What a great day! I had a geology lab to get to at 8:30 in the morning on tuesday, January 12th, and then I had to wait around for my Spanish to end at 1:00. I headed home, packed my truck and took off at quarter to 3. After wasting almost half an hour in local traffic, I was on my way north out of Portland up into Washington on my way to Key Arena, Seattle, Washington. You may ask why I chose to go to the Reunion concert in Seattle and not the show in Portland the night before. I was 4th in line at the least-known tickermaster ticket outlet in the city, yet the lady working that the office that day did not receive the correct password from the main ticketmaster office to gain access to the banks of tickets going up for sale. Needless to say, after almost 2 whole minutes of phone calls and messaging, she obtained the password. Ok here we go... the first guy in line wanted 8 tickets, all floor seats. He got the last 5 floor seats available and BOOM they were gone. The next 3 people up ended up getting some of the last 100 level tickets for the Rose Garden, and by the time I was at the window, all 100 level tickets had been sold out. Now being a person with bad eyesight there's no reason for me to watch a concert from 200 or 300 level, so I bought a ticket in section 101 for the Key Arena, up in Seattle. I don't mind driving 3 hours, as long as I can see the show and enjoy it.
I arrived at Key Arena during the intermission between Incubus and Pantera, and after only about 4 or 5 minutes of sitting the lights dimmed and Pantera started playing thier set. I'm not a very big fan of Pantera, yet inbetween way too much screaming and lack of any harmonic content whatsoever I found a few songs that got my feet tapping. Pantera claims to be an agressive band, and thier fans seem to be extremely defensive about them, so I'll just say this: I found no melody and no harmony in thier songs, the 2 fundamental ingredients for good music. These guys really like scream, and they really like to talk to thier fans. Inbetween many songs they'd ask the crowd questions and make comments about how much better Pantera is than other bands because they "stick to thier roots" and how thier music "ain't no singing shit... mi, mi, mi, mi, fuck you!" I wasn't too impressed. I guess Pantera fans were, seeing how this was the first open-floor concert on the tour, so the mosh pit was gigantic.
As for Black Sabbath, if you are planning on seeing them soon and already have your tickets, I urge you NOT to read this review, as I do not want to spoil the incredible show for you. Seriously... stop reading, press that big BACK button, and wait until you see them for yourself :)
If you're still with me here, the stage was set up as what looked like a gigantic gothic chair/throne thing, where the seat of the chair would be the stage floor with two huge 8 foot high armrest protruding from the back of the stage. Maybe I am the only one that saw the stage as big chair and the designers were just making something abstract, who knows.
To start the show, a video was shown of old Sabbath films and live appearances, overdubbed with snippets of many songs. At the end of the video, with the stage filled with fog and the airraid siren from War Pigs playing in the background, everyone in the arena including myself was looking to the left and right of the stage waiting for the guys to come out... and where did they appear? They rose straight up out of the fog right onto the stage on what I'm guessing were hydrolic lifts built into the stage. Geezer was to our stage-left (his right), and Tony the other side where he pretty much stayed the entire night.
They started out with War Pigs, as they have with most of thier other concerts, then went in to most of the better known classics. NIB, Fairies Wear Boots, Black Sabbath, Iron Man, Children Of The Grave, and Paranoid are always sure to pop up in a Sabbath live set... nothing really special there. As for the rest of the songs, I was very pleased. After Forever was executed almost perfectly, one of the best sounding songs of the night. Snowblind was also a highlight for me. During the end solo in the song, Geezer had put distortion on his bass, I guess to help the song because Tony was gone in the solo and the backing riff needed to be filled - kind of cool sounding, a little bit like a kazoo. Snowblind has always been one of my favorite Black Sabbath songs, and hearing it live for the first time was such an exilirating experience. Other songs of choice included Into The Void, Dirty Women, and a very very heavy Electric Funeral, appropriately tuned down 1 1/2 steps.
As far as the setlist desicions go, it seems they were picking songs that were easy on Ozzy's voice. Joe Siegler (http://www.black-sabbath.com) stated a while back that he had talked to Bill Ward and asked him why they chose not to play such songs as Spiral Architect. His answer was that it could not be done because of Ozzy's voice, he couldn't reach it. This is also the answer as to why they ARE playing After Forever on this tour, it is a fairly easy song to sing with not much difference in pitch throughout.
Setlist: 01-12-99
War Pigs
Basically/NIB
Fairies Wear Boots
After Forever
Electric Funeral
Into The Void
Snowblind
Dirty Women
Black Sabbath
Iron Man
Children Of The Grave
Paranoid (Encore)
Changes (House audio)
Soundwise there was alot of echo, being an arena of this size the sound is never going to be spectacular. At certain times it felt like all the midrange bouncing around the arena was cutting a whole into my head. At times I'd cover my ears in various different ways trying to hear certain frequency ranges clearer and pickup solely the sound of Tony's guitar.
Highlights of the show include Geezer's bass solo Bassically at the start of N.I.B. I've heard reports from other cities that sometimes the bass wasn't turned up loud enough so all you hear is a airy sound coming from the Wah, but this time up it sounded great. Also another point to note, inbetween songs when Ozzy was telling us to yell (giving his bandmates a quick rest), the cameramen would be filming the audiance, and after a closeup of a nice looking woman who flashed the camera and the whole arena, that is what the cameramen would focus on for the rest of all the breaks. No one else had the courage, however, to flash the audiance :) During the song Black Sabbath, 8 or so huge torches on stage were lit and the view was absolutely tremendous. At the end of the show after Paranoid, pyrotechnics and sparks were raining down from above the stage, and black confetti with Black Sabbath printed in silver was dropped everywhere in the arena. At the peak of the confetti it was so dense you could hardly see the band taking a bow, very cool though, no complaints here!
I drove over 3 hours to the north on Interstate 5 from Portland up to Seattle to see this show, and I'm 100% happy that I did so. Seattle is a nice place with a nice atmosphere. Just blocks from Key Arena is a small stripclub with a very amusing sign: "100's of beautifull girls, and 3 ugly ones!" I'm not sure what it exactly means, but it's funny reading it. It just so happened that during the intermission after Pantera had played Kim Thayil formerly of Seattle-based Soundgarden was sitting just a few rows down from me talking to some freinds of his. Rumor has it that the rest of the now defunct band was at the concert, as well as the guys from Alice In Chains. It's nice when musicians on the professional level can still go to concerts and not get bugged for autographs or pictures, so when I saw Kim I did the nicest thing I could have possibly done for him: I left him alone.
Overall it seemed like Black Sabbath cut thier setlist short. Where was Sweet Leaf? Where was Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath? A 12 song setlist is not very extensive, and lasts about 70 minutes - not much compared to the 90 minutes other cities were reporting. After returning home and checking up on tour news I figured out why. Early in the set when Ozzy was introducing the band, he told us that Tony was feeling a bit under the weather, that he had a cold or something, so we should make him feel welcome. When I returned home on the 13th, I read that Black Sabbath was postponing two shows on the 14th and 15th of January due to Ozzy and Tony becoming a bit ill. I figure it's alright they cut thier setlist short, as long as they didn't cancel on me after driving 3 hours to see them.
There's someting special about seeing a concert in a town other than your own. It gives you a sense of holiday, a sense of vacation. It's not just another night in your hometown with an event added to the nights entertainment... the trip is part of the experience as well, and the best concerts of my life have all been in town other than my own. There's something to be said about the power of the roadtrip.
Finding my way back towards Interstate 5, I drove through downtown Seattle. It's a nice looking place. Still I enjoy living in Portland better, maybe because of the smaller population, although it would be a kick to go to school in Seattle, even if that meant becoming a Husky! Anyways, driving south of the city, I stopped at a BP and picked up a bottled water and a Gatorade to heal my now lost voice. As I set out south once more back towards my own hometown, Selling My Soul appeared on the local rock station. It is a very good song, and it fit the mood more than perfectly... a new Sabbath, still the same as the old, yet reborn. Thank you Bill, Tony, Geezer, and Ozzy from the bottom of my heart. Good show, good crowd, good night!
~ © Michael James