Label: Eagle Rock 2012
Review by: Urban "Wally" Wallstrom
The Prince of fookin darkness at his prime or rather not? Constantly drunk as a skunk and in mourning of his best mate (that's Randy Rhoads) following the guitarist's tragic and unnecessarily death merely a few months earlier. Surely this must be a complete disaster of a performance by the band and in particular John Ozzy Osbourne? But nope, it's a smashing concert recorded at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater in California US of A on June 12th, 1982.
The band took a couple of months off before continuing with the delayed part of the original 'Diary Of A Madman' tour. They replaced Rhoads with Brad Gillis (he would finally receive a recording contract with his own band this year, Night Ranger) and he's pretty much on fire this day along with the rest of the band, bassist Rudy Sarzo, keyboard player Don Airey, and drummer Tommy Aldridge.
Not to be confused with the 'Speak of the Devil' album though, since that's a different concert from the 1982 tour. This particular concert was originally aired on MTV back in the day, and it's more or less the best of the first two Ozzy releases with the standard Sabbath part towards the end of the show (Iron Man, Children Of The Grave, Paranoid). Aldridge is the backbone of the band along with fellow timekeeper and four string master: Sarzo. Hardly a surprise when this other Englishman abroad gave the two a call as it was time to conquer America (David Coverdale /Whitesnake).
Gillis rips and shreds like a proper metal guitarist though and it makes you wonder why he didn't stay with the prince of darkness? It's a glimpse of the Ozzy heydays and especially fun to watch for us who weren't there in the first place. My favorite Ozzy album is however the following studio effort (Bark At The Moon). But there's not a duff moment among these tracks. Over The Mountain, Mr Crowley, Crazy Train, Revelation (Mother Earth), Steal Away (The Night), Suicide Solution, Guitar /Drum Solo, Goodbye To Romance, I Don't Know, Believer, Flying High Again.
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