Black Sabbath - Burning the Cross (live in Sydney 1980) Ex SB

(U.K 1968–2006, 2011–present)
.
Black Sabbath are a British rock band, formed in Birmingham in 1968 by Ozzy Osbourne (lead vocals), Tony Iommi (guitar), Geezer Butler (bass guitar), and Bill Ward (drums).
The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. As one of the first and most influential heavy metal bands of all time, Black Sabbath helped define the genre with releases such as quadruple-platinum Paranoid, released in 1970.
Vocalist Ozzy Osbourne's drinking led to his being fired from the band in June, 1979. He was replaced by former Rainbow vocalist Ronnie James Dio who fronted Sabbath on two albums, 'Heaven and Hell ' and 'Mob Rules'. Dio was best known for his soaring vocal prowess and a trademark dark stage persona, as well as for reportedly popularizing a "devil horn" hand gesture, one of metal's references to the dark side. Dio left Black Sabbath in November 1982 to start his own band, and took drummer Vinny Appice with him. Sadly, Dio passed away on 16 May 2010, at the age of 67.
.
Burning The Cross is one of the best and most rare Black Sabbath bootleg CDs from the Dio era. Strictly limited to 500 copies and supposed to be made in Australia, this one has become a real collectors item. Besides that the CD includes great soundboard recordings from Black Sabbath's 1980 "Heaven And Hell" tour. The cover of the CD says that the recordings were from Newcastle Civic Theatre, NSW., Australia, 27th November 1980 while Black Sabbath actually played the Capitol Theatre in Sydney on that day. [www.black-sabbath.de/bootlegs]

.This is an excellent soundboard recording of Sabbath at the the height of their World 'Heaven and Hell' Tour. It is called "Burning The Cross" due to Ronnie James Dio's comments during the song "Heaven And Hell", where he makes reference to newspaper reports on Rev. Fred Nile who claimed that Black Sabbath burned crosses and killed babies. This without a doubt, has the best version of Heaven and Hell I have ever heard. The mix is crushing...every instrument can be heard clearly and the atmosphere created here cannot be matched. This is even more amazing considering Vinny Appice has been in the band about 3 months and Geezer is playing with a broken finger. This version is also famous in Sabbath-lore because during the middle of the song, Sabbath lights a cross on fire. It was a gimmick to mock Rev. Fred Nile, who demonized Sabbath in the press prior to their Australian Tour. Dio mentions him in the second part of the song.
.
The rip was taken from a master tape at 320kps (sourced from the venue's soundboard) and I have also included various cover artwork for this concert. (Thanks to LiborioFriki at for this superior rip of the concert)
.
Track Listing
01. Supertzar
02. War Pigs
03. Neon Knight
04. NIB
05. Children Of The Sea
06. Sweet Leaf & Drum Solo
07. Black Sabbath
08. Heaven & Hell
09. Iron Man
10. Die Young
11. Paranoid
.
Band Members:
Tony Iommi (guitar)
Ronnie James Dio (vocals)
Geoff Nicholls (keyboards)
Geezer Butler (bass)
Vinny Appice (drums)
.
Black Sabbath Link (169Mb) New Link 17/12/2023
.