Exploring the Rules of Hell - E5150/Neon Knights (Live Evil Version)

Live Evil was recorded during four dates on the Mob Rules Tour in the spring of 1982. Fighting between two separate camps within the band (Iommi/Butler on one side and Dio/Appice on the other) during the
mixing of the album lead to the departure of Ronnie James Dio and Vinny Appice from the band. Dio would go on to a successful solo career while Black Sabbath would enter a phase of continual lineup changes and diminishing results before reuniting with Dio and later Ozzy Osbourne in the 90s.

With half of the tracks on the album from the Osbourne era the Live Evil set list shows that the band was aware that they had to embrace the past while also promoting their present. The opening tracks put the new band front and center with "E5150" and "Neon Knights". I decided to lump these two songs together as "E5150" seems to exist solely for the purpose of being a show opener. During the course of  Live Evil I'll lump other songs together if the flow of the songs dictates it.

"E5150" sounds like a playback of the studio recording. This would be in-line with past Black Sabbath practices as previous opener "Supertzar" was played backed this way. Then after a four count from Appice the band launches into "Neon Knights". It's a great show starter as it is full of energy. The crowd noise is faint and only really noticeable during intros and outros. I prefer this to the often loudly mixed crowd noise that lots of live albums include, so I am glad to see the band took this approach.

There isn't really too much deviation from the studio version. The biggest difference is probably Vinny Appice's drum parts since he is playing a song that originally featured Bill Ward. I didn't do a comparison but it sounds like his fills are slightly different. There is no rhythm guitar during Iommi's faithful rendition of the guitar solo. Keyboardist Geoff Nichols provided guitar support on some Black Sabbath tours but on Live Evil he is credited with only keyboards.

Overall it seems like a fitting start to the album and I'm curious to see where it goes.

Tomorrow I'll cover "N.I.B."!