Black Sabbath - 1972-01-24 - Birmingham, UK (AUD/FLAC)

(Audience FLAC)

Black Sabbath

1972-01-24

Birmingham Town Hall

Birmingham, England, UK

Audience recording

Raw master tape transfer

FLAC

Ozzy Osbourne – Vocals

Tony Iommi – Guitar

Geezer Butler – Bass

Bill Ward – Drums

01. After Forever (04:09 min)

02. Tomorrow's Dream (alt. lyrics) (03:48 min)

03. War Pigs (08:10 min)

04. Sweet Leaf (05:29 min)

05. Iron Man (08:14 min)

Running time: 29:50 min

An alleged "Master->CD-R>EAC>FLAC" (28:43 min) version of this show has been uploaded on Dime and elsewhere a couple of times over the years. I never questioned its lineage - until recently, when Gutlit sent me an unsplit FLAC file containing the raw master tape transfer that was carried out by Rob Dwyer in May 2005. The unsplit file ran 31:56 min. I split it to tracks and removed about 2 min of silence/tape noise from the end of the recording, nothing else was changed by me. The resulting track-split 29:50 min version Is what I am uploading here. Now, while all copies of this show in circulation are clearly from the same taper and contain the same songs, the sound difference between the earlier uploaded, 28:43 min alleged "Master->CD-R>EAC>FLAC" version and the raw master tape transfer I am sharing here is significant. The 29:50 min raw master transfer sounds much more natural yet quite distant and muffled (little high end); the 28:43 min version feels 'closer', it has definitely been EQed and the volume has been boosted, but on the flip side sounds like it was recorded underwater. It also sounds less clean and much noisier than the raw master. Finally, the 28:43 min version apparently has some of the in-between-songs banter removed, which accounts for the difference in running time. My guess is that the 28:43 min version is in fact sourced from a higher gen tape; if it is from the master tape as well, then it must have been remastered very badly IMO. I also would have to be sourced from an earlier (and worse) transfer than the one at hand: Rob's transfer was only carried out in May 2005, the 28:43 min version was first uploaded on Dime in December 2004.

Yet another, unknown gen 29:42 min copy of this show was upped on EZT in 2003 and re-upped on Dime in 2005; it sounds pretty similar to the 28:43 min version. The 30:54 min copy included in the "Forever Acrobat" bootleg sounds similarly bad to my ears, and additionally runs slow.

After all, I clearly prefer this confirmed raw transfer directly from master tape over the aforementioned copies.

Many thanks to the taper, for recording this show; his brother, for giving the master tape to Rob Dwyer; Rob himself, for transferring the tape, sharing the transfer and writing about it back then on his fantastic info website "Sabbathlive" (see quotes below - the website itself is, regrettably, long gone); and Gutlit, for sending me the raw unsplit transfer.

Here's some information from Sabbathlive about the recording in general:

Roy Evans: "My brother, who was 18 at the time, recorded this show on a Bush portable recorder as a personal souvenir. It was the first show he had ever tried (The Led Zeppelin December 72 show now in circulation as 'Sweet Brummy Roll' was his second). [...] He accidentally turned the volume control down when flipping the C60, and subsequently used side B of the cassette for the Led Zeppelin encore. Cassettes did not come cheap 30 years ago! They did not play 'Lord Of This World'. The rest of the show as he remembered it was standard for the time."

Rob Dwyer"The tape begins with the band already having launched into 'After Forever', but appears to only be missing the very opening notes. And what a great way to start the show! As I stated earlier, this song wasn’t’ performed all that much during the 70’s. [...] This is followed by yet another landmark recording – the earliest live version of 'Tomorrow’s Dream' to date! This contains different lyrics than what wound up on the album and is quite interesting to hear. Iommi had his parts already composed well in advance of the record, as seems to be the case with many songs they’ve previewed in concert over the years. I’m sure a lot of people aren’t quite as excited about hearing another pre-VOLUME 4 version of 'Tomorrow’s Dream', being that there are 3 other examples, but THIS was the first. [...] Next in line is 'War Pigs', which is well received by their Brummie audience. But after a bit of 'Sweet Leaf', I got the sense that the crowd was beginning to nod off for a moment during this plod fest! Ozzy brings the energy level back up by encouraging everyone to yell 'YEAH!!' in time to the slow, but persistent bass drum beat that takes us into 'Iron Man'. And then the tape ends…"