HEAVEN AND HELL: LIVE FROM RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL

Apparently someone wouldn't sign off on the use of the name, but make no mistake, this is a new 2007 Black Sabbath concert featuring Ronnie James Dio and Vinny Appice with Tony and Geezer. Filmed at the Radio City Music Hall in front of an adoring audience the band pumps out every essential track from the Dio era (and nothing from the Ozzy era.)

After a perfectly executed opening of E5150 to get the fans juices moving they stall a bit with "After All" before launching into "The Mob Rules." From that point on things go reasonably well. While Dio looks shaky at first he eventually finds his footing and delivers vocals that are remarkably good in terms of range and power. Appice holds his own although he too looks like he needs oxygen a bit too often. Tony and Geezer look pretty much timeless as they effortlessly deliver their trademark boom and crunch, Tony's leads full of the volume and bite you'd expect. His sound at times is just stoked with adrenalin, really loud in the mix with the rapid fire notes like the solo prior to "Die Young." He still possesses that amazing ability to control and harness the volume to the edge of feedback, or beyond. The show is shot very well with good camera work, high definition, minimal artsy nonsense, and killer sound (5.1 surround for those systems.) They stumble badly in one critical place and that is the closer "Neon Knights" where the pace was slow and the energy flat-lining a bit. But all in all the performance was decent considering the age factor. Performance aside I was not able to get fully on-board with the event however because Sabbath at this point has become largely Vegas like so many other old acts pumping out the decades past in permanent reunion modes. You have stars that are really not able to sit down and record quality, relevant band studio albums anymore-and you know that each "event" is just that, something that will not last. (There are a couple of new tracks recorded in '06 as bonuses for a compilation, if that feels relevant to you.) If this doesn't bother you then you may well enjoy it much more but for me it limits how high I can rate this. It's a good show but it is certainly not an essential title in your collection. There is a bonus documentary with interviews and the like.

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