"Megalomania" Live 1975 Convention Hall, Asbury Park, New Jersey

[Zzzptm]

Interested in this, as I didn't normally encounter it back when I was a tape trader... BTW, the correct venue and date are provided in the comments.

Great sound on it, which is important in a live recording... don't like it when you can't hear the guitar because of some glitch or whatever...

The second half is great, faster than on the record and it rocks that much harder for it. 

I have to admit that a part of me dreaded that perhaps Ozzy would slip into his "I'm So Happy" in the middle, but I'm glad to say that he didn't. 

Bill Ward sounds like an octopus possessed, love it. Ozzy has some issues with his range towards the end, though. Drops an octave or two after realizing he can't go up from where he is. All the same, a really fun find, hope y'all like it.

[Sabbabbath]

Strange that the Youtube uploader has mislabelled the show. They do play the "Sometimes I'm Happy" jam at that show, but luckily not in the middle of "Megalomania". :-)

[Sabbabbath]

The complete version only surfaced in 2001. Incomplete FM or pre-FM copies were circulating before, but were usually mislabelled as 1975-08-06 Philadelphia. When the complete version came out in 2001, it was laballed 1975-08-05 Asbury Park. I believe that was proven to be the correct date and place, but I don't remember what the proof was. I compared the complete vs. the incomplete versions, and they are definitely both from the same show. The mix is partly different though, and for some reason, the complete version has the siren at the beginning of War Pigs almost completely removed, while it is prominent in the incomplete copies.

[Zzzptm]

Side note: dealing with tape trading and knowing which copy of this is most accurate and why certain versions of a show are inaccurate and why - all that helps to keep my skills in dealing with historical source material sharp, which they need to be when examining and evaluating ancient records, which I like to do as an amateur reading scholastic papers on such topics.

[Scott]

The complete version only surfaced in 2001. Incomplete FM or pre-FM copies were circulating before, but were usually mislabelled as 1975-08-06 Philadelphia. When the complete version came out in 2001, it was laballed 1975-08-05 Asbury Park. I believe that was proven to be the correct date and place, but I don't remember what the proof was. I compared the complete vs. the incomplete versions, and they are definitely both from the same show. The mix is partly different though, and for some reason, the complete version has the siren at the beginning of War Pigs almost completely removed, while it is prominent in the incomplete copies.

Would the proof have been anything to do with that 'Wolfgang's Vault' (or whatever it was called at the time) website that streamed (and maybe owned the copyright at the time) the audio? I believe they offered CD copies to anyone who could help with information. Whether or not that happened, I don't recall.

[Sabbabbath]

The complete version only surfaced in 2001. Incomplete FM or pre-FM copies were circulating before, but were usually mislabelled as 1975-08-06 Philadelphia. When the complete version came out in 2001, it was laballed 1975-08-05 Asbury Park. I believe that was proven to be the correct date and place, but I don't remember what the proof was. I compared the complete vs. the incomplete versions, and they are definitely both from the same show. The mix is partly different though, and for some reason, the complete version has the siren at the beginning of War Pigs almost completely removed, while it is prominent in the incomplete copies.

Would the proof have been anything to do with that 'Wolfgang's Vault' (or whatever it was called at the time) website that streamed (and maybe owned the copyright at the time) the audio? I believe they offered CD copies to anyone who could help with information. Whether or not that happened, I don't recall.

Interesting, thanks for bringing it up. I am not sure. They still have 1976-12-08 Pittsburgh misdated as 1976-12-12 Syrcuse:
http://www.concertvault.com/search.html?t=Black+Sabbath&tb=0
Both FM broadcasts and an AUD recording from the same show have always been dated 1976-12-08 Pittsburgh, but the Concertvault people don't seem to care. So I doubt that they really care about dates. :-)

Anyway, here's what Rob Dwyer wrote about the Asbury Park date issue on Sabbathlive:

In 2001, the vault doors finally creaked open and this gem was finally released - unofficially. The word on the street at the time was that a "complete, unmixed soundboard" had been leaked out from the King Biscuit vaults. In actual fact, these are from multi-track recordings, so the term “soundboard” (denoting a tape recorded at the mixing desk) isn’t really accurate.

One highly respected Sabbath collector gave me the back story on the leak. He had contacted King Biscuit to inquire about the full release of their 1975 show, which was thought to be from Philadelphia by most people at the time. King Biscuit had been taking requests for future releases, so this was a completely legitimate request. Their initial response was that the show "wasn't good enough". But once the KB engineers had a listen to the tapes, they quickly discovered how wrong their assessment was. One of them even asked the collector to identify a song for them. It turned out to be "Spiral Architect"! Also, the tapes were identified as being from the Asbury Park show, NOT Philadelphia as previously thought. [Note: However, the engineer did claim the date was still 8/6/75, although the Asbury Park show has been proven to be a day earlier. Thanks to John Bella, I was able to confirm that a show in Philadelphia DID take place on 8/6/75 after all.]

The King Biscuit kindly sent the collector a complimentary copy of the show, since there were now plans to release it officially. But when he tried to follow up on this release a few months later, the King Biscuit employee no longer worked there and the release was apparently nixed. And it was from this 'advance promo' that the current slew of Asbury Park bootlegs originated from.

[Zzzptm]

This is where something akin to the DP Appreciation Society would be well worth having, in that it would find the source of the bootlegs of the truly epic concerts and release those recordings with the tacit approval of the band and management. That way, kids could be sure to have access to the best quality stuff and not get bummed out with copies of copies of copies of copies of copies.

[Sabbabbath]

This is where something akin to the DP Appreciation Society would be well worth having, in that it would find the source of the bootlegs of the truly epic concerts and release those recordings with the tacit approval of the band and management. That way, kids could be sure to have access to the best quality stuff and not get bummed out with copies of copies of copies of copies of copies.

Absolutely. Regrettably I just don't see that ever happen. The "tacit approval of the band and management" part is likely to be a huge problem. This leads us back to the old "why do they prefer releasing recent live recordings anf footage over 1969 to 1978 live recordings and footage" discussion. My feeling is it has to do with Tony's perfectionism and maybe with rights. If perfectionism alone is the answer, then it still remains a mystery to me how Ozzy's singing and Tommy's drumming haven't prevented the "Masters Of Black Masses" and "The End (of the End)" releases. This, in turn, leads us to questions of taste and priorities. Anyway, I hope so much that the release of both Montreux 1970 and Brussels 1970 on the Paranoid Super Deluxe 4xCD mark a change in Sabbath's live (non-)release policy.

P.s.: I don't know about Purple, but in Sabbath's case, an official or semi-official release is not really a warrantor of quality. Thus, both Montreux and Brussels have been compressed for the official release - not as badly as "13", but both have significantly lower dynamic range than the best bootleg copies.

[Scott]

I didn't realise they'd been compressed. It may be possible to alleviate some of those symptoms, though.

[Zzzptm]

I didn't realise they'd been compressed. It may be possible to alleviate some of those symptoms, though.

Another victim of the compression wars... although, not as bad as what happened in the loudness wars...

[Scott]

Both 'wars' are/were unnecessary, in my view. Admittedly all released music undergoes compression, but it shouldn't receive any more than is necessary.

[Zzzptm]

Exactly. We have our volume controls and hard drives are cheap. Let's have the good stuff, shall we?