Not in the mood to write a proper, full concert review, really. Not now, anyway. Too soon for so much to process, and I'm sure you can read that sort of thing on a million websites today. But I did make it to Villa Park and I've got a couple of hours to kill on a train now, so I might as well jolt down what comes to mind:
- Birmingham is not as ugly as I expected it to be, as a matter of fact I found it quite pleasant. But of course I was there for a limited amount of time so I only saw downtown and Villa Park, I'm sure there are dodgy neighborhoods as well. But aren't there in every city?
- I've never been to a better organized major concert in my life. Everything was perfect, the schedule was kept like clockwork (except the last band to appear, but more on that later), decent toilets without long waiting times, no lines for food and drink either. Kudos.
- Live Aid-style, everyone played 15-30 minute sets with 10 minute breaks (possible through the use of a rotating stage - one band playing on side A, next band's road crew setting up on side B).
- Best proper band appearance of the day, Ozzy/Sabbath excluded: Metallica. Literally in a league of their own.
- Worst proper band appearance of the day: Guns 'N' Roses. The good thing is Axl can still hit the notes, the bad thing is that he hit all of them in the wrong places. Throughout the set he was 5 seconds ahead or behind the rest of the band, and he totally ruined three Sabbath covers and his own band's two greatest hits.
- Most indifferent band appearance of the day: Rival Sons. I mean, their poor man's Zeppelin-style hard rock is pretty decent, but I can think of a million other bands that would have fitted the bill better.
- Best proper band appearance of the day, Metallica/Ozzy/Sabbath excluded: A three-way tie between Mastodon, Gojira, and Tool. Mastodon had the difficult job of opening the festivities and did a great job, Brett Hinds will not be missed. They also threw us the first surprise of the day by having the drummers from Tool, Gojira and Slipknot on stage with them playing percussion on a blistering version of "Supernaut". Gojira proved once again that they are world-class. Tool was impressive and made "Hand Of Doom" their own.
- Did I mention Slipknot? One of them was DJ-ing between band sets in an Aston Villa shirt. Did a decent job.
- Tom Morello's kid can also shred.
- Jason Momoa started as the MC of the evening, but we lost him sometime around Pantera's set as he simply joined the fans in the pit and never came back up.
- The supergroups with rotating singers and musicians? A great experience to watch, despite the ups and downs. The downs - Sammy Hagar who was sort of a momentum ruiner, and that guy from Disturbed who seemed bored singing "Shot In the Dark" and "Sweet Leaf". He also got booed, probably not for his performance but most likely for his public pro-Israeli stance. The ups? Definitely the fun silliness of Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins doing "Breakin' The Law" with KK Downing, Tom Morello, Adam Jones, Danny Carey and Rudy Sarzo. Also Ron fuckin' Wood from the Rolling fuckin' Stones jumping on stage to do "Train Kept A Rollin'" with Steven Tyler. Papa Perpetua on "Bark At The Moon". Surprisingly, a non-metal guy called Youngblud I wasn't familiar with doing "Changes" and winning over the whole stadium - if we compare this event with the Freddie Mercury tribute concert, he was this year's George Michael doing "Somebody To Love". And Nuno Bettencourt as the anchor of the rotating supergroup line-ups - he was perfect.
- Ozzy: What can I say. Ozzy had to sing sitting down (BTW the picture above is not mine, it's by the great Ross Halfin, I stole it off the internet, I hope he doesn't mind). His voice started breaking during "Mr. Crowley" and kept getting worse, but he never gave up, not for a second. And the crowd stepped up taking lead vocals and singing all the words. Zakk Wylde, while playing his brains out, kept walking over to Ozzy's chair to make sure he's OK. And there was a video of Randy Rhoads showing behind him, synced to Zakk's playing. Thousands of people (myself and my mate included) were literally crying - tears of joy for being there, tears of sadness because it's obvious Ozzy's saying goodbye to more than just the stage, tears of general fuckin' emotional overload.
- Sabbath: The only delay between bands of the evening, obviously because the doctors backstage were trying to get Ozzy back in shape to do a few more songs. Most people actually started getting worried if he would make it back out there after his solo set or if the concert would have to close with Iommi/Geezer/Ward fronted by someone else from the day's line-up (my money's on Steven Tyler being the contingency plan, but I'm happy we'll never find out). But he made it to the stage and managed to sing four songs from the first two albums, and it was triumphant. Iommi is timeless, Geezer was a monster, and Ward received the warmest welcome and even took his shirt off to play better (at 77! Not even Iggy Pop can pull that anymore!).
- As I said, still too much to process but if I had to sum it up, I'd say that this was one for the ages, the perfect send-off, and a day I'll remember forever. Thank you Sabbath, for everything.
