|
On Saturday, 27 October, Singapore went Back to Black with the arrival of a legendary four-piece band - and we sure as hell don't mean the Black Eyed Peas!
Hard Rock Café's Ambassadors of Rock and LAMC Productions staged a coup by bringing in one of the founders of metal, Black Sabbath, to our shores. It was also the second coming of Ronnie James Dio, who fronted the band from 1979 to 1982, following the departure of original lead singer Ozzy Osbourne.
Dio's arrival sparked a renaissance for the band, which culminated in three superb albums, Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules and Dehumanizer.
Reuniting for the first time in 15 years, Black Sabbath, completed by drummer Vinny Appice and founding members Geezer Butler (bass) and Tony Iommi (guitar), have already released a Greatest Hits album (Black Sabbath: The Dio Years) and are contemplating releasing new material.
But back to the concert. Fort Canning Green was packed with a 5,500 strong crowd, which had begun streaming in as early as one hour before the gig.
With a backdrop of cemetery gates, dry ice and creepy bricks, Halloween arrived early for the die-hard metalheads. This writer felt slightly out of place without the prerequisite metal gear, namely:
- long, swingable hair
- band tees (Sabbath, Slayer, Iron Maiden and Motorhead being a few favourites)
- full-on black clothes, peppered with studs, chains and other painful-looking torture objects.
By 8.30pm, Black Sabbath had arrived. Greeted by roars from the crowd, they dived immediately into their opening song, which got heads banging and fists pumping in unison.
What struck this writer was how well the band held up throughout the concert. At more than twice our age, Dio and gang tore through their setlist with ruthless efficiency.
Boasting one of the finest voices in all of metal, Dio's howl incessantly cut through the night sky, reminding us of an era of real metal frontmen like Ozzy and Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant.
But the musicianship was top-notch as well. Appice treated us to an extended drum solo, where he utilised his elaborate four-walled drumkit to full effect.
Iommi received the loudest cheers of the night for his guitar solo on "Die Young". Virtually inventing the sludgy sound of metal with his heavy-as-lead guitar licks, Iommi has already sealed his place on the shortlist of most influential/greatest guitarists of all time.
Some critics had lamented the fact that only songs from the three Dio-led albums would be played at the concert. The Ozzy-era continues to loom over Black Sabbath to this day, and some members of the audience would certainly have missed Sabbath-staples like "Iron Man", "Paranoid", "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and "War Pigs".
Nevertheless, the crowd responded positively to most of the tunes, especially concert closers "Heaven and Hell" and "Neon Knights". Dio was undoubtedly impressed with the spontaneous sing-alongs to the former, declaring: "You guys bloody rock!" to the delightful roars of Sabbath-heads.
As the band tossed out guitar picks and drum sticks at the end of the encore, I began to marvel inwardly. One common gripe of my teenage years was the lack of quality acts coming to our shores, with Michael Learns To Rock and Engelbert Humperdinck being the typical artistes 1990s Singapore had to be content with.
In the early 2000s, the arrival of rock acts like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Coldplay, No Doubt and the Rolling Stones indicated that the concert scene was fast diversifying.
But it was only in the second half of the 2000s when a new dawn was ushered in, and 2007 has clearly being a watershed year. Big-name pop acts like Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani and the aforementioned BEP are lined up alongside bands like Sabbath, Linkin Park, Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance. That is not to mention groundbreaking festivals like Good Vibrations and SINGfest, which brought several top-notch artistes under one roof.
To cut a long story short, kudos must be given to production companies and the Singapore Tourism Board for truly revolutionising Singapore's staid concert scene. Once upon a time, it was only in my wildest dreams that ‘dangerous' and ‘subversive' metal bands like Slayer and Slipknot (and Black Sabbath!) would arrive in this "tightly-controlled city-state".
For a music-aficionado like me then, such liberalisation is a dream come true. All hail Black Sabbath! And all hail the Singapore Music Scene! HOOKED
|
