BLACK SABBATH - Hammersmith Odeon, London

Audience Filmed 77 min

notes from: www.sabbathlive.com

Good to very good (at best) quality. London ’81 is the most complete film that we have from the HEAVEN AND HELL world tour, lacking only the introduction, 1st half of “War Pigs” and possibly an encore of “Children Of The Grave”. But we do get to see one of a kind visual representations of the band performing “Sweet Leaf” with Ronnie, as well as “Lady Evil”. This was the second night of a four-night stand at the Hammersmith Odeon in mid-January 1981.

Technically speaking, the film may be disappointing to those hoping for the perfect specimen. The sound quality is quite distorted and the camera work is very shaky in spots. Also – the lens of the camera was a bit dirty. During the darker scenes, you can see an imprint made upon the dust that was sitting on the lens. This should be a reminder to you amateur videographers to “clean your lenses before filming”! But once you’re at peace with its faults, you’re thankful to have this unique glimpse at one of Sabbath’s last HEAVEN AND HELL era shows.

The filmer was in the center-right side of the balcony (more towards Iommi), thus giving us a fairly unobstructed view of the entire stage. Two large crosses are tilted towards one another from opposite sides of Vinny’s drum riser. Geezer Butler is all in white with a thin, striped tie! Ronnie is dressed a bit more casually in jeans.

The show is often traded as 12/30/80, but this date is definitely incorrect. Sabbath were originally scheduled to perform at the Hammersmith Odeon in London from December 27th through 30th, but later postponed these appearances until the New Year (January 18th and 21st).

But once this had been determined, we were left with the question of which show this was actually from. The date was narrowed down to the January 19th show through a process of elimination, thanks to some detective work by John Maulucci and Gary Dean.

Gary Dean: “I checked all 3 shows & none are the same as the video, in which only leads to one date that may be the correct date for the video. A show no one has [on audio tape] as far as I can see.”

One unique aspect of the London 1/19/81 show is Ronnie’s introduction for “N.I.B.”, which he mistakenly introduces as “Sweet Leaf”. Geezer disregards the mistake and begins the riff to “N.I.B.” Ronnie quickly corrects himself and mutters an apology to the audience.

Intro-Supertzar, War Pigs, Neon Knights, N.I.B., Children Of The Sea, Sweet Leaf, Drum Solo, Sweet Leaf [reprise], Lady Evil, Black Sabbath, Heaven And Hell, Iron Man, Tony Iommi's Guitar Solo, Die Young, Paranoid, Heaven And Hell [reprise], Children Of The Grave,