Live Review: Black Sabbath Heaven and Hell/Megadeth/Down, Ottawa Civic Centre, March 28, 2007

Wednesday night, this tour wrapped in Ottawa, playing the Civic Centre to a not-quite-sold-out but considerably well-attended house. Not calling themselves Black Sabbath, for reasons that remain unclear, this lineup focused on material from the "Heaven and Hell", "Mob Rules" and "Dehumanizer" albums, with a couple of lumbering new tracks from next week's "Black Sabbath: The Dio Years" thrown in to keep things fresh, as Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Vinny Appice delivered the goods for an hour and fifty minutes.

The good about this show? Well, it was Sabbath. The sound was unbelievable, as Geezer's bass knocked your ribs together, Iommi's playing was spot on, Appice's beats were powerful, and Dio's 64-year old voice showed no wear and tear - at all. Things started off with "E5150" and then went into "After All", which was an odd choice because it's not a very quick-paced track with which to lead off a show. ("Turn Up the Night" would have been a much better choice.) Perhaps the slow pace of "After All" explains why the next track, "Children of the Sea", dragged a little. By the end of that tune, it sounded like they had lost almost a full beats' worth in comparison to the studio version, but from the beginning of fourth track - "Mob Rules" - onward, it was full-on Sabbath. Highlights of the set for me were "I", "Falling Off the Edge of the World" (after which someone threw a bra up on stage at the very perplexed, 5'4" Gollumized, Rhea Perlman look-alike Ronnie), "Die Young" and encore "Neon Knights". Even the floors underneath us were jouncing from all of the headbanging going on.

The stage was very cool, with the fellas playing in front of what looked like a castle or a dungeon with moving lighting trusses and background graphics. Certainly, they did not skimp on laying out the cash to do things professionally. Unfortunately, that included the piping in of keyboard backing tracks on some numbers, but alas.

I have one overarching quibble about this affair, that needs to be mentioned. Fans of math rock like Yes and Emerson Lake and Palmer may disagree with me, but there's no doubt that in metal circles at least, this is a supergroup. The problem with that is that there was zero interaction between the band members. They didn't look at each other for the whole show. While the musical chemistry was there, I got no overall vibe from these guys as a collective unit, which, I suppose, isn't that suprising considering how this lineup dissolved in acrimony after the 1992 "Dehumanizer" tour. That's not to say it sounded forced or that they were going through the motions - not at all - but it's clear that these guys are certainly not going out for beers after work together.

As for Megadave Megadeth, they put in a solid 50-minute set with "Hangar 18", "Countdown to Extinction" and "A Tout le Monde" all sounding good. As I have written before, I'm not that much of a fan, nor will I be after seeing them last night, but you gotta give credit where credit is due.

Openers Down were nothing special. Of the six tunes my buddy and I saw, there was one guitar solo among them. I'm not a fan of nu-metal, but this band has their devotees as the kids up front were violently moshing. So was the 16-year old behind me with the punishing body odor.

To summarize, this show was good, very good - but I have a couple of "buts".

I suppose you can't please everyone all the time.

Overall ratings:

Heaven and Hell: 8.25/10
Megadeth: 7.75/10
Down: 5/10

Overall rating: 7/10