There were not many live albums in 1980.
There were two bands that recorded original material live and released it. Probably because they did not have the financial support or wherewithal to properly record a debut. Those were Vardis and A-II-Z. The Vardis record is the better of the two, but really it is nothing special.
Whitesnake had a live album as well, but I find their early material too bluesy, so not really to my taste.
Reluctantly, Nems' Live at Last performed by Black Sabbath is the best live record of the year. The sound quality here is about the same as a good bootleg, so nothing great. Some of the classics are already tired here in 1973 when it was recorded. The versions of War Pigs and Paranoid offer nothing interesting. Snowblind sounds ridiculous. Sweet Leaf and Children of the Grave are marginal at best.
There are some highlights here, though. Killing Yourself to Live, with alternate lyrics, is great. This version of Cornucopia is also well done. The real gem here is the 18plus minute medley of Wicked World. Other that the requisite Iommi wank-fest, the rest of the 18 minutes is really good old Sabbath playing some great riffs and snippets of their material (Supernaut and Into the Void).
2 comments:
Anything with Ozzy is awesome. He is A number 1!
There were really no metal albums out in 1980. Maybe Judas Priest, but most of that stuff is lame.
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