the thought in the middle of the performance that I’m watching a man sing who has had every dream of life he ever had full filled completely and then some. I see what I want for myself in his eyes and it makes me feel that motivation and passion that I started out with. This is just part of the witchcraft Black Sabbath possesses over your soul from the moment you first hear it.
I’ve said this before and I’m saying it again, that if there was only one band left in the world to listen to, it damn well better be Black Sabbath. On this evening, the forum venue had placed seats on the floor which made for a bit of a confusion clusterfuck to find which one was actually yours in the dark, and it wasted space. My vote therefore is to please outlaw these seats for all future metal shows. They also charge about three million dollars per drink and measure a shot so don’t think you are going to have any extra fun there. Despite these typical large venue quirks and the fact that it’s in no man’s land a.k.a. Inglewood, it is a decent large venue in terms of not having too many bad seats and not having jerks for staff members. The encore on this night was none other than ‘Paranoid’ and it was a beautiful end as the logo appeared on the giant video screen backdrop and purple, white, and black Black Sabbath labeled confetti poured down over the audience from the rafters. On a final note, you should have no fear if you can’t catch this end of The End tour, you can catch the other end when they play the Hollywood Bowl in September. This is however the real end of my review now. Goodnight.
Set List:
01. Black Sabbath
02. Fairies Wear Boots
03. After Forever
04. Into the Void
05. Snowblind
06. War Pigs
07. Behind the Wall of Sleep
08. N.I.B.
09. Hand of Doom
10. Rat Salad
11. Iron Man
12. Dirty Women
13. Children of the Grave
Encore:
14. Paranoid
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