87. Heaven & Hell - Falling Off The Edge Of The World (Live)

2013 Music Top

Position: 87 of 100

Artist: Heaven & Hell
Song: Falling Off The Edge Of The World

Album: Live At Radio City Music Hall (2007)

Vimeo link: http://vimeo.com/83016326

Vplay link: http://vplay.ro/watch/yizyq6qq/

Deezer link: http://www.deezer.com/track/16961054

This particular incarnation of Black Sabbath has always been my favourite (despite owning only three of their songs for a very, very long time) exceeding even the one that featured Deep Purple's Ian Gillan. I wonder if the people at this concert realised how lucky they were to be attending one of the best concerts ever in the history of music. The band is absolutely flawless, the mix is perfect and Dio is in excellent voice (despite being 65 and probably already carrying the seeds of his fatal cancer) and it just elevates every song to the quality of a masterpiece. Most songs recorded up to even the mid 80s are robbed of their full potential (especially in the rock arena) because of either the poor tools available for recording or for sound processing or because of certain chemical influences on the performers that would end up affecting their abilities to play (most famous case would be Jimmy Page) so whenever one of these songs gets re-recorded in the current era, provided that the singer's voice hasn't deteriorated beyond the point of no return, the results are absolutely astounding. Such is the case of this concert that takes the "Dio Years" Sabbath songs and puts them on steroids and, in this case, bigger turns out to be better.

This particular song starts out as a ballad of a man slowly slipping into insanity only to turn on a rhythm break and a Dio phrase into a full on rocker where we're all falling into madness and, to be honest, looking at the world today, I'm almost shocked that lyrics written back in 1981 can still prove to be so current. Geezer Butler really stands out on this song as his rhythm line is all over the place from slow and ominous to frenetic but he ends up keeping the song together and on track and delivering a truly great performance.