Not too long ago, during my review of Ozzy’s No Rest For The City Of Brotherly Love, I mentioned that the same label, Sweet Leaf Productions, also had a Black Sabbath title out. Sweet Leaf Productions is a brand-new label, and if we can determine anything from that last Ozzy release, these guys are good at what they do. I’ve seen a few other titles from them as well, and they are certainly beautiful looking records. They haven’t yet hit on any other bands I want to pick up yet besides the Ozzy and Sabbath stuff, but I’m hoping we’ll be seeing more from The Prince of Darkness and the Godfathers of Heavy Metal soon.
As you may recall from my write-up on that Ozzy release, the production values and pressing quality from Sweet Leaf are superb. This new Sabbath title is no exception. A double heavyweight LP set, Black Mass At The Big Smoke comes packaged in a double-width jacket complete with crystal clear, high-quality original artwork. Zombie style art appears to be a recurring theme in this line from Sweet Leaf, and will really tie your collection together if you pick up some of their other releases. The jacket itself is very well made with a nice high gloss that rivals any official release, and it even has some very nice poly-lined inner sleeves included. These sets are very limited, and each one is hand numbered on the back of the jacket out of only 200 copies.
Black Mass At The Big Smoke is a soundboard recording, and there is some interesting information/trivia on that we’ll get to in just a while. If you aren’t familiar, the title isn’t just a weed reference. It comes out of the Industrial Revolution period, which was around 1760 through 1840. Burning coal and God knows what else, the thick, filthy fog that blanketed London earned it the nickname “The Big Smoke,” which has stuck around even until the modern day. This particular show was recorded at the London Astoria on Charing Cross Road and has no connection to the famous houseboat/studio owned by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. London Astoria had been a very popular music venue since its opening in 1976, but sadly, it was demolished in 2009.
As far as I can tell, this set only comes in one color, which is a bit surprising since most modern labels often flood the market with a ton of different color variants. It’s honestly a breath of fresh air to see a label just focusing on quality for once, rather than trying to sell every collector five copies of the same record. These look really great too… they have the standard Sweet Leaf labels (numbered so you can easily tell which side you’re on) and the yellow color really pops. I’m not usually a fan of clear or translucent wax, but these are an exception for me. They sort of have a “milky haze” going on that I think looks awesome. Not your typical, run of the mill type clear vinyl.
By pressing this shorter, eight song set onto two LPs instead of just one, and limiting it to just two songs per side, I think they arrived at just about the maximum audio quality possible. As most readers will know, the more songs you try to cram onto an LP, the harder it becomes to keep things sounding good. Thankfully, there are no issues like that here, and the fewer tracks per side also makes that center deadwax area look a lot cooler. I gave both records my standard cleaning in the ultrasonic and on the vacuum machine to make sure, but everything looked very clear and free from any visible defects right out of the package.
FM Soundboard Recording – London Astoria, London, UK – 5th December, 1999
A1 War Pigs
A2 N.I.B.
B1 Fairies Wear Boots
B2 After Forever
C1 Into The Void
C2 Black Sabbath
D1 Iron Man
D2 Embryo / Children of the Grave
As far as the show itself goes, here is where things get interesting. As you have probably already been able to tell, this is not the typical Sabbath setlist. Most notably, it’s missing “Paranoid”, which is almost always used as the Sabbath closer. Before you get annoyed and say this show is incomplete, however, you should know that this isn’t exactly the case. The audio source used here is incredible, and quite possibly the best sounding Black Sabbath soundboard I have ever heard. It came from (or was originally intended for) an FM broadcast, which explains the great production values. This set presents the entire portion of the show that was broadcast, so in my opinion, it actually is complete in a practical sense. Does it contain every song that was played that day? No… but it does have everything that was recorded on a professional level.
There are other sources for this show out there, and you might want to check them out on YouTube or track them down elsewhere later if you want to hear the full show. However, the “full” version of the show is an audience recording, so don’t expect it to sound anywhere near as good as this release does. It also doesn’t exist on vinyl, so to me, that’s a major downside. I think that Sweet Leaf absolutely made the right call here and pressed this incredible show in soundboard form, without trying to mix in other sources to make it “complete”. If you look at the setlist from that day, you’ll notice that everything we have here is in order, but that some songs are skipped. When something is skipped, the editing is perfect and it’s not noticeable at all. This sounds like one perfect, continuous show with pro fade-ins and fade-outs and no spaces between tracks.
It’s crazy that it took me so long to mention this little piece of trivia, but since this recording took place during the Reunion tour, Bill Ward is the drummer. This gives us the original Sabbath lineup, along with the pretty much ever present but invisible hired gun/not exactly band member Geoff Nicholls on keyboards. I also really enjoyed the later 13 era shows with Tommy Clufetos on drums (and hope someone will release those on vinyl one day), but there’s nothing like hearing the real, original full band together. As you will hear if you pick up this awesome release, there is a special kind of energy with these guys that just can’t be duplicated. Not even the time with Dio came close to how special this particular group of musicians were when they played together.
Full Setlist – London Astoria, London, UK – 5th December, 1999
1 War Pigs
2 N.I.B.
3 Fairies Wear Boots
4 After Forever
5 Electric Funeral
6 Sweet Leaf
7 Into The Void
8 Guitar Solo
9 Snowblind
10 Dirty Women
11 Tomorrow’s Dream
12 Black Sabbath
13 Iron Man
14 Embryo / Children Of The Grave
15 Supernaut Intro / Paranoid
If you want to compare the actual setlist from the Astoria show that day with the track list for Black Mass At The Big Smoke, this is all the info you need. This should give you a good idea if you want to seek out the audience recording in order to hear the rest of the songs. I, of course, have that audience recorded show on CD in my collection, but it just doesn’t compare quality-wise to what we have here with this soundboard. The performance itself is incredible though, so depending on your particular tastes, it might be worth digging it up and adding that to your collection as well.
The show starts off with “War Pigs”, and the sound is huge. This is a great mix, and the sounds of the music and crowd blend perfectly, giving you the feeling that you are really there, front row in the audience. The crowd immediately erupts into an “Ozzy!” chant, and we know it’s going to be a killer show. The energy seems really high, even for a Sabbath show, and then it hit me that this was almost 30 years ago. Honestly, it’s probably the last time that Ozzy was near full health and vitality, and it really makes this recording special. “N.I.B.” is next, and Geezer goes absolutely crazy on “Bassically” and the bass solo intro piece to the actual song itself. He’s got some heavy wah and flange going on, and this has got to rank up there with one of the best live intros ever to this song. The one he played at Back To The Beginning was also killer, but you’ve just got to hear this version. As usual, Tony’s guitar cuts through the mix, and he adds some great improvisation to the basic structure of his solos to keep things exciting and fresh.
This version of “Fairies Wear Boots” is certainly one of my favorites as well. Geezer really shines here too, especially during the octave portion of the outro solo. This song is usually announced as a feature piece for the drummer though, and it’s not hard to hear why. It’s a complex and drum heavy tune, and Bill Ward is certainly up to the task this day. One little known piece of trivia is that since Bill was famously having health problems during this time, the band weren’t sure that he was going to be able to make it through the tour. He had to quit on them before for various health related reasons, and they couldn’t risk that happening again with so much on the line.
As a backup plan, they kept Vinny Appice on retainer (known for his work with Ronnie James Dio, the Dio version of Sabbath and then Heaven & Hell… which is another version of “Dio Sabbath”). Bill and Vinny had a great relationship, so I guess Bill didn’t mind having him around. Dio, on the other hand, was pretty pissed off about Vinny helping out, but I think he eventually got over it. To my knowledge, Bill never needed Vinny to step in anyway, so it all worked out in the end.
Moving on, “After Forever” is one of the highlights of the show for me. Ozzy manages to keep the energy up the entire time, and Tony’s solo is otherworldly. His guitar tone for this period in Sabbath history is one of my favorites. I could get into the technical aspects of why, but that’s probably more suited for a guitar blog or something. Even if that stuff generally isn’t on your radar, a close listen and comparison to other Sabbath eras will let you hear exactly what I’m talking about here. The guitar tone just sounds different, and in a way, it’s almost reinvented.
The fact that the band added “Into The Void” to the setlist is a clue that they knew they were going to be on top of their game. I think this was probably a challenging song for everyone, but it was a famously difficult one for Ozzy (or anybody) to sing. Lots of lyrics that need to be delivered in an odd cadence and at lightning-fast pace, and he doesn’t disappoint. After this, we come to the band introduction section of the evening. Ozzy announces everybody (except for Geoff Nichols), and he takes a few extra moments to emphasize that Bill Ward is back in the lineup. The audience understands how special this is and starts a chant just for him. As always, they chant for the legendary Tony Iommi as well.
It’s very special to be hearing this lineup at what might have been their prime. A lot of readers might think this is a crazy statement, but I think there’s at least a good argument to be made here. Certainly, Black Sabbath was great during their younger and original Ozzy years, but their gear, confidence and showmanship also came a long way since the 1970’s. With Ozzy embarking on his own solo career that was more successful than anyone ever could have imagined, plus ever-increasingly bizarre incarnations of “Sabbath”, I think these guys were just happy to be back together at this point. It really shows throughout all of the Reunion era performances.
Getting close to the end of the recording, we have a fantastic version of “Black Sabbath”, complete with rain, wind and clanging metal-like sound effects. Ozzy’s heartfelt wailing and passion for this song are quite evident in his performance, and it reminds me of how I find other singers’ attempts at this one to be largely laughable. It really and truly “isn’t theirs”, and they just can never make it sound quite right. Tony Martin probably got the closest, but we’ll save that discussion for another time. “Iron Man” is of course the classic we are all used to, complete with audience chants, high energy and some additional guitar improv compliments of Tony Iommi.
“Children Of The Grave” is a great way to close the show. Officially, it would have been the closer before the encore of “Paranoid”, which can be heard on the audience tape. I can understand the radio station needing to cut out some songs in the middle of the show for time requirements but cutting the encore… especially when it’s Sabbath’s most famous and beloved song, is certainly an interesting choice. I don’t think Black Mass At The Big Smoke suffers for not having it included, however. This is exactly the way the show would have been heard on the radio in 1999. Just an incredible performance and package all around.
Ratings wise, this one gets a solid 10/10 on everything. The packaging looks spectacular, the quality of the vinyl itself is the best you are ever going to find for an unofficial release, and the pressing is dead silent with no surface noise whatsoever. Professional fading and no spaces in between tracks round everything out to make this a “must have” for Sabbath fans everywhere. My recommendation would be to pick this set up immediately before it sells out, and then do a deep dive for the complete, but lower-fidelity audience recorded version to round out the experience. I really hope Sweet Leaf Productions puts out some more Black Sabbath and Ozzy stuff, but in the meantime, it’s worth checking out the rest of their catalogue in case you are into any of the other bands they have releases for.
Happy digging!