Saturday Night May 12th Cobo Arena Detroit Tickets were $60 a piece after all of Tickemasters BS fee's. The seats were good though so I can't complain. Well the crowd was mostly drunken metalheads but for the most part decent. We ended up in a row though with some chick and a couple other losers who drank to much bear and had to get up to piss every other song. Thats just weak. Also apparently we got the section where people had no idea where their actual seats were and there was much confusion. Jebus it's not that hard, idiots. There was also the musclebound meathead near us that needed to try and dance in his seat, play air guitar, air drums and... air singing! It was a chore containing our laughter! Those minor annoyances aside it was a great time. Doors were at 7 and Megadeth promptly started at 7:30. Sound was great from the get go and they played almost an hour of there best material. Dave and the band were in fine form and did not miss a beat. In fact I was rather impressed with Dave, his playing and even singing were spot on and clear. He looked healthy too, amazing what difference a bit of sobriety can make. I'm not the biggest Megadeth fan by a longshot but they were really good, and the sound was as good as you could imagine. He talked a bit to the crowd and seemed happy and gracious as well, class act. They played a wicked Holy Wars for an encore and got a huge ovation at the end. Good stuff. Black Sabbath took the stage at exactly 8:30. It's nice to see a show so well organized that everything runs like this, impressive. They had a really cool stage set which sorta looked like an ancient stone church. The lighting/fx throughout was very well done and not cheesy in the least. I've seen Sabbath with Ozzy before (which was another great show) but this was my first Dio experience ever haha. Again i'm not the biggest Dio fan but the guy was one of the most amazing singers I have ever heard live. He's almost 60, tiny, and has to sing over a huge sounding metal band. Bottom line is this guy has talent, and lots of it. He pulled everything off in spades, nailing all the high notes and singing very melodically, love em or hate him he's a fantastic singer. You had old faithful Geezer Butler on Bass, another great talent who just stood there and played, and played damn good. When you hear this guy play it becomes apparent why Sabbath sounds so heavy. Vinny Appice was on drums (Carmens brother) and same thing as with geezer this guy is a monster player. Nothing terribley fancy but he beat the shit out of his rather large kit and had a cool solo spot where he got to stretch out a bit and play a lot of really cool shit. Tony Iommi on guitar. I really don't have to say anything else about this guy do I? Ok well I will say one thing, his rhythm sound was jaw dropping, however when he went for the solos it was a bit hard to hear, to trebbley and gainy and it ended up sounding a bit washed out, just not clear enough. But it's a minor complaint really as this guy is the consummate metal guitarist. They played for two hours which consisted of material primarily off of Heaven & Hell and Mob rules. A couple songs from Dehumanizer and a couple new ones also made it. The new stuff sounds pretty good actually, so who knows maybe they will stick it out and record a brand new album. Speaking of which a lot of this tour is because of the newly released Black Sabbath the Dio years album. If you are a stalwart Ozzy fan or have never bothered much with Sabbath but like metal, check this album out I doubt you will be dissapointed. The song Heaven and Hell was the last of the set and it was incredible, Dio had the whole audience singing the lyrics and they extended the song out quite a bit. Roaring applause, they leave the stage, roaring applause they come back and do a screaming version of Neon Knights. Some little kid in our section about half way into the show tossed out a homemade cross into the main floor and at the end Dio held it up high haha! It seemed like the entire band (especially Dio) had a great time and were all just fantastic musicians playing great metal songs to an audience who while quite drunken certainly appreciates the music. It would have been interesting to see them do a Dio song or old Sabbath tune but really it wasn't necessary and overall I was satisfied with all aspects of the concert. It was a very speedy show and a joy to not have to sit through any crap opening bands. Just two legendary metal bands, doing what they do best. Both Megadeth and Sabbath get a 9/10. Go see these bands! \m/
I saw them last month on the 24th and it was awesome. I was on the floor and was right in front of Iommi. I didn't really care for the openers. I came to see Sabbath, 'scuse me "heaven and hell"... i could hear pretty well from where i was. ronnie was a little muffled but that may have been because i was up front w/out earplugs... but fortunately i found a bootleg online of the show and downloaded it so i could relive it again and again. i'm rather glad they decided not to play any ozzy material, Dio is a great singer and all but he doesn't do ozzy's songs right. well right is the wrong word because his interpretation of the songs aren't right or wrong but i just don't like the way they sounded. and we don't need to hear ozzy material anyways, they have plenty of Dio material to choose from. but then this is all my opinion JOn
