WE SAILED ACROSS THE AIR
BEFORE WE LEARNED TO FLY
WE THOUGHT THAT
IT COULD NEVER END
WE'D GLIDE ABOVE THE GROUND
BEFORE WE
LEARNED TO RUN...RUN
NOW IT SEEMS OUR WORLD
HAS COME UNDUN
is the first
official
live album
by the English
heavy metal band
The previously released
Live at Last
(1980)
was not sanctioned
by the band.
Live Evil
peaked at
number 37
on the Billboard
Pop Albums chart.
Recording
In early 1982,
Black Sabbath's
publishing deal
with their previous
management expired.
By re-recording
several songs from
their earlier catalog
and releasing them
as a live album,
all the songwriters
stood to see a hefty profit
from the publishing royalties.
The liner notes state
that the album was
recorded in Seattle,
San Antonio
and Dallas
during the
Mob Rules Tour,
but doesn't give
specific information on
which songs were performed
in which location.
However, 2023's
40th Anniversary
Deluxe Edition
does indicate
each song's
recording date
and location,
In his autobiography
Iron Man:
My Journey Through
Heaven & Hell
with Black Sabbath,
guitarist
Tony Iommi
recalls that the band's
live show during
this period featured
"lots of pyro with fire and bombs"
and that while playing
the Hammersmith Odeon
the bombs had been
tested and
"blew a two-foot-wide hole
in the floor on my side.
If I'd been there,
I would have been blown up.
Christ,
it was dangerous.
" Iommi also admits that the band
had to cancel a show at
Madison Square Garden
when the bombs blew out
the tubes in all the amps
during the first note
of the first song
"War Pigs".
In the liner notes
to the 2008 retrospective
The Rules of Hell,
vocalist
Ronnie James Dio
remembers,
"It was an excellent tour.
I think we were probably
riding quite high on the
Heaven and Hell success,
and so we ended up
playing really, really well.
Even towards the
end the shows
were still great."
Tension, however,
had been building for some time
between the band members,
with rock journalist
Steffan Chirazi
observing in 2008
that the story behind
the creation of
Live Evil
is one of
"quiet yet savagely
visceral turmoil
and a band
collapsing under their
weight of silence,
unspoken accusation,
and an
unforgiving schedule."
Of the oddly
distant crowd sound,
Iommi remarked:
"We forgot about the audience!"
In the same interview,
asked to choose
"a track that the engineer
didn't cock up",
he said:
"I liked 'Heaven and Hell'
flowing into
'Sign of the Southern Cross'.
It had its moments, that one."
Breakup
During the mixing of
Live Evil,
Dio and drummer
Vinny Appice
abruptly left the group,
leaving original members
Iommi and Geezer Butler
to carry on.
The two factions
would provide
vastly different accounts
of what transpired
as things fell apart.
"Ronnie had started to take over
a little bit too much and
was becoming a bit of a Hitler",
Iommi explained to
Steve Gett
of Guitar
for the Practicing Musician.
"We were working on the
Live Evil record
in Los Angeles,
and in fact we
nicknamed him
'Little Hitler'".
In his 2011 memoir,
Iommi was considerably
less harsh in his summation
of Dio's behaviour, stating
"By then Ronnie did come
over a little more...
I suppose, bossy.
The way he conducted himself,
the way he talked,
it might have given that impression
to the outside world,
but he usually didn't
mean anything by it.
Ronnie was just very outspoken."
Iommi also contends that he
and bassist
Geezer Butler
were concerned about Dio
already rehearsing with
other musicians for
a proposed solo album
offered to him by
Warner Brothers Records.
Dio's account attributed the breakup
to a misunderstanding
arising as the result of
Iommi's drug abuse.
Dio has stated that while he
and Appice were not
interested in drugs,
Iommi and Butler
were using cocaine
very heavily at that time.
When Dio and Appice arrived
at the studio to begin the
Live Evil mixing process,
Iommi and Butler
never showed up.
While waiting for their bandmates
at the studio over a period
of several days,
Dio and Appice
passed the time by listening to
the recordings and frequently
experimented with the mix
by asking the engineer
to adjust the levels of
various parts.
No mixing had commenced,
and the tracks were
merely being listened to.
When Iommi arrived days later,
he asked the engineer
what Dio had been doing
in his absence and
was told that he had
frequently requested
that the vocals be brought up
higher in the mix.
Iommi, in his
drug-addled state,
misunderstood what he
was being told and came to
the conclusion that Dio
was not only mixing
the album without him,
but was trying to push
his own vocals much
too prominently in the mix.
Iommi, a founding member
of the band,
reckoned he had a
power struggle on his hands
and he wasn't about to
relinquish creative control
of Black Sabbath.
Dio steadfastly denied that he
altered the mix
and accused
Iommi and Butler of
fabricating the story.
Iommi later laid the blame
on the engineer.
On the Neon Nights:
30 Years of Heaven and Hell DVD,
both Dio and Appice
claim the mixing sessions
were scheduled to start
in the early afternoon but,
on the third day,
Iommi and Butler
didn't show up
until much later.
This exacerbated the rift
between the new
and original members
until the singer
was asked to leave.
In the same interview series,
Butler described the
Live Evil mixing sessions
as
"the Yanks against the Brits,"
adding,
"I knew things were coming to a close
from some of the things
that were happening on the road.
Ronnie and I would ride in one car,
Geezer and Tony
in another car,
and everybody was
breaking away from
each other a little bit."
TRACKLIST
CD 1
E5150
(Live)
(2023 Remaster)
Neon Knights
(Live)
(2023 Remaster)
N.I.B. (Live)
(2023 Remaster)
Children of the Sea
(Live)
(2023 Remaster)
Voodoo
(Live)
(2023 Remaster)
Black Sabbath
(Live)
(2023 Remaster)
War Pigs
(2023 Remaster)
Iron Man
(Live)
(2023 Remaster)
CD 2
The Mob Rules
(Live)
(2023 Remaster)
Heaven and Hell
(Live)
(2023 Remaster)
The Sign of the Southern Cross /
Heaven and Hell
(Continued)
[Live]
(2023 Remaster)
Paranoid
(Live)
(2023 Remaster)
Children of the Grave
(Live)
(2023 Remaster)
Fluff
(Live)
(2023 Remaster)
BONUS
The Mob Rules
(Heavy Metal Soundtrack Version) [*]
CD 3
E5150
(Live in Seattle, April 24, 1982)
(2023 Remix)
Neon Knights
(Live in Seattle, April 24, 1982)
(2023 Remix)
N.I.B.
(Live in San Antonio, May 13, 1982)
(2023 Remix)
Children of the Sea
(Live in San Antonio, May 13, 1982)
(2023 Remix)
Voodoo
(Live in San Antonio, May 13, 1982)
(2023 Remix)
Black Sabbath
(Live in Dallas, May 12, 1982)
(2023 Remix)
War Pigs / Drum Solo
(Live in San Antonio, May 13, 1982)
(2023 Remix)
Iron Man
(Live in San Antonio, May 13, 1982)
(2023 Remix)
BONUS
Slipping Away
(Hammersmith Odeon 81-82) [*]
Country Girl
(Hammersmith Odeon 81-82) [*]
CD 4
The Mob Rules
(Live in Seattle, April 24, 1982)
(2023 Remix)
Heaven and Hell
(Live in San Antonio, May 13, 1982)
(2023 Remix)
The Sign of the Southern Cross /
Heaven and Hell
(Continued)
[Live in San Antonio, May 13, 1982]
(2023 Remix)
Paranoid
(Live in San Antonio, May 13, 1982)
(2023 Remix)
Children of the Grave
(Live in Fresno, April 18, 1982)
(2023 Remix)
Fluff
(Live in Fresno, April 18, 1982)
(2023 Remix)
BONUS
Die Young
(Live in Hartford) [*]
Lady Evil
(7-inch Mono Edit) [*]
Heaven and Hell
(Vocals Only) [*]
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