Customer Reviews

Live At Hammersmith Odeon

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This limited edition disc was recorded at a series of shows at London's Hammersmith Odeon in December 1981 and January of 1982.A few months ago I looked up the Rhino Records website for information about the Dio Years disc and signed up to purchase this disc for $19.99 plus $7.00 s/h. Boy, was I glad I did.This is the recording that should have been released instead of the poorly mixed "Live Evil" back in 1982.
The thing that jumps out at you is the power and volume of Vinnie Appice's drumming.I saw the Mob Rules tour in L.A. in 1982 and Appice's drums were so loud I could feel the bass drum in my bone marrow.
This starts out with a kickass version of "Neon Knights" with Tony Iommi's excellent guitar work.
"N.I.B" is next. I dont really like Dio's interpretation of the old Ozzy numbers.His endless oohing and aahing during Iommi's leads gets on my nerves. When Iommi is shredding you don't need Dio constantly crooning "my, my, my" over the solo.As far as the straight lyric style of the song itself, it just doesn't need such melodramatics.
"Children Of The Sea". Very good version as Dio sounds strong and the band hammers it out.Appice's drums are so awesome. He had to have been at the top of his game on this tour.
"Country Girl". Never heard this one live before as they had eliminated it from the set by the time I saw them.Sounds bassically the same as the studio version except for a slightly different guitar solo.
"Black Sabbath". This is ,in my opinion, the Ozzy era song that Dio sounded best on.He kept the melodramatics to a minimum and didn't try to change it. Iommi's guitar intro has a creepy feel to it and he shreds on the solo at the end.
"War Pigs". This is an awesome version if you can get past Dio's melodramatics during the opening chords. Geezer Butler's Bass and Appice's drums really drive this song home. Iommi plays a completely different solo on the lead break than the studio version.Dio sounds weird on it but he is belting it out at full power.
'Slipping Away". Quick vehicle for Appice's edited drum solo.
"Iron Man". Played at sludge speed with Appice's fills and rolls sounding great.Iommi's riff never sounded heavier.Dio sounds alright but I get the feeling he didn't really like this song that much.
"The Mob Rules". Excellent high energy version. Iommi really rips on this.
"Heaven and Hell". Album and tour's showcase.Sounds edited due to time constraints.Excellent guitar solo by Iommi ina jazzy vein.Dio sound great but the audience participation part sounds weak due to the fact that the crowd noise is so low. Soundboard recording, no doubt.
"Paranoid". Necessary song I guess. Unfortunately for Dio, it would be like somebody other than Robert Plant singing Stairway To Heaven. He does his best but he just engages in needless melodramatics when he should just sing the tune.Don't get me wrong, Istill like it. You just can't ignore the inevitable comparisons.
"Children of the Grave". Real good version as Iommi's bone crunching riff destroys everything in its way.Dio sounds good on this one as he presents a straightforward delivery.
All in all a great recording capturing this line up at the peak of its powers.All audience banter and song introductions are not present due to time constraints which is not a bad thing bercause Dio was not a "I'm a regular guy, party animal dude just like you" kind of performer anyway.His song introductions were always kept short and dignified. The opposite of Ozzy.
It's a shame that only 5000 of these discs are in print because it would probably sell a lot more than that. I'm just glad I got one.

"Black Sabbath Live At Hammersmith Odeon" is quite a nice little treat to commemorate the release of Black Sabbath's latest Best-Of CD "The Dio Years" as well as the 2007 World Tour featuring the classic Dio/Iommi/Butler/Appice line-up as Heaven And Hell. Recorded during the 1981 Mob Rules tour, this recording takes the best versions of the performed songs from 3 out of the 4 Hammersmith Odeon sold-out concerts (between December 31st, 1981 through January 2nd, 1982) and compiles them seamlessly as one glorious presentation.

Even though this was released AND sold-out as a numbered limited edition of 5000 copies only on May 1st 2007, it was available for pre-sale at Rhino Handmade since early April 2007, and did NOT go outta print till it's first official release day, so the "snooze, you lose" motto sorta applies here. But more on that later, let's get to the actual disc.

Man, this CD is more than I ever coulda hoped for a huge life-long Black Sabbath fan like myself. I probably didn't even have this recording before as a bootleg (I don't recognize it audio-wise). Rhino majorly cleaned up this recording. True true soundboard, remastered excellently, this thing deserves to be in stores next to Live Evil! In fact, it might even be better than Live Evil....well maybe that's pushing it, but it's way up there. Thing's long too (79:52)! Those rare live tracks, Country Girl, Slipping Away, as well as Iommi's shortened solo on this make it so worthwhile. Even Dio on this one says "P**S OFF, I'm gonna burn in Hell with all of you!" instead of the usual "Go Away, I'm gonna burn in Hell...". I've got a lot of Heaven And Hell live versions with Dio & he never said it like THAT before! Cool! I do wish they did the entire "Slipping Away", instead of going to the drum solo in the middle. That part where Tony & Geezer trade licks on the studio version is great live, I have a boot of them doing it all somewhere, but not on here like that. It's just too bad they stopped doing "Sweet Leaf" live by this time too, that would have been the cherry on top. Oh well, can't have it all.

Concerning though the new battle between Black Sabbath fans "Which Is Better:Hammersmith or Live Evil?", truthfully "Live At The Hammersmith Odeon" is a great "addition" to any Sabbhead's library, but it's not as "essential" as Live Evil. First off, Live Evil is classic due to it's 25 year old existence this December (wow, has it been that long!). If Hammersmith came out in 1982, then Live Evil in 2007, maybe. But that's not the case. Second, Live Evil is a fuller representation of a complete Black Sabbath concert, LATHO is not. Lemme explain. When Castle Communications reissued/remastered Live Evil in 1996, they edited out things like Ronnie banter, crowd noise, and some of Tony's solo to make it fit on ONE disc, instead of the original two. LATHO was done in the same way. Don't believe me, think about it, how long is the crowd applause in between the tracks....it's two or three seconds each...that's not realistic. Ya mean Ronnie didn't talk to the audience at that show between songs? C'mon. And Iommi didn't do a full blown eight minute plus solo either? Sure they did, Rhino Handmade just edited it out from the master to make it fit on one disc, while Live Evil was always meant to be a two record/two CD release, hence as much filler as possible resulting in a complete show, solos, banter, crowd, and all. But don't get me wrong, LATHO has some of the best editing I've EVER heard on a live recording! But the editing is quite apparent to fans like me with a ton of boots in our collections already. But trust me, in a way it's sorta nice to get to the point with this recording, compared to times when I have to wait 30 seconds to get to the next song on Live Evil (LATHO's editing is way better than what Sanctuary Records did on Disc Two of Sabbath's Past Lives CD), but the average fan will never notice, but to most of us it's apparent pretty early on yet acceptable due to the quality it was done here.

Finally, Live Evil was recorded in the intent of a worldwide audio release, LATHO was not. It's more as a library recording for the band and management. Even though the remaster job on LATHO is excellent, you can tell that the instruments weren't mic'ed for that purpose. Also, some parts of LATHO wouldn't cut it for a major/first live representation of a band like Sabbath. The feedback during N.I.B., the "trying to get the girl in the front row to sing Heaven And Hell and failing", and other bits like that show this is basically for collectors only, hence why it's on Rhino Handmade at only 5000 copies and not on Rhino's main label at your local store in millions.

But all this shouldn't be stopping you from trying to find a copy, but now it's gonna be a little harder and more expensive to do so. Thanks to Amazon's "New & Used" section or perhaps EBay, this album is still listed for purchase by independent sellers who knew this would sell-out fast, so if you really want it, thank these people for offering it to ya still, even if their prices are somewhat, well, insane. But who knows, since this release was Rhino Handmade's quickest selling out title in their history, maybe it will be re-released in that dreamed about "Black Box II" CD Box Set we Sabbath fans have been demanding. Stranger things have happened....especially to Sabbath! Thanks for reading!

P.S.: If you look at the images section on the page's above left side, you'll see my CD booklet back cover explaining the position of the actual numbering on each disc created. The notes explain how you found it and where. Enjoy and thanks again!

A short review of the album: yes it is edited to fit onto one disc. The part I like is there is very little crowd noise or talk between songs. That is all fine for when I'm at the concert but when listening to a CD I don't need it. Musically it was very exciting to hear and I immediately wondered why this wasn't released instead of Live Evil. I love it and was very fortunate to pre-order it for $25 which is a bit pricey for one CD but much less than it was auctioning off for afterwards. But the most important of this review is to inform everyone that this album is the 2nd disc of the new deluxe edition of Mob Rules. There are no reviews for that album on here yet but I went to Black Sabbath .com to find that it is indeed the exact same disc, minus the packaging for Hammersmith of course. For people who want the music (and that's the most important thing) it is now available for far less than people are trying to sell the limited edition.

This is a fantastic live album, filled with a lot of similar tracks to the live evil album, but the sound quality is MUCH better! It's great. I know it's expensive, but try to download it via torrent or mp3, and burn your own disc. It's well worth it, especially if you're a fan of the Dio-era of Black Sabbath. In my opinion, on of their best live albums, and the best for the period, absolutely.

UPDATE: I have just gotten the DEluxe Edition of the Mob Rules which came out in 2010. Disc two of that set IS the entire Live at Hammersmith Odeon concert, exactly the same as this disc. If you want this concert, BUY the deluxe edition of Mob Rules!

Limited edition release of black sabbath - live at hammersmith oden.
A month after the dio years compilation is out.
Highlights on this cd All of it. Great artwork and packaging.

A great live CD and all, but a bit too similar to their 'Live Evil' 2-CD put out many moons ago. Only two tracks I see here that doesn't appear on 'Live Evil' are "Country Girl" and "Slipping Away". This performance was taken off of live master tapes from three concerts at the legendary Hammersmith - December 31, 1981 through January 2, 1982. As always, it's great to hear tunes like the "Neon Knights" (truely, one of Dio's best songs of all time), the band's namesake "Black Sabbath" (granted, Ozzy's version is better but this edit still kicks total *ss), "The Mob Rules", "Children Of The Grave" among others. True, Rhino only produced 5,000 copies of this CD - but to any interested parties, KEEP looking / asking around - especially since evryone has Internest access these days. It's well worth the trouble.

I don't know why this is a limited release, this f$%#in rocks! The live versions of the Dio-era stuff are better than their studio counterparts and Dio makes the Ozzy stuff his own with totally different hell blazing versions, War Pigs especially. This blows all the other official live Sabbath compilations out of the water, although the Ozzy era Past Lives was pretty sweet as well. If you own a loud stereo and are a fan of Sabbath, get this. It is rare that you come across a live vintage CD of this quality, so I'd snatch it up before it sells for $10,000.

Don't get me wrong I love Live Evil and have owned it on vinyl, cassette and twice on cd over the years and listen to it regularly. However I have just been to see the Heaven and Hell concert (I am in New Zealand and is the first time Ive seen Sabbath) and feel Hammersmith sounds exactly like that live show - awesome!!!. If you can get your hands on a copy GET IT. Roll on the release of Radio City Music hall CD and DVD

I really like hearing the good ole days of Dio, and i'm glad this surfaced, now i only wish it would surface as a DVD with the Dio era songs, and maybe Children Of The Grave, and N.I.B. There is only one real Sabbath of course we all know, Ozzy, Tony, Bill and Geezer. Dio was the only other inception of the band worth anything, and Dio brought his own unique voice and spirit to the band after Ozzy's departure. Hearing classics like Country Girl, Neon Knights, and Voodoo are great, missing tunes like Falling Of The Edge Of The World, and The Sign Of The Southern Cross were not. Even hearing an obscure song like Slipping Away was very nice, also i would like to hear Over and Over, but i'm not even sure they had ever done that one live. So that being said the sound is great, everyone is in top form, there is only one problem. Having past material from another singer can be tough to cover depending on how you sound, and just the overall vibe and melody of the song. Well of course no one "sounds" like Ozzy, and Dio is a lot more of a trained professional singer than Ozz. The problem is on songs like War Pigs, Paranoid and especially Iron Man Dio's voice just isnt suited. Its really hard to compare the two since they are so different, both in style and sound. The shreak of Ozzy's banshee type voice on these classics has to be present or its just not the same.

There have been dozens of covers off all these songs, with everyone contributing there own voice to the mix. Some sound good, some just sound out of place. Dio's voice on the old Ozzy classics fit pretty well on Children Of The Grave, and N.I.B since they have a bit more melody to them, especially N.I.B, Dio really made that song sound like his own. So really thats the only bad thing about the disc, you hear paranoid wanting Ozzy, along with War Pigs, and few others. Black Sabbath is about the worst track and Dio's singing just doesnt fit on that song at all, its also a lot of peoples least favorite of the old days(even though it started it all). I would have rather heard Dio do Symptom Of The Universe or Into The Void, which are a bit more aggressive. So all in all the disc is very good, i just skip past the mentioned songs that Ozzy did because i would have just rather heard more Dio(sabbath) tunes. I guess they wanted to mix it up a bit though, its Rhino so i kind of expected it to be a bit jumbled up. They don't really do well with greatest hits, and certain live albums. But this one is an exception. Sound quality is very good as well i have to mention. Very well produced. All that being said its nice to hear an old good sounding disc of the Dio days, just wish there were more of them and less of the Ozzy era songs. Even though i'm more of the Ozzy era fan. R.I.P Dio, you were the best singer to ever grace a microphone.!!! Live On!!

BTW-When they reunited, neither ozzy nor dio did any of each others material. Ozzy NEVER did dio, wonder what he would have sounded like on songs like Neon Knights, Heaven and Hell or Die Young, hmm interesting.