Posted 09.26.2008

Dance of the dinosaurs: Yes and Black Sabbath

By Mike Cote

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Yes, the group is heading out on tour this year—minus ailing singer Jon Anderson.  And, Black Sabbath’s recent reunion with early ‘80s Ozzy Osbourne replacement Ronnie James Dio was a surprising success, prompting the lineup—touring for legal reasons as “Heaven and Hell”—to follow up the tour with its first studio album since 1992.

YES Yes: The New Director’s Cut (DVD) (MVD Visual)

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Yes, the group is heading out on tour this year—minus ailing singer Jon Anderson.

And he ain’t happy about it, posting a note on his website about his disappointment and how only drummer Alan White has bothered to call him since Anderson was diagnosed with acute respiratory illness.

So much for the “love is the only thing that matters” comments Anderson made to audience during the UK prog-rock band’s 35th anniversary tour, perhaps the last time fans will get to see the lineup of Anderson, fellow original member bass player Chris Squire, guitarist Steve Howe, drummer White and keyboardist Rick Wakeman (replaced in the current tour by his son, Ollie.)

“Yes—The New Director’s Cut” captures the band over two concerts in 2003 at the NIA, Birmingham and Glastonbury Festival. Although these guys even then we’re looking pretty old—especially the skeletal Howe—their inspired performances of such ‘70s classics as “Southside of the Sky,” “Awaken,” And You and I,” and, of course, “Roundabout” are more than worth the price of the two-disc DVD set.

But you can’t help think “Spinal Tap” during some of the interview segments interspersed (sparingly, thankfully) within the concert footage. Maybe we’ll see Anderson standing on the edge of the stage at a show later in this year’s tour, waiting to be egged on by the band to join them—and push his sound-alike replacement aside.

BLACK SABBATH The Rules of Hell (Rhino)

Black Sabbath’s recent reunion with early ‘80s Ozzy Osbourne replacement Ronnie James Dio was a surprising success, prompting the lineup—touring for legal reasons as “Heaven and Hell”—to follow up the tour with its first studio album since 1992.

In the meantime, there’s The Rules of Hell, which collects all the Dio years material to date: the studio discs Heaven and Hell (1980), Mob Rules (1981) and Dehumanizer (1992) and the double-CD concert album Live Evil. The remastered albums also will be available individually Oct. 7.

In all honesty, I didn’t pay much attention to this brand of heavy metal high-shrieking buffoonery the first time around. The video for the title track of Heaven and Hell, with a sea of high school-age white boys raising their hands in unison, just made me bust up laughing even at age 17.

But all these years later, I have college-age sons who remind me to take this stuff for what it is: hard-banging goofball fun. This brand of “classic rock” is enjoying newfound popularity on the Rock Band video game, which includes a tune or two of the Ozzy-era version of Sabbath.

I know: I heard one of my sons’ friends shrieking in the basement.

Last updated on Nov 24, 2009 at 09:20 AM