Black Sabbath bids a strong farewell
Powerful band on track to go out in fine fighting form
Ozzy Osbourne stalked the stage with manic delight. Tony Iommi burned through one face-melting guitar lead after another. And Geezer Butler’s basslines were as heavy as heavy can be.
It was a thing of thundering beauty, made all that more poignant by the knowledge that there won’t be many more opportunities to experience it again.
It was the beginning of a long goodbye for local fans, as the legendary heavy metal band Black Sabbath brought its farewell tour to SAP Center in San Jose on Tuesday. The tour returns to the Bay Area on Sept. 15 at Oracle Arena in Oakland.
The British band on Tuesday night unleashed all the reasons why it will be so dearly missed. Indeed, Sabbath sounded so strong that, at times, it seemed like an absolutely ludicrous idea for these guys to even be thinking about hanging it up. Yet, if the goal is to go out in peak fighting form, then Sabbath is right on track.
Following the opening set by Rival Sons, the main attraction took the stage and slowly uncurled its namesake song, the epic title track to the 1970 debut “Black Sabbath.” Osbourne’s vocals, which have ranged greatly in quality over the years, sounded comparatively strong on this night — powerful, confident and (mostly) clear. The 67-year-old former reality TV star also showed a goodly amount of energy, running about and clapping his hands.
The group then charged through “Fairies Wear Boots,” from the 1970 quadruple-platinum effort “Paranoid.” Iommi starred in this song, like he did in so many others. The supremely talented guitarist, who has battled cancer in recent years, was a regular volcano of riffs, firing off leads so hot they should’ve come with warning labels.
The sold-out crowd, numbering some 13,000, reacted with great enthusiasm to the heavy metal onslaught. The fans, many of whom were old enough to possibly remember buying “Paranoid” on eighttrack tape, sang along at top volume and pumped their firsts for much of the approximately two-hour show.
The set list drew almost exclusively from the band’s first three albums. Unfortunately, Sabbath only played one track (“Snowblind”) from what is, by far, its best album — 1972’s “Vol. 4” — and it entirely skipped 1973’s “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.” Hearing the title track to the later, after all, should be required at all Sabbath shows.
Sabbath did find time for “Dirty Women,” a tune that stands as one of the few reasons for listening to the band’s seventh studio album, 1976’s “Technical Ecstasy.” It also performed “God Is Dead?” from “13,” the band’s 19th — and supposedly final — album.
Supporting Iommi, Osbourne and Butler — three founding members of the band — was Tommy Clufetos, a powerhouse drummer who has worked with Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie and others. Clufetos was handling the beats and rhythms originally made famous by Bill Ward, who left the fold in 2013.
The band closed the main set with an epic run through “Children of the Grave,” which featured more fireworks from Iommi, and then returned for an encore of “Paranoid.”