BLACK SABBATH - Tweeter Center At The Waterfront, Camden, NJ

Intro - Sabbath Medley -> Supertzar, War Pigs, N.I.B., Fairies Wear Boots, Into The Void, Black Sabbath, Iron Man, Children Of The Grave, Encore: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (intro only) -> Paranoid, Outro - Supertzar

ROB HALFORD Joins forces with BLACK SABBATH Again

Notes: Definitely the most sought after recording from the OZZFEST 2004 tour. This was the show that featured Rob Halford on lead vocals, replacing Ozzy at the last moment due to his bronchitis. The band dropped Snowblind from the set list for the Camden show. It is said that Halford performed to a very mixed reception from the Camden audience, most of which were either disappointed or angry about Ozzy’s no show.

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Notes from www.sabbathlive.com

Definitely the most sought after recording from the OZZFEST 2004 tour. This was the show that featured Rob Halford on lead vocals, replacing Ozzy at the last moment due to his bronchitis. The band dropped “Snowblind” from the set list for the Camden show. It is said that Halford performed to a very mixed reception from the Camden audience, most of which were either disappointed or angry about Ozzy’s no show. Regardless of the reviews, the historical significance of this pairing was lost on no one.

The pro-shot video that is currently making the rounds was first brought to my attention in October 2004. A person sent me a 1-song sampler DVD (containing "Children Of The Grave") to confirm the existence of the video, which was taken from a direct line recording of the A/V feed for the projection screens. (Note – There have been a number of other pro-shot Camden shows circulating, including shows from Audioslave and David Lee Roth.)

Around that time, I had also received word of a possible unofficial Japanese release on audio CD and DVD, but this never materialized. In the meantime, Sabbath fans salivated over the prospect of such a film and whether it would ever surface.

In December 2004, a complete copy of the Camden 2004 DVD appeared on E-bay. Within weeks, many Sabbath collectors had grabbed up copies through either purchase or trade copies. Inevitably, the disc was also posted on Easytree! Needless to say, Sabbath’s management has probably been none too pleased with this unanticipated leak. Nevertheless, I have my doubts they would have released the film commercially, both because of the overall performance and the legal complications of Halford being involved.

The introduction for the video is ‘black’ (no video feed), but contains an audio recording of the introductions that were given by local DJ Tommy Conwell and drummer Bill Ward.

"Philadelphia, you are about to witness a once in a lifetime performance. Unfortunately, I've come down with bronchitis and will not be able to perform tonight. However, my good mate from Birmingham, the "Metal God" himself - Mr. Rob Halford, has graciously agreed to step in and sing for me this evening." Conwell went on to explain - "This is from Ozzy. Let me here you go fucking crazy for Mr. Rob Halford.”

Although it’s hard to tell from this direct line recording, the reception to this declaration was quite mixed. Many hardcore Sabbath fans were disappointed about Ozzy not appearing, but also quite amazed that they would be witnessing a historic moment. Some younger fans who had never seen Ozzy and Black Sabbath perform together weren’t quite as understanding. After Conwell finished Ozzy’s letter to the Camden audience, Bill Ward made a short, but uncharacteristically aggressive speech. Bill assured the audience that regardless of how they felt, they were going to play their f*cking balls off!

The video portion of the film begins with the complete introductory collage of old Black Sabbath photos backed with the “Sabbath Medley” intro. The 2nd half of the intro film begins with a woman’s shriek and Boris Karloff’s voice saying “This is Black Sabbath!” The music for “Supertzar” is cued here and the sirens begin whining shortly thereafter to signal the beginning of “War Pigs”. Unfortunately, there is no live performance footage of the band during this song, as there is a song length war video accompanying the song.

At the conclusion of “War Pigs”, we get our first glimpse of the band AND its singer for one-night-only, Rob Halford! With his shaven head and almost pointed looking ears, Rob almost looks like one of the characters from the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. Being both a huge Judas Priest and Black Sabbath fan, I (like many fans) had high expectations for Halford’s performance, even expecting him to easily surpass an average Ozzy performance. Unfortunately, the reality didn’t quite hold up to my fantasy scenario. Rob’s performance was decent under the circumstances, under which he had little time for preparation and a set of Judas Priest material to tackle beforehand. He simply had to trust his memory of these Sabbath classics and simply “get it on”.

Halford’s uneasiness was almost palpable during the first three songs. His vocal meter during “N.I.B.” and “Fairies” had a sort of bouncy, unnatural feel and his tone seemed a little thin and reedy for those songs. I suppose we could write some of his awkwardness off to a lack of preparation, since he hardly had time to adapt these songs for his style. “Into The Void” (which he had performed in Costa Mesa back in ’92) gave Rob a bit more of a comfort zone and sounded much better than the opening songs. “Snowblind” was dropped from the set that evening, so there was no need for him to tackle that one. Although he fares okay on the remaining numbers, he suffers a moment of embarrassment at the very end of the show after botching the final verses to “Paranoid”.

Rob Halford obviously fared much better at the Costa Mesa shows in November ’92, when he replaced Ronnie James Dio for their DEHUMANIZER grand finale. Sadly for us, the Costa Mesa ’92 films cannot compare to the quality of this excellent digital video source. Still, it’s wonderful to see all of these guys together onstage having some fun together for this one unique concert in New Jersey. Rob’s admiration for BLACK SABBATH is obvious and he appears to be quite humbled by his fateful opportunity. The curiosity factor of seeing the legendary Judas Priest singer perform an entire set with the original Black Sabbath will be plenty enough for people to ignore my criticisms and judge the show for themselves.

The following are some of the previously published statements from Halford and the members of SABBATH about the Camden performance:

Rob Halford: "That was a remarkable moment in itself. I mean, that just came out of the blue one day. It was the day after my birthday, actually. I was in Philadelphia and we had a show that evening in [New] Jersey. And I got a call from Sharon [Osbourne]. And I thought she was calling me to say, 'Did you get the gift that Ozzy and myself sent you?' which was like this really beautiful hand-made luggage with, like, skulls and crossbones all over it — typical Osbourne material. But then she said Ozzy wasn't feeling too good and he got a really bad case of bronchitis and he couldn't sing, so 'Can you help us out?' And I said, 'Sure, what do you want me to do?' 'Well, can you sing tonight?' 'You're kidding me!' I'm about two hours away from a PRIEST show. [And she said], 'We really need your help, because if we can't have you kind of helping out, stepping in for Ozzy, then SABBATH will have to cancel,' which would have been nothing short of a riot had that happened. So I said to Sharon, 'It's a bit short notice, but send me a tape of everything that they do' — I'd seen most of the shows standing on the side of the stage, being the BLACK SABBATH fan that I am — but she sent me a video of the performance and I was singing along with Ozzy in the back of the tour bus going to the show. Got off the bus, did the PRIEST show, took a shower, [and] 10 minutes later I was back out fronting SABBATH. And it was such a whirlwind. I mean, I got back to the hotel room that night and my whole body was, like, humming. Like it was this [makes buzzing noise] going on for two days. As I said, being a huge BLACK SABBATH fan, it was just an ultimate moment for me. But yeah, you do what you can. I mean, Ozzy and I, we're mates. We've known each other forever; we're from the same neighborhood in Birmingham. The originators of metal are SABBATH and PRIEST, so it was a spectacular evening." [from interview with Doug Podell on Detroits’ WRIF FM]

Bill Ward: "When [Ozzy] fell sick, we had a very difficult situation to deal with, and before going any further, I want to salute every single audience member at the now infamous Camden, NJ gig. I love playing Camden, and my heart went out to that audience. Rob Halford deserves a medal for coming in like he did. Rob was great. There is no doubt. I think that night, everybody — Tony, Geezer, Rob and myself — worked our nuts off. We were very sorry that the Camden audience was disappointed, and at such a late hour in that day. We poured it out, and now I think there's a live bootleg somewhere, of that show."

Tony Iommi: "One thing that sticks in my mind [about last year's Ozzfest] was the day in New Jersey when Ozzy couldn't perform so we had Rob Halford sing, which was the second time he saved the day for us." [Halford had previously joined SABBATH for two gigs to support Ozzy on his last shows for the "No More Tours" tour in November 1992 in Costa Mesa, CA after SABBATH's singer at the time, Ronnie James Dio, refused to take the stage.]

"At first we were worried, because people expect Ozzy, but if Rob hadn't helped us out, there wouldn't have been a show at all. When our manager told me Ozzy had bronchitis and couldn't sing, he asked me what I thought about Rob doing it. I said, 'I think it's a good idea as long as you tell everybody beforehand so they know.' Of course, they told the audience right before we went onstage, so I thought, 'Oh, no.' But the crowd received him really well."