This is another of those live albums that has a questionable heritage. Given that the sleeve of the album suggests that this recording was taken from a performance at London's Brixton Academy in November 1989 it makes it difficult to believe, given there are no known tour dates that correspond to this. The final gig of the tour was when they played in Moscow in August of that year. There is then then the appearance that the music has been re-recorded and mixed at Electric Lady Studios in New York with engineer Adam Yellin, with the audience noise and some tracks kept from the original live recording. So, in many ways it is a mystery as to when and when this compilation comes from.
As with those other questionable ‘live’ albums from other bands over the years, does it really matter whether or not it is a true full live performance? That’s an individual thing, but for me it isn’t something that is worth losing sleep over. If it sounds great, then as a music lover that is all that matters. Does this EP fit that bill? Well... I guess that is open to question.
When you go about reviewing an EP, the episode is by natural causes going to be a shorter and less informative affair. There are less songs for a start. And when it comes to an EP that is also full of live songs, then there is no new material in which to pontificate over. And to be perfectly honest i could have skipped this release and I don’t think anyone would have been the poorer for it. But seeing as you are here, and you are expecting something amazing, I’ll give you the best I’ve got with the material available.
Three of the tracks here are from the band’s latest album that they were touring on at the time, “No Rest for the Wicked”. And as it turns out, all three are great stomping tracks that sound brilliant on the original album and do so again here. Zakk’s squealing guitar opening of “Miracle Man” is just as potent here as it is on the album. “Bloodbath in Paradise” is another wild ride that again accentuates Zakk’s wonderful guitaring in particular, and “Tattooed Dancer” sound great musically, but perhaps is lacking in the same power in the vocal live. It is also interesting that Geezer’s bass guitar seems lost in the mix, not as prevalent or as powerful as you would normally associate it. Now, this could have been a mixing issue, or it may just be that because he didn’t write the bass to these songs – that was Bob Daisley, whose style is significantly different from Gezer’s - that perhaps his influence here on these tracks is not as significant.
The fourth song of these six is “Shot in the Dark” from “The Ultimate Sin” album. And it sounds great here, it’s a terrific song and definitely is a live song. However, given the history of the song and its background, one feels that the Osbourne camp are now ruing the fact that they put it on this EP. The original song was composed by a band called Wildfire, of whom bass guitarist Phil Soussan was a member. It was never released, and when Soussan joined the Osbourne camp they reconfigured it to appear on “The Ultimate Sin” album, credited to Ozzy and Soussan, and not the original writers. Since then, after Soussan’s departure, the Osbournes tried to buy out his rights to the song, to which he refused, and numerous court cases followed (sound familiar?), and as a result, both “The Ultimate Sin” and “Just Say Ozzy” were deleted from the Osbourne catalogue in 2002. They really don’t like sharing royalties. Anyway, that’s the background. If this song hadn’t been added to this EP, it would still be out there available for you to buy.
The final two tracks are, as ever, Black Sabbath cover songs. To this point, Ozzy had made a habit of covering Iron Man, Children of the Grave and Paranoid in his set lists. However, with Geezer now in his band, they decided to bring in some new (old) material, and play “Sweet Leaf” and “War Pigs”, two of that other bands biggest tracks with biting lyrics from Geezer. And those songs are good versions here, as you would expect. However, as a fan, on a live album that is only an EP with a limited number of songs, would you not prefer to hear two other Ozzy Osbourne songs that had not been released on a live album to this point in time? Something else from “The Ultimate Sin”? Or from “Bark at the Moon”? Would that not have been a better use of the space provided than hearing those Sabbath songs live again? No doubt they felt this would be a selling point for the EP, and I’m sure they were right. But for me, as much as this is worth listening to, I think it could have been better without those songs.
In the awesome year that 1990 was for music releases, this was one of the first, though I didn’t get it until a few months after it came out. It wasn’t until I bought my own stereo in mid-1990 with my first CD player in it that I went out and began to buy CDs as well, and this was one of those. And I guess it got played a lot at the time mainly because it was a short sharp jolt (well... to be fair it was 30 minutes of music which isn’t really an EP at all) and so I would play it back-to-back for some time rather than change CDs. No five stacker in those days, just the single file only thank you!
I enjoyed this at the time, but like a lot of people I guess what we wanted was a full live album, not a part-time one. Ozzy had released the Randy Rhoads Tribute album just 2.5 years earlier, but that had been recorded even before Diary of a Madman was released, so there was a lot of material that could have been put on a new full length live album. As it turns out, we only had to wait another two years before “Live and Loud” came out, which did make up for that entirely.
There really isn’t a lot more to be said about this release. It is almost a forgotten album in the Ozzy discography, mainly because it had been made redundant and without any re-releases over the years because of the aforementioned trouble over one song. And is it really an absolute necessity to either listen to or own this EP. I wouldn’t think so, except for completionists such as myself. I honestly cannot remember the last time I put this CD on and listened to it. It hasn’t been while living in this house where we have been for 15 years. It wasn’t at our first house we purchased, where we lived for the ten years prior to that. In all probability, I would doubt I have listened to this anytime since 1992. That’s a long time to have owned an album and not listened to it, and I guess that shows how forgotten it has become, for me as well. Because it doesn’t exist on any streaming service either, that makes it even more difficult.
So I’ve taken it out over the last couple of days, and I have played it four times in those two days. And yes, it has been enjoyable. “Miracle Man” and “Shot in the Dark” both appear on “Live and Loud”, but this is the only official live release for “Bloodbath in Paradise” and “Tattooed Dancer”, so for those two songs alone, it was worth the relisten again.
The changes kept on coming following this. Geezer left after this tour, and soon reunited with Iommi, Dio and Appice to record the “Dehumanizer” album under the Black Sabbath name. Bob Daisley returned to Ozzy’s band – again – to play on their next album “No More Tears” - before being dismissed – again – this time for the final time, as Mike Inez joined to play on what Ozzy announced would be his final ever tour – not the last time that would occur, before they all converged on the final gig of Ozzy’s “No More Tours” tour, and the original foursome of Black Sabbath played together for the first time since Live Aid in 1985. A busy time indeed. Sort of makes this EP feel a bit insignificant in the long run, doesn’t it?
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