Black Sabbath concert review

Black Sabbath with special guest, Kansas. This was the concert immediately after the New York Madison Square Garden show. The band was on a high because they were winding down on a great tour. I had just purchased the new album "Sabotage". What an album. Still my favorite Sabbath LP of all time.

I had never seen such a crowd like this one. There was an air of total drugged-out craziness. Everyone looked like they were completely spaced out on some type of illegal substance. We walked by the right hand side of the stage and watched some people in the crowd lift up a girl and pass her over the barriers to the security force. She was all dressed in black, had jet black hair, black lipstick and was passed out. Her pale, sickly white face was a heightened contrast to the color of her clothes and makeup. It looked like as if she were dead. It was very creepy looking. We made our way into the back of the crowd and started walking towards the front of the stage to get as close as we could. It was general admission with no reserved seats and standing room only on the floor area. About 25 rows away from the front stage we could push our way no further into the crowd and we stopped there and were ready to enjoy the show. It was about 10 minutes past 8pm and the music being played over the sound system was the King Crimson song "Larks’ Tongues In Aspic (Part I)".

Ozzy, as usual, was getting the crowd rowdy the entire evening. I remember the songs played from the Sabotage LP that night were "Symptom Of The Universe", "Hole in the Sky" and "Megalomania"

We made our way out to the exit doors which abruptly exited from the arena directly onto a busy street. The cold & crisp December air hit my face like a cold, wet towel. There were four guys in front of us and one was holding a red carnation while telling the story of Bill Ward throwing the flowers into the crowd after the last song. [Bill Ward’s signature for the Sabotage tour was a new drum set with a giant clamshell-shaped fiberglass shell which bounced the drum sounds towards the audience. On the front of his snare & tom kits was a bunch of red carnations in a vase].