got the following in my email this morning from Joe Siegler's Black Sabbath site... Guys, here's a special "emergency" edition of the Sabbath newsletter.
I'm sending this from a location that my normal list editing tools are not at, so I won't have all the usual stuff I have. But a lot of things were announced tonight on the Eddie Trunk radio show where Geezer & Ronnie were interviewed. So let's get the word out:
* As I covered earlier in the evening, the first US gig for the Heaven & Hell tour will be March 30th at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. There will be no opening act for this show, it's just the Sabs... er Heaven & Hell. Tickets are expected to be priced between $54.00 - $74.00 and go on sale Friday, January 26th at 10am.
* There will be other US dates, likely in August. No further info is available on them yet.
* After the US dates, they will likely play UK, Japan, & Australia.
* Both Geezer & Ronnie said that it is pretty likely there will be no Ozzy era tracks played during the Heaven & Hell shows. Ronnie said "I don't think that will happen". (Ed Note: HUZZAH! LET THE REJOICING BEGIN!)
* Tour rehearsals start in roughly two weeks from now.
* Black Sabbath: The Dio years will be released Apr 3rd, and is a single disc.
* All three newly recorded tracks will be on the "Black Sabbath: The Dio Years" album. It was previously reported that only two would be, but all three will be there.
* There are no keyboards on the newly recorded tracks.
* Keyboards on the tour will be handled by Scott Warren from Dio's band.
* Geezer did not write any of this new stuff, nor did Bill or Vinny - these tracks were written by Tony & Ronnie. Side note: A recent Rudy Sarzo interview said that two of the three new Sab tracks were originally ideas Ronnie had put forth for the next Dio album, but got used here instead. Sarzo Interview:
knac.com/article.asp?ArticleID=5227* Ronnie feels that this was never intended to be a full fledged reunion when it started, just the couple of tracks for the compilation. He did say that the opportunity to dust off the old Dio era tracks was too great to pass up. Finally, he said that history has shown they can't plan too far ahead for this, and that they do not intend at this point to carry on past the tour.
* Part of the reason they called this Heaven & Hell and not Black Sabbath was that they all felt that Sabbath was "back together" for awhile now with Oz, and that since they went into the hall of fame with that lineup, that that's the way "Black Sabbath" will remain. I've said that for a few years now that we'd likely never see another lineup change in Sabbath, and it looks like that's coming to pass.
* Ronnie feels that this tour/new material is an affirmation of the legacy Dio era of Sabbath. I agree with him. It's great to see this again. I saw these guys in 1992 on the Dehumanizer tour. Be great to see it again.
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A personal observation. "The Dio Years" is coming out on Rhino. Rhino has also put out some more recent Sabbath things, like the two CD Symptom of the Universe set and Black Box. These items were released in North America ONLY. I will attempt to find out if this will be the case for Dio Years too, or if it will be a more worldwide release. Given the nature of the tour, I would think so, but I cannot find that out either way at this point.
Ronnie also said that after the Heaven & Hell thing is finished, he will be going back into the studio with Dio to record Magica II & III and then tour "with a stage show worthy of the story". This will be great, as I was really into Dio's stage shows back for Last in Line & Sacred Heart. Great stuff. Be nice if he does that, but I saw Dio on the Magica tour, and he played to at most 1500 people in Dallas. It'd be awfully expensive to lug around a stage show like Sacred Heart to only play to that many. We'll see.
There will be an announcement next week from band management with official tour dates and opening acts, and all that happy crap. Here are the rumoured dates are so far:
March
11 - Vancouver, BC at Pacific Coliseum (with DOWN)
13 - Edmonton, AB at Rexall Place (with Down)
14 - Calgary, AB at Saddledome (with Down)
16 - Regina, SK at Brandt Centre (with Down)
18 - Winnipeg, MB at MTS Centre (with Down)
20 - Sault St. Marie, ON at Steelback Centre (with Down)
22 - Toronto, ON at Air Canada Centre (with Down)
24 - London, ON at John Labatt Centre (with Down)
26 - Montreal, PQ at Bell Centre (with Down)
27 - Quebec City, PQ at Colisee Pepsi Arena (with Down)
28 - Ottawa, ON at Civic Centre (with Down)
30 - New York City, NY at Radio City Music Hall
June
2 - 3 - Milan, Italy at Gods Of Metal Festival
6 - 9 - Solvesborg, Sweden at Sweden Rock Festival
9 - Tampere, Finland at Sauna Open Air Festival
10 - Helsinki, Finland at Jaahallissa
19 - Warszawa, Poland at Torwar
20 - Katowice, Poland at Spodek Hall
22 - 23 - Balingen, Germany at Bang Your Head!!! Festival
Love to get your feedback on all this. I will be having more regular issues again now that there's a lot more to talk about. So if you have something to say, let's hear it! As usual, I will be collecting ticket stubs, tour reviews, and the like. So feel free to send in what you have. I'm also interested in scans of things like newspaper adverts for the gigs in your town. If you have any questions about that, email me.
Joe Siegler
www.black-sabbath.comOh yeah, don't forget the official tour sites:
www.heavenandhelllive.comwww.myspace.com/heavenandhelllive