Black Sabbath - Live Evil (Live) (1982)

Black Sabbath - Live Evil (Live) (1982)

Tracklist front / back album covers

Side A

1. "E5150"   2:21

2. "Neon Knights"   4:36

3. "N.I.B."   5:09

4. "Children of the Sea"   6:05

5. "Voodoo"   6:07

Side B

6. "Black Sabbath"   8:39

7. "War Pigs"   9:19

8. "Iron Man"   7:29

Side C

9. "The Mob Rules"   4:10

10. "Heaven and Hell"   12:04

Side D

11. "The Sign of the Southern Cross/Heaven and Hell (Continued)"   7:15

12. "Paranoid"   3:46

13. "Children of the Grave"   5:25

14. "Fluff" (Butler, Iommi, Osbourne, Ward)  0:59

^ "War Pigs" contains a drum solo from Vinny Appice, and "Heaven and Hell" contains a guitar solo from Tony Iommi.

The UK cassette release had, as its first side, sides 1 and 3 of the vinyl release, with side two of the cassette being vinyl sides 2 and 4.[citation needed] It seems this was not a mistake, rather a money-saving exercise, since the running-times of the two sides of the tape were more-or-less equal in this configuration.

The US cassette release has, as its first side, sides 1 and almost all of 2 except for "Iron Man" which fades out at end of Side 1. Then the second side began with "Iron Man" (via fade in) and sides 3 and 4 were intact. This was done to make the sides of the cassette of nearly equal length.

The first UK CD release omitted "War Pigs" (or "Warpigs" as it was titled in the explanation for its cutting, printed on the rear of the tray-insert), so as to fit onto a single CD. The 1996 UK remaster restored this track but cut much of the stage banter, so as to again fit onto a single CD: this reduced the 'live' feel of the recordings.

In the US Warner Brothers released a 2-CD set, which matched the running order of the vinyl. Each of these WB CDs came in its own jewel case, complete with artwork, rather than a 2CD jewel case.

Universal Music Corporation released a "deluxe edition" worldwide in 2010 which contained the entire album in its original running order.

 

Black Sabbath Band Members / Musicians

Tony Iommi – guitar

Geezer Butler – bass guitar

Ronnie James Dio – vocals (Credited as Ronnie Dio)

Vinny Appice – drums

Geoff Nicholls – keyboards

Neither Appice nor Nicholls are given full credits, instead being listed under "Special Thanks".

Recorded with The Record Plant Mobile, Los Angeles

Engineered by Lee De Carlo and Bill Freesh

Mobile crew: Bill Hutcheson, Jim Scott, Scott Stogel

Mixed at The Record Plant, Los Angeles

Remastered by Dan Hersch (2008 reissue)

Album cover concept by Paul Clark

Art direction and design by Jay Vigon

Illustration by Stan Watts

Photography by Mark Weiss and Par Harbron

Live Evil is the first official live album by English heavy metal band Black Sabbath. 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.

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 1982 tour in support of the Mob Rules album, but doesn't give specific information on which songs were performed in which 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."