If you are looking for raw sound and a musical energy that is unlike anything else in how unforgiving and forceful it is, then look no further than Black Sabbath.
They were so hard-hitting and infectious that they created their own genre of music as artists everywhere wanted to tap into the magic that Sabbath was so beautifully brandishing.
Their first album, Black Sabbath, was recorded over two days, predominantly done live, perfectly capturing the beautiful rawness of the band.
The same applied to their second album, Paranoid, which was so popular it shot the band to stardom. After that, they were headline acts for the rest of their careers, and as such, the musical pioneers had some of the most exciting up-and-comers in rock supporting them.
For some reason, Sabbath always struggled to get the right support acts on their tour, though. It wasn’t that they had bad artists backing them; quite the opposite, they had some artists who would become massive names in rock.
With undeniable talent that couldn’t be ignored, given Sabbath always relied on raw energy for their gigs, it was often quite hard following the bands they’d enlisted to open for them.
They had this issue with Van Halen, who blew crowds away with their musical ability and different ways of playing guitar.
Tony Iommi still looks at Eddie Van Halen and the music he inspired in awe, as he said, “Eddie was playing things I’d never seen before… We’re still friends, and we became friends then.
Of course, he set off a whole new load of players playing like that, and now I can’t believe some of them. I can’t follow it. I certainly couldn’t do it.”
Another pioneering rock band who supported Sabbath was Kiss. While their music might have been classic stadium rock, the way that the band presented themselves was truly next level, to the point that Black Sabbath ended up regretting taking them on tour because they were too difficult to follow.
“Kiss was the first one to use pyro,” said Geezer Butler, reminiscing about their tour with the band. “You’ve never seen that.
I mean, the shock of that. And they were supporting us, so they weren’t even headlining. I went out and watched them.
There were all these flames coming out the stage and everything. It was like ‘Oh my God, what’s going on here?’”
Butler talked about how hard it was to follow a band like Kiss when crowds weren’t used to such extravagant set design.
“It was a completely new direction for people,” he said, “People had to start thinking about stage production after Kiss. It was tough to follow them.
We went on just as an ordinary band, no effects or anything, and everybody else still had their mouths wide open from seeing Kiss.”
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