TOUR REVIEWS

July 17th - New England Dodge Music Center - Hartford, CT, U.S.

Mark Mihalek:

I saw Sabbath in Hartford last night (7/17). They were awesome...easily the best that I've seen them since the reunion.  Ozzy was the best I've seen him ever, and the first time I saw him live was in 1983!  Bill was great, much better than last year.  Tony and Geezer were flawless, as usual.  Ozzy was the real shocker.  He was all over the stage, jumping, and what not.  During "Black Sabbath", after he had thrown water on the crowd, a roadie (I think it was his assistant Tony) came out with a towel to wipe off Ozzy's teleprompter.  After Ozzy finished the "Big black shape with eyes of fire" verse, the roadie was trying to slink to the back of the stage.  Ozzy appeared to try to grab him, and keep him onstage.  The roadie got away.  It was quite funny.  Ozzy really appeared to be enjoying himself. 

They played the FULL European set, including "Fairies Wear Boots"!  Tony did a very long and great solo at the end of "Dirty Women".  They were supposed to start at 9:30, but went on closer to 9:20, so that's probably why they played a little longer.  When they came out for the encore, Ozzy mentioned to the crowd that it was Geezer's birthday and led the crowd in "Happy Birthday".  A great show, which made up for a pretty shitty day, considering the rain, heat, crap opening bands, gobs of flying turf from the lawn (one of which hit me squarely on the side of my face), and sound problems during Iron Maiden's set.

Sabbath really seem to be playing great right now.  I wish they were going to actually do the long awaited new album - now is the time!

I did the autograph thing at the FYE booth at Ozzfest.  Even though I already had copies of both Tony and Geezer's CD's, getting the chance to meet them and shake their hands was worth it!  Bill Ward was actually at the booth with them.  Geezer had Pedro Howse signing with him.  The line for Tony was longer, but the line for the Mudvayne signing that was going on was MUCH longer than both. I  have a hard time believing that people would actually rather meet them than Tony and Geezer.  I think I forgot to mention that when I went up to meet Tony, he had a brace on his right wrist (fret hand).  I assume that was for his carpal tunnel?