Nice post. Count me as a huge Sab follower, having first seen them in 1971. I was 16.

I remember being at a small party at a friend's around that time and someone was spinning the first record, Black Sabbath. And I remember how truly evil and insane it all sounded. I was floored. That night was my introduction to Sabbath and I saw the mentioned show within the same year. I saw them 5 times in the early 70's and also the reunion tour of 1999. They were still great. I swear I was the oldest person there. That didn't bother me at all.

cool story Rob.. Hopefully they can get Mr.Ward to play drums on the next album.

I do love early Black Sabbath. The only problem is I've never seen them actually look/sound too good live. Ozzy voice may not be live, I hope it is. I know on some solo tour and especially on live releases the vocals were not actually Ozzy live. I've also heard stories of having a vocalist backstage sing with Ozzy while he's on stage to give his voice depth.

I've also heard stories of having a vocalist backstage sing with Ozzy while he's on stage to give his voice depth.

Could be true. I know Gregg's B-3 was turned down during some '70's shows while someone else played his parts backstage.

I had heard the same feedback about the Ozzy era Sabbath sucking live but I saw them twice in the 70's, Asbury Park 75, and in Hartford, CT in 78 and they were excellent both shows and sounded like they did on their studio albums. I will say Ozzy's vocals could be a little rough but not terrible by any means IMHO

There is an excellent SB recording of the 75 Asbury Park show which has been in circulation for a long time which legend has it was supposed to be a live release by King Biscuit but never happened.

Here is the back story on the King Biscuit release that never happened and how collectors got to hear this excellent show

Regarding the origins of this tape here is an excerpt from comments regarding this show from the now, sadly, shutdown “Black Sabbath Live Project” Website:

“King Biscuit recorded Black Sabbath at Asbury Park Convention Hall right on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, NJ on August 5th, 1975. The band were only a few weeks into their U.S. tour to support SABOTAGE, which wasn’t released until about 2 weeks later.

5 tracks from this show have been circulating for years in good to very good quality at best. These are sourced from various radio broadcasts (King Biscuit Flower Hour, Supergroups In Concert), both from radio broadcast vinyl and fan recordings from the broadcasts themselves. While these songs sounded fairly decent, they don’t hold a candle to lower generation versions that appeared in trading circles just recently.

The complete version of this show surfaced sometime in 2001. The word on the street back then was that a “complete, unmixed soundboard” that was leaked out of the King Biscuit vaults. In fact, this is probably actually from the original multi-track recordings, so the term “soundboard” really isn’t accurate. These tapes were re-mixed and edited for the FM broadcasts, but only 5 songs aired.

Here’s the true story behind how the Asbury Park tapes leaked. A highly respected Sabbath collector contacted King Biscuit to inquire about the full release of their 1975 show, which was thought to be from Philadelphia by most people at the time. King Biscuit had been taking requests for future releases, so this was a completely legitimate request. Their initial response was that the show “wasn’t good enough”. But once the KB engineers had a listen to the tapes, they quickly discovered how wrong their assessment was. One of them even asked the collector to identify a song for them. It turned out to be “Spiral Architect”! Also, the tapes were identified as being from the Asbury Park show, NOT Philadelphia as previously thought. [Note: However, the engineer did claim the date was still 8/6/75, although the Asbury Park show has been proven to have been a day earlier. Sabbath performed in Philadelphia on 7/31/75.]

The King Biscuit kindly sent the collector a complimentary copy of the show, since there were now plans to release it officially. But when he tried to follow up on this release a few months later, the King Biscuit employee no longer worked there and the release was apparently nixed. And it was from this ‘advance promo’ that the current slew of Asbury Park bootlegs originated from.”

watch this current tour dvd,especially in loud surround if u can,its literally perfect ! I'm not displeased they replaced Ward on drums..thats also one very physical instrument & having the younger guy hammering the drums didn't seem to hurt.That along with vocals can be more difficult areas as rockers age. Ward was also difficult before the tour which for sure they didn't need.

I also remember that day a friend burst into my room to show me that original Black Sabbath LP in '70. We put it on & listened to the odd rain & low droning sounds blasting thru the speakers while we studied the cover (front & back)...it was eerily melancholy. Never had we heard or seen anything like it,we didn't know anything about them except the cover picture of Ozzy. When they arrived later that summer it was sheer pandemonium onstage & off ! The only show close to it was Zeppelin...but very different too. I found they lost their original magic by '75 prob cause of all the excess drugs (I refused to see them again after I witnessed Ward barfing while playing & they pretty sucked,sound & timing) but it seems the current stuff is right back on !

[Edited on 12/12/2014 by bettyhynes]

Ward was also difficult before the tour which for sure they didn't need.

If I am not mistaken the difficulty was that they were going to pay him significantly less than the other three. If that is the case I understand being difficult.

there was also an article recently where Iommi spoke on when they let Ozzy go.It seems it was going to be the 3 of them to speak to Ozzy & it seems Ward took it upon himself to tell Ozzy..in a 'not so diplomatic manner' dumping him. They seem to be doing fine without him now & if you look at photos its only the 3 left named Sabbath now.