On a cold and very snowy winter’s day in 2006, Tony Martin of Black Sabbath fame played a small gig (some 10-15 paying people) in a small club (Baråtti, capacity 200 or so) in a small town (Strømmen) in a small country (Norway). My wife and I were two of the people there.
Tony Martin had just released his solo album Scream. Interestingly, instead of promoting their shows as The Scream Tour or something to do with the new album, the tour was billed as a Black Sabbath extravaganza where he aimed to play a lot of material from his years in that band (1987-91, and 1993-96), with a couple of his new songs featured. Who knows, it may have made sense from a marketing perspective. I would have gone to see him in any case, but certainly loved the chance to get to hear his Sabbath songs live.
I wrote the following review and posted it on my old blog on the day after the show. It was very fresh in my mind, as a show review should be. I did it mostly for my own sake, to have my own written record to help me remember it later on. I’m glad I did.
To commemorate today’s anniversary of this show, here you go – concert notes from 15 years ago!
What follows is a full report of the concert at Baråtti in Strømmen last night, and it is long.
I had been looking forward to this concert for a long time, counting down the days and still almost disbelieving the fact that Tony Martin was coming to this place to begin with. (Even now that the show is over, I find it hard to believe that he actually played there!) But the day finally arrived, and no news of illness or other reasons for cancellations, no bad snow storms or other adverse weather conditions anywhere that threatened the players from coming here, and no strikes or general problems with the airlines or air traffic controllers (the last one being the biggest insecurity after the recent issues). So the show seemed to be on!
We did not leave home until around 20:50 (a rare luxury, with the show being close to our house for a change!). We knew that there would be two support bands, and according to the tickets the first band was not supposed to go on until 21. We got to the club within 5-10 minutes, and amazingly also found a free parking spot next to the building! All was good.
It turned out that it was still a bit early to be at the club. There were a few people, but not too many, so we had no problems at all finding a free table next to the stage where we sat down. Time passed and still no band. It later turned out that the first band did not go on until a little before 23, but in the meantime we held out. Lots of people were walking through the club, including people from the support bands and crew walking in and out of the backstage area, not to far from where we were sitting.
Time passed. People kept buzzing. Then, out of the blue, suddenly The Man was there. Jenn spotted him first. “Isn’t that him?,” she said. And true enough, there he was! Tony Martin in all his glory was standing just a few meters away from me, chatting with some people. I got up and went over. I waited while he finished chatting with those other people, and took a look at the much younger person standing next to him. For some reason I realized that this was his son Joe, who plays guitar on his dad’s new album and also is one of two guitarists on this tour. I said hi, shook his hand, introduced myself and we started chatting – a very friendly guy. I asked him about the recording of the new album and he admitted to playing “most, but not all” of the guitars on it. He also talked excitedly about his own band, which he described as sounding more modern, and they were working on getting a new website up for it. He happily signed the CD cover of Scream for me.
By this time, Tony was free and said hi. He was extremely friendly and very approachable. I shook his hand and welcomed him to Norway. “Thanks, mate. I’ve been here before – not this town but in Oslo.” I told him how thrilled I was that he was playing there, and since the CD-sleeve for Scream (and assorted others) were already in my hand, he started signing them all with only the slightest hint from me.
As he signed Headless Cross, I told him how much I loved that album and how incredibly big that one always had been to me. “Thanks a lot, yeah, we had a lot of fun with that one. We’ll be playing it for you tonight.” Oh ecstasy! We chatted a bit about this and that. I remember asking him if he had brought his violin along, which made him smile. “It’s in the back somewhere, I hope!” (Tony plays a violin solo on the song Scream on the new album – one of its best tracks – and has been doing it live as well). I wondered it they’d do it, and that pretty much confirmed it.
Off they went, and we sat down again to wait for the first band to go on. This was to be my introduction to the mighty Triosphere. They were really very good [and I have seen them several times since and bought all their albums]. They played a kick-ass, powerful, and slightly progressive blend of melodic metal, fronted by a tiny frontwoman who sang with a powerful banshee howl while playing thunderous bass.
All in the band played with skill and great attitude, and they had a great presentation. The show was loud, though – very loud! – so some of the nuances of the music was lost. Hopefully I will be able to locate some studio recordings of them at some point to listen further.
The band gets a plus for a fantastic cover of Mötley Crüe’s Wild Side, and later in the show they did a quick and heavy version of Wild Child by W.A.S.P. (I guess they like songs with «wild» in the title.) Great harmonies in the chorus of that one. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on these people.
During Triosphere’s set, I noticed a familiar-looking guy walking around, clearly a few decades our senior. He sat at a table on a raised level behind ours and watched most of their set, then went backstage. Only then did I realise that this was Geoff Nicholls, and I kicked myself for not recognising him.
Nicholls is probably the least famous person to ever have played in Black Sabbath, despite him being the second longest serving member of the band ever, having been a permanent player in the band from 1978 to 1995. For some reason he has never been regarded as a member of the offical line-up, and he was only featured in band photos around 1985/86. He still plays keyboards on every Sabbath album since Ozzy left in 1979 until his departure, as well as performing on every tour with them as well – albeit from a hidden position off-stage, or behind a curtain.
He always loyally stuck with them though, which means that he performed with them during the entire Tony Martin-era as well. As Sabbath is on hiatus these days, he is writing, recording and touring with Tony – still as humble as ever, as unassuming and totally egoless as a man can be. He was even on stage with all the stagehands prior to them going on, setting up his own keyboards. I missed my opportunity to meet him before the show, but fortunately met him afterwards – but more on that later.
The second openers were Thunderbolt (which we quickly dubbed “the bearded ones”, as it looked like facial hair was a requirement to be in this band). Their style is a mix of slightly progressive traditional heavy metal in an Iron Maiden style, and power metal in an Edguy-style. The vocalist reminded me of the latter – he was good, if a bit heavy on the vibrato at times. Again it was very loud and somewhat “wall of sound”-ish. Some of the band looked scruffy and lacked a bit in their presentation, but overall they were still enjoyable. I found that Triosphere came off better, though.
Finally it was time for the main event to take to the stage, which happened at around 00:30. This can safely be called a late start. I imagined beforehand that it would get late, and had slept in a bit that same morning. I came prepared!
As the show was gearing up to start, we swooped in and managed to get spots at front row centre stage. This was unfortunately not too hard. The show was far from being sold out, and to add insult to injury it looked like most of the people who were there were casual fans at best, content to sit around the room and at the back, leaving just a small group of between 10-20 in front of the stage, with a lot of those being members of the support bands and club people. It felt a bit ridiculous, and this turnout is clearly not something that the area can be proud of. Still, the band were professional and it looked like they had a lot of fun – as did those of us who were there to watch.
The band walked on, and kicked off with Law Maker from Tyr. A fantastic show opener, and the entire room cheered when Tony entered the stage right before the singing began. The band was very tight. I was pleased to hear that Tony sang everything as he does on the albums, including the high parts – many vocalists seem to skip these live, but not The Man!
They continued with Devil and Daughter from Headless Cross. Absolutely bloody marvellous! One of the highlights of the show. Afterwards. Tony welcomed everybody to the show, and took some time to tell that he is currently touring to establish himself as a solo act, but that for this tour he would be focusing on his years in Black Sabbath. “Is that all right?” he asked, to loads of cheers from the audience.
With that they launched into one of the surprises of the evening, as they played The Eternal Idol, the title track from the first Sabbath album Tony sang on in 1987. I really did not expect them to get into such a slow and brooding track, but it worked phenomenally. This was even a particularly slow and heavy version, with a fantastic vocal from The Man.
Next came a trilogy of songs from 1994’s Cross Purposes, as they launched into The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Dying For Love and I Witness. Great performances all around, with lots of headbanging on at least two of them. Dying For Love was played slowly and heavily, and really came off great. That was probably the one I enjoyed the most of these songs.
“So is this the land of the vikings?,” Tony finally called out. After the story of how his earlier band once wrote a song about them, they launched into the full trilogy about the Norse myths with The Battle of Tyr, Odin’s Court and of course Valhalla from the Tyr album.
This was pure magic, and also a pure showcase for Geoff Nicholls. He truly is the master of atmospheric keyboards. The Battle of Tyr is an ambient track with sound effects. It sounds great on the album, but when something is seen as an intro for what comes next it is easy to devalue its own merits. Nicholls recreated it so wonderfully live. It really was magnificent – possibly one of the biggest goose bump moments of the show. And to have the band build on that as the song moves into its next section, all the way up to the inevitable climax – simply out of this world.
Incredibly enough, the best was yet to come. They managed to surpass themselves with the single biggest highlight of the evening as they played When Death Calls from Headless Cross. This song is a superb mixture of doomsday atmosphere, grandiose epicness and just sheer brilliance on record. This was even better. Right there and then it was unthinkable that there is a better song than this in the universe. The band seemed to be pretty pleased with it as well. “I used to have hair the last time I sang that song,” Tony said after the song. Cue expressions of utter disbelief, shock and horror from the rest of the band. “It’s true!,” Tony insisted with a grin. Those guys.
The band had kept surpassing themselves all evening, and it was in the cards that there would be a reset of sorts. After several intense songs and powerful performances, it was time to lighten up and take it down to the level of mortal bands, so to speak. Topping themselves yet again would not have been possible, and the answer was to take a u-turn as they entered a tribute section of the show. They played two songs sung by other Sabbath vocalists: Children of the Sea (sung by Ronnie James Dio on the masterpiece Heaven and Hell) and War Pigs (sung by Ozzy Osbourne on the Paranoid album).
Children of the Sea clearly worked best. Tony and Ronnie have always had similar vocal styles, and those versions of Sabbath are also very musically compatible. It fit right in with everything else they played that evening and Tony easily made the song his own. War Pigs, however… I like the song, but have to say that here it was a bad fit. The Ozzy era is quite different musically to both the Ronnie and Tony eras, so it clashed a bit with the rest of the show. Personally I also think Ozzy material is a waste of time if it comes at the expense of other Tony Martin-era material (which of course it does). And such a long song, too – it’s over eight minutes on record, so imagine how live versions can stretch on! I’m afraid this was the lowlight of the show for me, which should be taken as a vote of confidence for Tony’s own Sabbath material.
At this point Tony announced they would be playing some stuff from the new album Scream, starting off with Raising Hell. This was a predictable inclusion as it has a special meaning (Tony wrote it around a drum pattern recorded by the late Cozy Powell). The song is OK, but unfortunately not the best choice as it simply isn’t among the better ones on the album.
I was much more pleased with the next song. Tony finally brought out his violin, saying they had another new one for us. “Scream!” I called out. He looked at me, and said “How the fuck did you know?” Never mind that he was holding the clue in his hands. He only plays that instrument on one song. He might as well have held up a sign saying “We are going to play SCREAM!”
Scream is one of the best songs on the album, and the performance was great. He’s no violin virtuoso, but it really sounds (and looks!) so cool when he plays that part.
I expected at least one more song from the new album, but that was it. I would have been thrilled to hear something like Wherever You Go (possibly my favourite from the new album) or I’m Gonna Live Forever (which would have been my pick in place of Raising Hell), but it was not to be this time. Maybe on future tours, when the focus is less on Sabbath and more on his own stuff.
The next song was announced to be the last one, and Tony told the story about how this was the song that he had to sing in audition in order to get the offer to join Black Sabbath. This of course meant that the next song was The Shining from The Eternal Idol. A fantastic song. For some reason I wasn’t sure they would play it, but in hindsight it was an obvious set closer. I was very happy they did it, and that was a really great moment, too.
The band took a bow and went off, leaving the group of fans in front of the stage to shout for more. They returned for an encore, playing the title track from the classic Headless Cross album. A great song, but it is still probably the weakest track on an album with all classics. They could pick any song from that album and it would be great, but I was hoping for some of the others – tracks like Nightwing or Kill In the Spirit World. It was still a great choice to close with. And then it was all over… at 02:15. Clearly the latest concert I had ever been to.
When the show was done, I was close enough to the stage that I just had to bend down to pick up one of the set lists. I went over the list several times while my memory was still fresh to make sure they actually stuck to it (some bands will sometimes skip tracks or add others), and could confirm that they had stuck to it 100%. This is the list you see scanned here.
The set list had a mix of the expected and the unexpected. The biggest surprises were The Eternal Idol, When Death Calls and Children of the Sea, and I guess I did not expect three songs from the Cross Purposes album either.
The best moments were Devil And Daughter, the Valhalla trilogy, and When Death Calls.
I did miss some songs. I was very surprised that Anno Mundi wasn’t played. Call of the Wild and Kill In the Spirit World are usually not far away either. Still, it is hard to be very disappointed with that set list. I would definitely have dropped War Pigs and perhaps substituted one or two of the Cross Purposes songs with the mentioned ones.
The band was Joe Harford (guitar), Fabio Cerrone (guitar), Jamie Mallender (bass), Danny Needham (drums) and Geoff Nicholls (keyboards). They were excellent – no complaints there whatsoever.
As it was quite late at this point we were thinking about going home, but I spotted an area where they sold merchandise, so I picked up a Tony Martin/Scream sweatshirt and a poster. The guy told me to hang around as the band usually came out and signed stuff, so we did. And sure enough, they all came out! All of them were mingling, chatting, and signing away. Really very friendly guys, the lot of them – but Baråtti is also the kind of venue where this is possible. The mood is just different than the venues in downtown Oslo, for example, where larger crowds and more formal layouts just make things stricter, less friendly, and less conducive to hanging out like this.
I was glad I got another chance to chat a bit with Geoff Nicholls, humble guy extraordinaire. Thinking of how many of heavy rock’s “royalty” he has worked with over the years (Ozzy, Ronnie James Dio, Ian Gillan, Rob Halford, Tony Iommi, Cozy Powell, Geezer Butler, Glenn Hughes, Bill Ward, Vinny Appice, Eric Singer, Neil Murray… and so many others). The guy was friendly and soft-spoken, with a twinkle in his eye and a lovely, understated sense of humour. I was thrilled to have him add his signature to all the Sabbath albums he played on, but it is always the personal chats that mean the most to me.
One of the nicest souvenirs of the evening will no doubt be the full poster of the tour, which has each band member on it – signed by all of them in thick golden ink. I was chatting to Fabio, the Italian guitar player, as he signed the poster, telling him how great I thought the show was. He looked at me in disbelief, laughed nervously, and said “Really?” That’s when it hit me that from the audience point of view, we saw a great band perform amazing songs on stage. From the band’s vantage point, however, they saw a mostly empty club, which isn’t easy to see for any professional musician. In their minds the gig was probably a big let-down and disappointment. You would never have known that from the performance they gave, though, and he looked happy to hear this.
Another anecdote came as Joe (Tony’s son) was signing next to his picture. “That’s my boy,” Tony said. “But he’s stark raving mad. Can you imagine how it is like to work with your family? Would you want to work together with your dad?” He was very clearly proud of him. Whenever Joe signed anything, Tony would be there saying “that’s my boy.” “Yeah, dad, I think they know now.” It was not just fatherly pride speaking, because he really was a great player. I will not be surprised to see him break through and get a career of his own in due time. All the other guys were a delight to meet as well – the very chatty Yorkshire drummer, the funky bass player man, the Italian maestro… hope to get to see you all again at some point!
It was 03:10 when we got to the car and pulled out of there. We still had a drive home, get a shower, some food and do a little winding down before bedtime. I was once again glad that I started the day with a good lie-in, and that the next day was a Saturday.
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