Customer Reviews

The Black Sabbath Story, Vol. 2

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Covering '79-92, this video has lots of great footage -- some of which Tony Iommi would probably rather you didn't see. Includes interviews with Dio, Tony Martin, Cozy Powell, Geezer, Iommi, Vinny Appice, Ian Gillan, and others. Includes great concert footage with Dio (whole songs) and Gillan (snippets), studio footage with the '92 "reunion" lineup and the horribly bad MTV videos from Seventh Star and Headless Cross. For Ozzy fans, the only tidbit is the complete "video" for Hard Road, from Never Say Die. Ray Gillen is mentioned for only two seconds and Glenn Hughes not at all, although he's obviously in the video for "No Stranger To Love," which features Tony Iommi's dramatic debut and Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar) as his love interest. Great (terrible!) stuff. My only compaint is we could have done with more Gillan material.

This is a Story of SABBATH, not a Concert video. Great Interviews with DIO, GILLAN ( very funny segment that explains where SPINAL TAP and Stonehenge originated). Fundamentally different to Volume 1 of the set THE BLACK SABBATH STORY; and yes you DO get 85 Minutes worth of material, just in several slabs. Dio seems to be at his most conciliatory, probably because of the then upcoming De-Humanizer tour. This is a real Gem, and I thoroughly enjoyed the DVD. SABBATH will Hopefully release a Third DVD to cover the period post 1993. And i hope they do this soon. I would especially Love to see a long interview with Bill Ward, since he has been the most honest, forthright, and consistently appreciable of the band members in talks and other interviews. You will see this in Bill's spots on this DVD, and it is worth the wait to see Bill on screen, although it is conceivable that Fans who like Volume one will not like the fundamentally different content in Volume 2 .

The top and bottom of the picture are chopped off. Sometimes the tops of people's heads are missing, and sometimes they even compress the image so that it fits into the fake "letterbox" shape, so that everybody looks short, fat, and squished! Seriously, this is one of the worst instances of fake widescreen that I've ever seen.

First off, I'm a HUGE Sabbath fan, and admittedly more so of the early Ozzy stuff, so I could be biased in that regard. However, I still feel this DVD could have been much better. Starts off strong with great Dio fronted performances. Some stuff from "Mob Rules" would have been nice. We get literally a two second clip of "Zero the Hero" (which I think is a great song). And then we get POWER BALLADS! Like the entire, cheese covered, glossy MTV videos. If you're into the late 80's Sabbath sound, this might not be so bad. Then the DVD ends with the "Dehumanizer" reunion album/tour with Dio. Would it have killed them to include the entire "T.V. Crimes" video? The main portion of this DVD is less than 45 minutes long (there are some extra interview type segments elsewhere in the menu). It seems as though all the good stuff (i.e. performances) are either clipped or interrupted. Black Sabbath may not have been in top form for a good portion of the 80's, but again, this DVD could have been a lot better.

...but it's still not bad. I bought THE BLACK SABBATH STORY, VOL. 2 at the same time as VOL. 1, and I did think right away that it was kind of weird that the 50-minute VOL. 2 sported 12 songs, while the 60-minute VOL. 1 had 10. Well, it is unfotunately true that most of the videos shown on VOL. 2 are truncated, which is too bad because most of these songs are very good.

You know, every time people counted out Black Sabbath, they always came back with good material, no matter who sung for them. Hey, there were millions who thought that the Sabs were done when Ozzy left the band in 1978. But they came roaring right back with Ronnie James Dio in 1980, and put out two studio albums and their first-ever live album in the early 80's. Then Dio left in an acrimonious split, and former Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan took over for one album which, unfortunately, was poorly received. Then the whole David Donato misfire occurred (a male model with no previous professional singing experience, he was basically brought in for looks and nothing else, till he was fired by the band after three weeks due to his arrogance), after which Black Sabbath officially broke up, for the very first time in history. For the very first time, it seemed right to count out Black Sabbath for good. However, a very interesting thing happened: Tony Iommi wanted to do a solo album, which upset Warner Brothers, who didn't want to give up the Black Sabbath ghost as much as Black Sabbath itself! When Tony assembled a band that included former Ozzy bassist Bob Daisley and former Trapeze & Deep Purple bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes on lead vocals, Warner got cold feet and demanded that the finished product be released under the moniker "Black Sabbath Featuring Tony Iommi," rather than just under Iommi's own name. The result was the terrific SEVENTH STAR, which produced Black Sabbath's first Top 50 hit since "Paranoid," a great power ballad called "No Stranger To Love." Unfortunately, Glenn Hughes, who sang his heart out on the album, had fallen into cocaine addiction, and didn't last the tour. After briefly hooking up with up & coming New York-bred metallist Ray Gillen to finish out the tour, Black Sabbath got a dependable, and also virtually unknown, singer by the name of Tony "The Cat" Martin, who lasted for three albums from 1987-1991, till the Sabs reunited with Dio for the excellent album DEHUMANIZER (1992).

This is the basic rundown of the many turns & twists in the career of the ever-adapting Black Sabbath from 1978 to 1992. it is fascinating; unfortunately, this video is so short that it has no time to dwell on any particular part of it. The result feels very rushed. However, it is still worthy to add it to your Black Sabbath video collection, as long as you don't spent too much money on it (Try Amazon Marketplace, or E-Bay). It does provide some very good interviews with some of the band members, such as Tony Iommi, Bill Ward, Cozy Powell and Ian Gillan. I particularly liked Gillan's segment the best; as much of a vocal legend as this man is, he makes no bones about the fact that he didn't really fit in well as a Black Sabbath singer, even going so far as to say, "I was probably the worst Black Sabbath singer ever," with a laugh. I can't agree with that; however, I can sure appreciate the unselfish sentiment represented by the statement. He does acknowledge that there were some very strong songs on BORN AGAIN (1983); unfortunately, we only hear brief snippets of the two best songs, "Trashed" and "Zero The Hero," from this much-unfairly maligned album. We also get not enough of the videos for the great Dio songs like "Die Young" as well as "T.V. Crimes" and "I" from the 1992 reunion.

Sure, it's not the best Black Sabbath video, and it was obviously done to cash-in on the Dio reunion in that year. But for us die-hard Black Sabbath fans, it's worth it!

RECOMMENDED FOR BLACK SABBATH FANS ONLY

I love the music from this era of the band but I dont love this video. problems i have with this release:

1. widescreen format: The DVD cuts the heads of dio in Die Young and neon knights!
2. no restoration of film. its very grainy and fuzzy throughout the film
3. Very short clips of Trashed and Zero the hero. Where is the rest of the footage?
4. Too much interuption of the vocal biography track. (which is ironic considering this "biography" is completely lacking in details. where is the care and thoughtfulness in this release?)
5. actual biography is only 45 min. True there is another 30 minutes of interviews elsewhere on the disc but it completely confuses the chronology of the band, because it rehashes what we already heard on the biography.
6. no transitions at all between segments except for a video still of the album cover.
7. most importantly: who is the narrator of this biography? it should be toni iommi but he is absent through much of the discussion. I seriously cannot follow the development of the story because there is no story other than this band is a buisness arangement.
8. finally no videos were created for dehumanizer. All we are given is some studio session video with no clear presentation of what we are seeing there either. Frankly it seems that the whole video is a promotion for this tour. And the tour did not even last a year before dio left! What a tragic mistake this video is. Please do not purchase this video.

What I didn't like about this home video was the way it was presented. It starts off with Ozzy's last single 'Hard Road'. From there it goes down hill. The Dio footage from 'Heaven and Hell' were great, but why talk during the songs? Were they so hard up for time that they had to talk during the music to cram it all into one video? The worst part of the package is the 'Born Again' era. I love Born Again and wish Ian had stuck around with Sabbath for a little longer. Ian says 'Without question I was the worst singer Sabbath ever had.' (I guess he's never heard of Tony Martin. Maybe Iommi agrees with Ian because the two songs 'Trash' and 'Zero the Hero' that are played are only small snips. Not only do you not here the whole song, but they talk during thoise too.

To see Dio and Ian are the only reasons I bought this video. I love the Ozzy, Dio, and Ian eras, but from there my feelings for Sabbath are lukewarm. 'Seventh Star' is an OK album if you accept it for what it is, but the video with singer Glenn Hughes is just awful. From there it gets worse. Tony Martin is a generic singer who has no business in Sabbath and doesn't belong with them at all. Iommi only uses him when he can't get a gig with Ozzy or Dio. I don't like any of the Tony Martin albums. I have them because they are Black Sabbath, but it's really not.

The video ends where Sabbath left off in 1992. Hope for the future with Dio back in the lineup on the Dehumanizer tour, a phenominal album. Unfortunately, the reunion with Dio and Appice was short lived and Dio left Sabbath while on tour swearing never to return. Why? Because he refused to sing with Black Sabbath who was opening for Ozzy. At the l;ast second, Iommi got Robn Halford of Judas Priest fame to sing the show.

Vol II compliments the far superior Vol I tape, but falls flat in to many places compared to the first.

From viewing this DVD for the first time,I can NOW remember WHY I don't usually flip over that many DVD releases.I mean,this Story Of Black Sabbath is like a bad joke.It's got some good footage,but it should have had much more of Dio and Ian Gillan.Never cared for vocalist Tony Martin at all,but the clip here for "Headless Cross" isn't half bad.As for the songs performed with Dio,which were "Die Young","Neon Knights" and "TV Crimes",they should have completely edited the interview DURING the dang song!Those first two,I believe I saw them on Don Kirshner way back when.A total of 45 minutes of the music segment,plus several 'waste of time' extras.For Sabbath die-hards and completists only.Sure glad this DVD didn't cost me much.

What I hate about this video is how performances are cut or talked over. This DVD starts out pretty good with the last video from the Ozzy era (Long Road). We start losing it from there.

I love Sabbath with Ozzy, Dio, and Ian, but why were their performances talked over or even worse, cut? Dio doing great with Die Young and Neo Knights but the commentary over the song is annoying. What's even worse is Ian Gillian's footage. Zero the Hero and Trashed are talked over and cut. By the way Ian, you don't have to profess yourself as Black Sabbath's worst singer. That honor goes to none other than Tony Martin.

Now why we get full clips of Tony material is beyond me. I'd rather hear 'Zero the Hero' than 'Feels good to Me'. I was also very disappointed that except for one video, Seventh Star was hardly mentioned. Seventh Star is better than anything with Tony Martins name on it.

The DVD ends with the 'Oh man it's great to be back' Dio reunion on the Dehumanizer Tour. Would it have killed them to let us see the entire performance of 'I' instead of the little snipit?

Volume I is much superb than Volume II. Not because it'a all Ozzy material, but because it was edited and presented better.

Volume II could have been colosal and proved that without Ozzy, the Sabs can rock, but the presentation just wans't there.

I have had this tape for almost 10 years now, and nothing has come along that even gets close to the material on this tape. It is now available on DVD. One difference with the DVD is that Volume 2 starts with the dio years, whereas the VHS starts with "a hard road" and the end of the Ozzy years, which the DVD collection put on volume one. This set covers the Dio years and the post Dio years with Ian Gillen, Glenn hughes, and Tony Martin, ending with the return of Dio and the Dehumanizer album. This set was put out originally at the time of the release of the dehumanizer album, unfortunately Sabbath was pretty well depleted in popularity at that time. So this is a must have for the sabbath fans. I just wish they would release at some point a volume three, to include the post De-humanizer years and the reunion, I'll keep my fingers crossed.