BOC-L Digest - 16 Mar 2000 to 17 Mar 2000

[John A. Swartz]

> What a strange video, not to mention tour package. The styles of "metal"
> each band represents do not exactly make cozy bedfellows. BOC was a fast
> moving darkness that you couldnt quite get a hold of entirely that
> desceneded from the skies and bursting out of stomachs. Black Sabbath (at
> least on this incarnation w/dio) were rumbling leviathans across the tundra
> with a warbling guy.
>

Well, I think there were a lot of folks in the Black Sabbath camp that
thought BOC didn't belong on tour with THEM since they were so much
bigger commercially than BOC.  I seem to recall a quote to that effect
in an 80s rag from possibly Dio.  There was also some accusation about
Sandy Pearlman looking out for his band's best interests.

As for Dio, folks seemed to either love him or hate him.  He could sing
circles around Ozzy, but his "presentation" didn't always work with all
of Sabbath's songs.  I remember having Black Sabbath's live album, *Live
Evil* with Dio on vocals - I remember distinctly thinking that some of
it worked (Iron Man, Children of the Grave), and other didn't (Paranoid,
NIB).  Dio also had the (sometimes annoying) habit of singing when there
was no lyrics to be sung - like he thought his voice was an extra lead
guitar or something.  But, I liked a lot of the stuff that he brought to
Sabbath - in fact, I don't own any of the original Sabbath CDs with Ozzy
(although I do have a few compilations), but have both studio albums
(Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules) cut with Dio in the 80s.

Of course, Ian Gillan was Sabbath's best singer... ;-)


John