Just a couple of weeks ago, I checked out The Great British Music Weekend, which is a fantastic Ozzy show from 1991, and one of the most recent releases by Ancient Pyramid Records. This week, I want to discuss their first release, which was a Sabbath show at the Hammersmith Odeon. The show would have been a part of the Technical Ecstasy tour, which took place in 1978. To me, this was such a great period for Sabbath, since these shows would cover many major highlights from all the original albums they made with Ozzy. This is another relatively short performance, and the entire thing fits onto a single LP. There aren’t a huge number of high-quality short shows like this that haven’t been pressed to death, so it’s cool that this label dug this one up and brought it back to life.
Hammersmith Odeon comes in several different colors, and there are also test pressings available. The standard colored editions come numbered out of 500 copies and have the number on the back of the jacket. The test pressings are old school bootleg style and come in a white sleeve with stickers and inserts. Just like their Ozzy release, the inserts are printed on photo paper which is super high quality. I’ve always loved the fighter pilot guys from Never Say Die!, so I think the standard jacket looks great. The test pressing is probably my favorite visually, just because I love the old style and the picture of Ozzy looks great in black and white. I was lucky enough to get a black test pressing that’s numbered out of 10 copies, and a standard purple version which has a bit of marbling to it.
The LP’s themselves are nice and heavy, and the label design and overall quality is excellent. I really love the Ancient Pyramid themed artwork, but unlike their later releases, there is no numbering on them. If you want to tell which side is which, you need to check on the dead wax. I couldn’t find any visible defects on either record, and both were perfectly flat and looked clean right out of the sleeve. I cleaned them anyway like I normally do, of course, and decided to give the purple copy a spin.
This is definitely a soundboard recording, and the audio quality is pretty good. Both sides fade in and out perfectly, and there are no gaps whatsoever between songs. You can still hear the crowd, which is nice, but the vocals sound a bit distant in some spots. On “Symptom Of The Universe”, Ozzy didn’t really sound like himself to me in certain parts, but it seems like he’s singing much louder than he normally did. Like a lot of shows though, once you get to listening to it for a bit, things sort of normalize in your brain, and it all starts sounding better. By the time we get to “War Pigs” the audio quality seems to improve even more, and the guitar is crystal clear. Tony plays an almost note for note album version solo, which is kind of unusual for this song and was very cool to hear.
Soundboard Recording – Hammersmith Odeon, London, England, UK – 19th June, 1978
A1 Symptom Of The Universe
A2 War Pigs
A3 Snowblind
A4 Never Say Die
B1 Black Sabbath
B2 Dirty Women
B3 Rock N Roll Doctor
B4 Children Of The Grave
“Snowblind” is a fantastic version, and Bill’s drumming on it really stands out. The tom fills sound absolutely massive, and I think the mix here is as good as it can be. Sadly, there is a tape jump right before the guitar solo, but it’s very short, lasting only for about two seconds. At this point I noticed that there is some type of distortion on Ozzy’s voice, and that’s what I must have been hearing earlier. I think it is just a minor issue with the original audio, and it’s really only present when he’s doing the more powerful vocal parts. I think it comes down to whoever the mixing guy was that day in 1978. It’s a very minor thing, and I don’t think it will be distracting to anybody.
A lot of people don’t like the Never Say Die! album, but I’m not one of those people. I think a lot of fans heard Ozzy say he didn’t personally like it (or Technical Ecstasy), so they never really gave it a chance. It’s much different from their earlier albums to be sure, but I still think it’s great in its own right. I think most people do like the actual song “Never Say Die!”, and we have a great version of it here. Right after this song, Ozzy says something like “Thanks for the last ten years. We hope we’ll be around for another ten, and another ten!”. Looking back on this statement with what we know now about everything the band was going through, that seems like a crazy thing to say. I suppose you have to try to keep things positive for the fans, though.
Another highlight for me here is “Dirty Women”. I know I have been hard on this song before, but it’s since grown on me quite a bit. It’s certainly the best song on the Technical Ecstasy album, and Sabbath would go on to continue playing it regularly, even during the 13 era. I still think the lyrics are awful. By far the worst Sabbath lyrics, and it’s not even close. The music however, particularly the guitar, is just awesome. This is probably one of my favorite live versions of it too, and the guitar really shines in the mix. “Rock and Roll Doctor” is maybe not the best song, but I guess they had to pick something else off that album. Once again, the music itself is great, with very powerful bass and drums. And lots of cowbell. It’s not the standard Black Sabbath sound, but I think most fans will enjoy it.
All and all, this is another great release from Ancient Pyramid. I think this was officially their first one, and we’ve already seen improvements with the follow up solo Ozzy release. The pressing itself is excellent, and neither one of my copies had any surface noise at all, so a solid 10/10 there. The packaging looks great and is very high quality with cool and unique artwork. Even though the labels don’t have numbers on this one, just look at how cool they are. So, packaging gets an easy 9/10. The source audio itself isn’t perfect, but it’s very good and deserving to be pressed on vinyl. It’s got some flaws, but nothing major. I would say it’s around an 8.5/10.
Hammersmith Odeon has been out for a month or two, but I think there are still a few places that have copies. Now is the time to look for one, and I’m sure it will eventually sell out. Ancient Pyramid is working on new stuff, and I’ve seen they have an absolutely awesome looking release for a band called Stone Roses. I’m not sure who they are, but the packaging looks very cool. If you happen to like those guys, I think it would be worth your time to check that out. I’m certainly looking forward to seeing more from Ancient Pyramid soon. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing some more Ozzy, Sabbath, and maybe even some Pink Floyd someday.