Comments on: Favourite flop follow-up albums?

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 13:57:46 +0000

You're right, TJ, we have had this conversation before. But they were pretty rubbish at Reading, and Marillion most defininitely did blow them off stage.

By: T.J. Swoboda

T.J. Swoboda — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:36:03 +0000

“He butchered Ozzyâ€™s songs to the point of unrecogisability, and didnâ€™t even attempt any of Dioâ€™s stuff.”
Whoa! Whereas Dio’s voice wasn’t well-suited to Ozzy’s songs, when I heard my first bootleg from this tour thirteen years ago I was floored by Gillan’s rendition of the Ozzy songs. It was absolutely incredible, though admittedly this particular bootleg is from Worcester, Massachusetts USA rather than the Reading Fest set you saw. I later got that boot too, along with about fifteen others and none of them hold a candle to the Worcester show.

They did add “Heaven and Hell” when they came to North America, but not the end part (?!). Finally, “Neon Knights” was added as the opener for the early 1984 leg of the tour. On both of these Dio songs, Gillan sounds terrible. I’ll defend his ability to sing Ozzy’s songs to the end, but his voice is completely incompatible with Dio’s.

Wait a minute… This is about the third time we’ve covered this subject in the last ten years isn’t it? Oh well, it’s just like revisiting a great album… Which I’m doing now, actually. Hope all’s well in Manchester!

–T.J.

NP: Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms

By: Serdar

Serdar — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:15:26 +0000

Comus’s second album “To Keep From Crying” was a dud compared to the original (and quite searing) “First Utterance”. A shame, really.

By: Steve Jones

Steve Jones — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:29:21 +0000

Alas, I can’t find a corner of my life for blogging at the moment. Which is a shame, as I could then ammend ‘mainline Europe’ to read ‘mainland Europe’ as I intended.

You can always tell the trainspotters, can’t you?

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:03:27 +0000

That next-to-last paragraph cracked me up; you really ought to start your own music blog

Actually, Michael Hann does come over as a decent bloke; he’s not a standard spec mail-order NME hack like Tony Naylor or a professional twunt like Steven Wells.

BTW, NME is sinking fast. Sales are rather less than either Classic Rock or Kerrang!. When it finally ceases publication I’m tempted to open that bottle of champagne I was saving for when Margaret Thatcher dies.

By: Steve Jones

Steve Jones — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:42:36 +0000

Immediately ignoring the main thrust of your text on the grounds that I have no interest in hack scribblings (whether The Guardian or The Mortal NME) and no real knowledge of the “commercially disastrous”, can I just fly off at a tangent?

Blimey, it’s small world time again. I played ‘Born Again’ only yesterday, after leaving it untouched for eons (Ians?) on the grounds that, as has been said, it’s not really Sabbath. But, prompted by the recent flood of repackaged Gillan reissues at not-to-be-missed prices, I’ve been giving other Gillan stuff a spin and this is indeed a worthwhile Gillan outing. I even dared to enjoy it

Perhaps a historical perspective is needed. Back then, if you were a name touring band suddenly in need of a vocalist, then a name vocalist with a proven CV must have been a safe choice when compared to, for argument’s sake, hiring Buggles. Nowadays you can just order an opera-trained Valkyrie online and, providing you’re happy with a standard spec model, have her delivered from mainline Europe within 3 working days

Currently OMS: Carptree’s ‘Man Made Machine’ – still struggling to get into this one, if truth be told.