TOUR REVIEWS

July 30th - Tweeter Center Chicago - Tinley Park (Chicago), IL, U.S.

K.B.:

Just got home from Tinley Park Ozzfest.  Sabbath played a great set, unfortunately it only lasted about 55 minutes!

Set list

NIB
After Forever
War Pigs
Dirty Women
Fairies Wear Boots
Medley-Symptom/Sweet Leaf/Electric Funeral
Iron Man
SBS [intro] / Paranoid

That's it!  Tony played an extended solo on "Dirty Women" with a jazzish improvisation at the end.   After "Iron Man", Ozzy muttered something, then a quick run through "Paranoid" and they were done.  No encore.  Ozzy's voice was very good throughout, but on "Paranoid" it was weak.  It appeared they cut the show short because Ozzy was getting near the end of his voice for the night.  He did great up until then and the band was spirited as well.

There was also no group "bow" last night either.  It was kind of odd.  When "Paranoid" finished, they left the lights down like an encore was coming.  Eventually the lights went up behind the stage and "Changes"started playing, which told me it was over.  Maybe they wanted to leave it open when the show ended, but decided it wouldn't be a good idea to do another song.  Who knows...

I don't know what's up with Sabbath either.  I had a feeling in my bones that Indy was going to get cancelled.  After hearing poor Oz croak through "Paranoid" last, I felt fortunate to have seen them at all!  The European tour went so well, and the early
Ozzfest dates were good, too, supposedly.  Hope all works out, too!

I also recorded this show on my Sony MZ-R-700 Minidisc player using a Audio Technica Pro 24 microphone.  Quality came out decent, B+ quality at least.

Paul May:

OZ put on a good, solid, professional performance but an educated reviewer like myself could not help but notice he was not his old self.

Nick J.:

Well, obviously you have heard about Black Sabbath's abbreviated set last night.  Ozzy sounded great up until "Iron Man".  During "Iron Man", he was looking over off stage and pointing at his throat rather frantically. A bout half-way through the song his voice just gave out.  After the song he quickly called out that they were going to wrap up the show.  This came out of nowhere and definitely caught Adam Wakeman by surprise as he had already rolled the intro tape for "Black Sabbath".  So they cut the intro tape after a few seconds and went into the "S.B.S." intro and then into "Paranoid".  Embarrassing for the band I imagine.  Definite proof that this short set was not planned. Interesting note: I could see Adam Wakeman playing rhythm guitar on 'Paranoid'.  I can't say whether he doubled guitar on anything else because I only noticed him during that last number.

I taped the show as well.  Sony MZ-R900 with Core Sound Binaurals from Section 102, Row Y.  Unfortunately, I had a bad batch of minidiscs and was fighting "disc error" problems on my recorder all day.  First time that's ever happened and hopefully the last.  Watch out for Sony Gold MDs all you tapers!  It cut out once during Sabbath's set at the end of "War Pigs".  I got the recording resumed right before "Dirty Women".  So luckily, all I missed was a few seconds of "War Pigs" and the band introductions.  The recording is great regardless.  I can say for sure that there are now 3 audio sources for this show including myself, K.B., and another taper I am familiar with.

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