Tribute: Randy Rhoads

First off, it was Ozzy who got me into Metal seriously with his / Lemmy's song "Hellraiser" from "No More Tears" & soon after I heard a lot of the stuff with Randy Rhoads & he would become my favorite guitar player of all time. I think this album was the 2nd or 3rd Metal album I ever bought & what a album too. My love for Randy's guitar playing has just grown more & more within the years & I've even made my friends love Ozzy's music even though they usually listen to stuff like Nu-Metal.

I didn't know what to expect from this album but after hearing the first track "I Don't Know" I was convinced that this album was a killer. The live version here beats the shit out of the original, what a energy it has. It's like making the perfect song even better. There's a lot of Ozzy-classics being played here & also a few Black Sabbath-classics which is really fun to hear Randy playing. The live version of "Paranoid" here is a great classic & every fan of Ozzy knows about it but still I think "Children Of The Grave" (which is my favorite B.S-song) is the really incredible tune here. Hearing Randy playing the famous raw riff to that song is a dream come true for me. The most important track on this album is defenitely "Suicide Solution" which also is the song where Randy's Live-special guitar solo is used. This is one of Ozzy's most famous Live recordings since Randy's guitar solo is very spectacular. A lot of great songs are being played on this album but there's 1-2 missing.

Live recordings, especially old ones sometimes have a pretty bad production but I would say that this albums production is not great, but at least very good for it's time (1981). They really used the same sound live with Randy as on Ozzy's first 2 albums & even though the energy live can never be recorded into a CD they still got much of the great Live-power they had on this / these shows.

Ozzy have had some great musicians over the years, actually very many great musicians & even though Ozzy is famous for having a great line of great guitarists behind him it's still Randy who's the "big one". The cast is on top here & each of their performance is excellent, especially Randy's.

I strongly recomend this album, it has grown to be my all time Live favorite & I don't think that any other Live-album will beat this...

R.I.P. Randy Rhoads, we miss you!