Description

Double album on red vinyls with gatefold cover. Limited 150 copies

With 1976’s Technical Ecstasy the band started to get further and further away from their original musical path. The album wasnt as off-the-mark as their final album with Osbourne, 1978’s Never Say Die, but it was not on par with Sabbath’s exceptional first five releases. The band also toned down their black magic image and before the Technical Ecstasy Tour started in Tulsa on the 22nd of October 1976, Geezer Butler assured Circus magazine that, Parents can take their kids to our shows now. The American tour for Technical Ecstasy ran up to the 23rd of February of 1977 with Ted Nugent and Journey acting as support acts. This album captures the band during that American tour at the Madison Square Garden on the 6th of December. This could have been an historic night as the band were supposed to be joined on stage by Frank Zappa. Frank Zappa was on team Black Sabbath early on, praising the band and specifically the song Supernaut from the group’s 1972 powered-by-cocaine album Vol 4. As far as Sabbath goes, Geezer Butler was a Frank Zappa superfan whose life was changed after hearing Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention when he was still a teenager. Frank had invited Geezer and Ozzy to his special Thanksgiving dinner in 1976 during which conversation turned to Zappa joining Sabbath on stage to perform two songs, Iron Man and Paranoid during the band’s encore. Unfortunately, Sabbath wasn’t at the top of their game that night at Madison. In addition, Zappa hadn’t been summoned for the show’s soundcheck. Zappa told his version of the night’s events to Sounds journalist Hugh Fielder saying when he showed up, Tony Iommi was having issues with his guitar strings and, at the last minute, changed them out. At this point, the crowd of 20K had been milling around for over an hour waiting for Sabbath to get going. And though there was a stack of sweet Marshalls waiting for Zappa on stage, he would only end up introducing Sabbath that night. Iommi recalled things a bit differently in his book Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven And Hell With Black Sabbath, echoing the notion Sabbath was not in top form and advised Zappa that joining them would’ve been disastrous. Zappa’s introduction described Sabbath as the “rockin’ teenage combo known to the universe as Black Sabbath.” Something that got the crowd going fucking bananas.

Track list:
1. Symptom Of The Universe
2. Snowblind
3. All Moving Parts (Stand Still)
4. War Pigs
5. Gypsy
6. Black Sabbath
7. Rock And Roll Doctor
8. Electric Funeral
9. Iron Man
10. Children Of The Grave
11. Paranoid