What is this that stands before me?

[Some Bozo]

Three figures in black! And some drummer. Sabbath show at Vector in AK was very good. Ozzy was in much better form than I was expecting, in good voice and doing more jumping on the spot than his knees can probably take these days. His face did kind of blend in with the zombie movie clips on the background screens. Geezer's fingers looked very old on the closeups too, but fuck me were they moving! Tony was great, obviously. He's moved away from the fuzzy proto-sludge tones and has more of a modern high gain sound from the wall of Laneys, very muscular low end, screaming leads, nice chunky pick attack for those classic biting accented notes.
I did miss Bill Ward though. Tommy Clufetos was a good drummer, very tight; technically flawless and metronomic but that's not what classic Sabbath is about. You could probably replace him with any good modern Industrial/strpper beats type of drummer and it would sound the same. He executed all of bill's patterns, but there wasn't much of that funky booty-shaking swing. I did get the sense that the "Sabbath" was all coming from the guitar, bass, and voice, over the top of a drum sound from a modern metal band that's not particularly Sabbath-influenced. Still a very good drummer though, his long solo got the audience going.
Setlist was well chosen, played just about everything I wanted to hear. Sabbath bloody Sabbath was only done as a brief instrumental, ozzy can't sing the high part any more. Overall a very good show by 3/4 of Sabbath!

[Marshall]

It rOOOoooOOOoooOOOcked! \m/ \m/

[shinenz]

That was a fuckin amazing concert ( Sat Night), I'd have that drummer over Bill sorry, I've watched loads of Bill, half the time he misses out the signature timing on War Pigs, and I'd like to see him do that "12 min solo" that was freekin Epic. Once in a lifetime concert for me, and I can't rate it highly enough IMO. Thought Ozzy did amazing... couple of dull moments with new songs, but " we don't know them" so to be expected with any new track pre release. Love Geezer, magic fingers...Tony was as I have always pictured him, A warlock on the guitar!!! Fuckin Epic, memories of a lifetime from that night

[slash-ed]

That drum solo was a boring waste of time.

[sty]

I'm not a big fan of drum solos, even from the likes of Neil Peart, but I actually enjoyed the solo on Monday night. MInd you I was really impressed with the drummer, I thought he was a monster. Interesting how it divides people though.

One thing that struck me though was that I'd forgotten just how Heavy Sabbath were. Listening back to the albums over the last couple of weeks they don't sound all that heavy compared to todays music, but I just don't think they were able/into mastering stuff that heavy back then. BUT with a great sound in a live environment that stuff was really heavy, possibly why the drummer worked for me.

Anyway, awesome show and probably one for the memory banks as I'd be surprised if we ever see them again down here...

[slash-ed]

I don't know if it was just my preconception, but I felt starkly aware of the drummer sounding 'separate' from the other three... He just sounded more modern and a touch more clinical to me.

[shinenz]

That drum solo was a boring waste of time.