Black Sabbath April 23, 2016 Qudos Bank Arena Sydney, Australia The End Tour : Australian Leg
01) Intro 02) Black Sabbath 03) Ozzy speaks to the crowd 04) Fairies Wear Boots 05) Ozzy checks how he's doing with the crowd 06) After Forever 07) Ozzy starts a crowd screaming contest 08) Into the Void 09) Ozzy introduces the band 10) Snowblind 11) Ozzy still checking on the crowd 12) War Pigs 13) Ozzy checks with the crowd again 14) Behind the Wall of Sleep 15) Geezer Bass Solo 16) N.I.B. 17) Hand of Doom 18) Rat Salad and Drum Solo 19) Iron Man 20) Ozzy checks on the crowd once again 21) Dirty Women 22) Children of the Grave 23) Ozzy has the crowd asking for more 24) Paranoid
Recorded from Dancefloor, slightly right of centre, about 30m away from rear wall.
Embarking on what is to be their final tour, the band that the heavy metal genre owes its existence to graced our shores and reminded us of why they are the pioneers.
To be bluntly honest though, I wasn't inclined to go with Ozzy at the helm. That may upset a lot of Ozzy fans out there but the reality is, he obliterated his brain on drugs long ago and the aging process only made the problem worse. He barely held a note, struggled with his timing and despite his funny demeanour, he (or rather, his slave driving wife Sharon) really needs to throw in the towel while people still have good memories of him. For me, the only definitive Black Sabbath gig in recent times goes to their tour back in 2007 with the late, great Ronnie James Dio. Older, perhaps shorter, but never lost that voice.
Anyway, enough bitching about the band. All in all, it was a solid performance. Their drummer, Tommy, is impressively solid but as a drummer myself, I don't really take that much of a liking to drummers who insist on bashing the crap out of their kit on each and every note. The one thing my friend complained about that night was the fact the cymbals lacked that sizzle. Well, beating the hell out of them will do that and it will also make it difficult for the sound guy to keep them under control when it's time for the quieter passages too. Still, for the music, he achieved all that needed to be achieved and that's something nobody can argue against.
The starting point of where I was on the dancefloor was different by about 15m from where I ended up. Basically, a pack of ferals surrounded me, started talking way too much, bopped about to the point they were definitely going to cause serious phasing issues and they smelled like they'd prefer to wash with bicarbonate soda instead of actual soap. Bloody ferals! I had to walk off to the final position mentioned above and ended up doing it during "After Forever", thankfully without a significant death to the audio. On a side note, there were quite a few dudes sporting the hipster look too. I would've expected them to be out in the woods hunting for gluten-free vegetarian tacos instead of attending heavy metal gigs but there you go. :P
Technically, the sound guy did a pretty decent job in general. Wrestling with Ozzy's microphone technique wouldn't have been an easy task for the poor guy but he managed well. Tony's sound was awesome though on the recording, the midrange needed a reasonable amount of scooping. Geezer just sounded uniformly fat all night long and Tommy's drums, despite the top end issues, had decent cut and punch. Frankly, I'm surprised at how it all turned out and hopefully, you'll be pleasantly surprised too. The only thing I have to truly apologise for is the uncontrollable amount of chit chat from passers by. Seriously people, are you there to watch a show or do laps between the show and the bar?
...and please, don't sell this bootleg, otherwise you're just plain old scum. That and Satan will come for you.
1 CD Starclassic Audience Starclassic Core Sounds Cardioids (pointed towards line arrays to minimise crowd noise and phasing from people walking by) -> Sony PCM-M10 (mic-in, 48kHz 24 bit) -> Soundforge 11.0 w/Izotope Ozone 5 Mastering Plugin -> FLAC Level 8 FLAC 56:53 min. A-
