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Black Sabbath Concert Review, Austin, TX 7/27/2013

I’ve been a fan of Black Sabbath since the mid-70s when one of my my older brothers, Robert (RIP), brought home Paranoid. Somewhere around 78 or 79 he gave me their debut album for Christmas and it was one of the first pieces of vinyl that I ever owned. I’ve spoken many times before about his influence on me musically and and his love for Sabbath was certainly passed on to me. I f’n LOVE Sabbath…Ozzy, Dio, Gillan and Martin eras. But my love for them doesn’t give them a pass. In fact, it may make me more critical.

I’d never seen Sabbath (by name) but I did see Heaven & Hell twice. I saw Ozzy live in 1988 and to be honest he was horrible. At that point he was a shell of his former self. Last night I would have called him a shell of a shell of his former self.

Lots of cards were in play with the recent Sabbath reunion. No Bill Ward on the album because of a contract dispute (read: $$ and Sharon). Iommi’s lymphoma which was caught early but is still being treated for every 6 weeks. No Ward on the tour. A new album that I think is boring, autotuned vocally and severely over-processed. Bill couldn’t have saved the album.

Sabbath opened the recent leg of the tour in Houston the night before and the reviews of Ozzy were pretty awful.

The show was opened with Andrew WK doing a DJ of the same songs that most venues would have played prior to a concert…DIO, Slayer, AC/DC etc. Sharon must have gotten him on the cheap! I would have preferred an opening band.

Sabbath opened up with War Pigs then went into Into the Void(!). By the second song Ozzy had pulled out his inner ear monitors. He was motioning during War Pigs that his inner ear sound was jacked up. The band sounded great the whole show. Tony and Geezer were just incredible to watch and listen to. Touring drummer Tommy Clufetos (Alice Cooper, John 5, Ted Nugent) did a fine job on everything except for the song Black Sabbath. He played most of the songs pretty spot on but was doing something weird on that one that just didn’t seem to work. He also did a drum solo and even as me being a drummer (retired), I really don’t like most drum solos, especially from metal bands. But Ozzy said it best last night, “Rat Salad…I need to take a fucking break!” So I can easily see why there was a solo. Ozzy looked worn out. Metal band drum solos are typically just a bunch of double bass, quads and triplets. zzzz. I’d prefer to not have a solo or to watch one where a drummer is showing me their chops. But that’s just my opinion. The crowd loved it and that’s what mattered. And let’s be honest here, does anyone think Ward would have been good live at this point? From what I have seen on Youtube and read in reviews of the reunion tour, dude had a tough enough time keeping up as it was.

I will say that I thought Ozzy was better than I expected him to be, but he wasn’t great by any means. Strapped to his teleprompter, still not getting words right (same in 88 actually) and being flat for a majority of the show. Sure his drug use is that of legend and in general the guy probably doesn’t know where he is half of the time. His wife, who did save his life, seems to be money hungry and continues to prop him up like a puppet.

He sounded best on God Is Dead? and the other new songs which makes sense as they were written more about how he is able to sing now. I was happy to see Dirty Women in the set, unfortunately he couldn’t keep up in it. Snowblind was another highlight.

I know my opinion on this is a minority opinion, but I’d respect Ozzy more if he’d just say, “That’s all, folks. I just can’t do it any more.” I have a list of performers that fall into that category for me.

But all the above taken into account, I had a really good time and have zero regrets about going or about the high ticket price ($115+fees). I felt it was the last time I’d have a chance to see Iommi and watching Geezer is always a treat. He’s still a beast on the bass. And Ozzy sounded better than what I had expected, so there’s that.

I did hear someone say before the show that they loved “Tommy Iommi.” That one always cracks me up.

As we were walking out after Children of the Grave (Yes, I left before the Paranoid encore), I heard Ozzy say, “Thank you, Houston!” He must have walked away from his teleprompter again.

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Written by The Metal Files

July 28, 2013 at 9:08 am

Posted in 2013, andrew wk, austin, black sabbath, concert reviews, concerts, geezer butler, heavy metal, ozzy, the metal files, tony iommi

Tagged with 2013, austin, black sabbath, concert reviews, concerts

Eternal Champion on Bandcamp

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We’ve FINALLY got our 2 songs on Bandcamp for purchase. They’ve been remastered and sound a little different (read: better) than the version on our recent cassette release. Only $0.99 each. Our 7″ of this recording should be out by the end of summer.

We’ve posted our debut show on YouTube and if you’re on Facebook, follow us there, too.

Eternal Champion

Written by The Metal Files

July 15, 2013 at 9:53 am

Posted in austin, bandcamp, epic metal, eternal champion, heavy metal, texas, the metal files

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Nektar Concert Review, Austin, TX 7/4/2013

Coolio Concert Review, Austin, TX 6/30/2013

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Hold the presses! Are you rubbing your eyes to make sure you’re reading this correctly? Did someone highjack The Metal Files? Dude…Cheap Trick, Chicago, Pat Benatar? What the hell’s going on around here? (said in a Mike Muir voice).

Yes, my faithful readers (all 4 of you), I saw Coolio last night. Voluntarily on purpose even. A little history. It was 1994 when his album It Takes a Thief came out and Fantastic Voyage was blasted all over MTV and the airwaves. I liked that song and picked up the cassette. It grew on me but never really got into anything he did after that. To be truthful, I generally don’t like rap or hip-hop and don’t even know what the difference is between the two. Can anyone explain the difference between the two? There were a few songs from the early 90s from those genres that I did like, but it was all of that radio friendly party stuff.

I had read on Friday that Coolio was playing Scoot Inn on June 30 and decided to go. I tried getting some friends to go with me without any success as seen below. I went alone, which was fine.

Local rapper Click Clack opened the show with a 30 minute set. I didn’t hear any of it. Yes, I was there but I tend to drown out that stuff. Then after about 20 minutes, Coolio comes out and opens with From the Bottom To the Top. He had his nephew and cousin co-singing/rapping with him. His cousin, Jarez, is apparently an accomplished saxophone player and he showed that in a few songs last night. The dude was really good.

While I know that Fantastic Voyage would be the encore, I was hoping for some older stuff from the Thief album. I wanted to hear Count Line, Ugly Bitches and Mama I’m In Love Wit a Gangsta. No luck. They of course did Gangsta’s Paradise and 1, 2, 3, 4.

Overall the show was fun albeit short. The encore version of Fantastic Voyage only included the first verse and chorus. WTF? How do you not do the whole song?

I’m tryin’ to find a place where I can live my life
And maybe eat some steak with my beans and rice
A place where my kids can play outside
Without livin’ in fear of a drive-by

I was wondering before I got there what the crowd would be like. There may have been about 200 people there. I’ll tell you this, I was the most “street” person there. The place was filled with douchebag looking fratboys and sorority girls. It was so vanilla that I thought I may have been at a Dave Matthews concert. No shit. Oh well. It was cool for what it was and I got to meet him on my way out to my car. Nektar, Steely Dan and Black Sabbath reviews coming soon!

: Surf’s up?

: Coolio and Monkey Boy

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Written by The Metal Files

July 1, 2013 at 7:20 am

Posted in 2013, austin, click clack, concert reviews, concerts, coolio, scoot inn, the metal files

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Blaze Bayley & Killamaul Concert Review, Austin, TX 06/20/2013

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It’s never been a secret that my all time favorite band is Iron Maiden. But being my favorite band doesn’t give them a free pass on everything they’ve done. Cases in point: X Factor, Virtual XI, Dance of Death. Those 2 albums in the 90s with Wolfsbane’s Blaze Bayley weren’t good, but I lay that blame on Steve Harris. He chose Bayley and he was the primary songwriter for those 2 abominations of Iron Maiden albums. While each of those 2 albums has 1 or 2 decent songs, the albums as a whole are pretty bad. I owned Wolfbane’s first album back in the day but never thought it was great. Had some pretty silly lyrics if I remember correctly.

A few weeks ago it was announced that Blaze Bayley was playing a new and insanely huge venue on the outskirts of Austin, TX called The Crown Center. It’s only a few miles from my house so that made it convenient. There was 2 other scheduled shows locally as well, but none of them downtown, which is pretty odd.

Admission for Thursday’s show was $20 which was stated to be going to tornado victims. The Saturday show was only $6, but it wasn’t convenient. My real reason for going at all was solely to get The Book signed. NERD. I know.

Local faves Killamaul were the opener and they’re a tribute band that only plays Metallica’s Kill ’em All. Killamaul features legendary vocalist Jason McMaster (Broken Teeth, Dangerous Toys, Watchtower) on vocals and rhythm guitar. They always do an awesome job and certainly did so on Thursday. To be honest hey were the best band of the night. McMaster is one of the best frontmen in the business and even though there may have been only 30ish people there, he still handles it like the pro he is. Period.

Next up was Snake Skin Prison. I’ve known them for several years and have done some shows with them, but I’m just not into what they do. Super nice dudes, though.

Then comes Blaze Bayley. From what I understand this band and tour were thrown together pretty quickly and featured some relatively well-known musicians. On drums was James Kottak who has been playing with the Scorpions since the mid-90s and also with Kingdom Come in the 80s. On bass was John Moyer who was/is in Disturbed and spent some time touring with Queensryche (Tater version I think). On guitar was Rick Plester who was in WWIII and Black Symphony and apparently does a lot of producing. They also had local singer Shawn Austin from a band called Minx (?) and she co-sang on 2 songs.

The set consisted of songs from BLAZE, Wolfsbane and of course Iron Maiden, 2 of which weren’t from his era of the band. For a throw together band and set, they sounded pretty good overall and even did a good version of Rainbow’s Man On The Silver Mountain. By the time the band was on there may have been 50-60 people there and Blaze worked the stage like there was a big crowd. Now, this place easily holds 5000 people and my mind is still boggled as to why the show was booked there. But whatever. Guest singer Shawn Austin sang Fear of the Dark (I detest this song) and Wasted Years with Blaze. It was Wasted Years that really let me down as far as their set went. I’m a Maiden snob and I get that they’re not the easiest band to cover, but at least get the opening riff right. I’m not guitarist but I can play it properly. It was obvious that they had just learned it as they dicked up with first verse completely by going into a chorus where a chorus doesn’t exist. Moyer and Kottak did fine holding their parts down, but this song was just a mess. See video below.

I’ll restate that their set was pretty good other than Wasted Years. That needs to be said for how quickly this was put on. Immediately after they played, the band came out and hung out and signed anything people put in front of them and snapped pics. I’m glad I went but doubtful I’d go see them again if they come through again…that is unless there’s someone in the band that I need to get in The Book. haha.

You be the judge.