Had a great time at the Heaven and Hell show last night. We had lawn seats. Seemed like the turnout was disappointingly low and we probably could have gotten closer but the last time we were at Merriweather the seats were completely covered in old gum and heaps of various kinds of sludge so we just brought our beach chairs along and kept to the lawn. Of course we spent most of the show standing anyway but when we needed to give our feet a rest at least we had someplace to sit

Coheed and Cambria were the openers but unfortunately we missed at least half of their set because of delays in getting there. They sounded like they were doing a pretty good cover of The Trooper when we arrived.
They sounded okay from what we heard, some interesting effects, but I can't say I'm going to be chasing down their stuff in any hurry.

Then Sabbath came on. I'm pretty bad at remembering set lists in order but it went something like this:

E5150/The Mob Rules
Children of the Sea
Bible Black
Fear
I
Falling Off the Edge of the World
Time Machine
Follow the Tears ("Dang this is heavy," my wife said )
Die Young
Heaven & Hell
Encore - Country Girl (first part)/Neon Knights

I wanted them to play Sign of the Southern Cross but it wasn't to be, I guess, but I thought it was a nice mix of their four albums. Dio sounded very good - aside from his voice cracking once or twice, which I think is excusable due to fatigue more than anything, he sang everything dead on and was also a great frontman, with just the right mix of theatrics and interacting with the crowd. The rest of the band sounded great to my ears. The version of Heaven & Hell they played was a monster, extended out to something like at least 15 minutes long with Iommi and Geezer carrying most of the load wonderfully while Dio took a breather. Vinny had a drum solo in the middle which was alright, although compared to last drum solo I saw live (Rikki Rockett at the Poison/Def Leppard show) it was pretty fantastic

Nice!!! I was wondering how the turnout would be at Heaven & Hell. I wasn't able to go to that one. They were trying to sell the tickets as a package with Priest and called it "Heavy Metal Weekend"

One of my friends stayed for the Heaven & Hell show

Joker man if you ever get a chance (if you haven't already) to see this line up of Black Sabbath live, go. What is most impressive is how strong and clear Dio sings, just an excellent band live.