Ignore The Title, Its a Great Live Album (Live Evil - Black Sabbath)

Member Name: Hudson

Product:	Live Evil - Black Sabbath
Date:	15/11/00 (60 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Better than Live at Last

Disadvantages: Bits have been cut out from the original

Few bands can rival Black Sabbath when it comes to live performances and Live Evil does its best to re-create the whole live Sabbath experience. Sabbath had always planned to release a live album right from when they hit the bigtime and Ozzy Osbourne was their lead singer but fans had to wait until 1983 and after Ronnie James Dio had left until they were treated to an official live album. Live at Last did the bands reputation a lot of harm when it was released without their permission so they had to get this album right of face losing fans.

Live Evil is a recording of gigs in Seattle, San Antonio and Dallas of the Mark II Sabbath featuring Dio on vocals and Vinny (mispelled as "Vinnie" on the cover)Appice on drums. It features the bands most famous songs from all their albums but the majority are from the Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules albums. It begins with the weird but cool instrumental E5150 to open the show and then gets right into Neon Nights. The version of Voodoo on Live Evil is MUCH better than the Mob Rules version, it is played a lot faster and features a longer solo from Tony Iommi. The end of War Pigs has a drum solo from Vinnie Appice which is quite impressive too. Heaven and Hell is twice as long on Live Evil and is mixed in with the start of The Sign of The Southern Cross so if you are wondering when the stunning end comes then wait a while and you'll hear it.

But there are some bad things about this album. The original LP version released in 1983 was a double LP boxed set and it featured the whole Sabbath show. This has meant that Live Evil has been cut down to just the songs only and not Dio's inbetween numbers banter with the audience, which is an essential part of a live performance. If this had been included then I believe Live Evil would have been a complete album.
The sound quality is of a reasonable standard but given it was made in 1983 this is probably justified. Iommi's guitar is louder and higher
pitched than usual and Geezer's bass isn't as loud as I would like. This has a bad effect on some songs which rely on him to make things work eg The Mob Rules. It isn't nearly as good as the album version.
Live Evil has all the favourites like War Pigs, Paranoid, Iron Man and Children of the Grave but if you are a fan of the Ozzy era you might not like these. Personally I think they are just as good but I know some Sabbath fans who think Dio doesn't do a good job of singing them, he does unquestionably have a better voice though. The other members of Black Sabbath didn't like his on stage style though, they dais he made the songs sound too gothic and I can understand this point of view. Dio does spoil a few songs with his slightly over enthusiastic style but the music is still enjoyable.

Overall Live Evil is a great album but with just a little more time spent on it it could have been great. It still remains as the best Sabbath live album except Reunion and its FAR better than Live at Last. Live Evil has some breathe taking artwork on its cover. It shows characters representing different songs on a beach scene at night. The booklet also has some geat pictures too.
This was the first Black Sabbath album I bought and now I am a big fan of their music which proves it is possible for anyone to really like it. For new comers as well as fans.

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