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... oh it goes on and on and on ....
... and it goes on .. and on .. and on ..

it's Heaven and Hell

They'll tell you black when it's really red
I think you should have stayed in bed
'Cus the words you're singing to this song
Are being made up as you go along

It's Heaven and Hell
Fool, fool!

Well, the trip to Concord to see Heaven & Hell (Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio), Alice Cooper and Queensryche unfortunately wasn't the best. I picked Mike up as I wasn't going to be drinking and headed off to pick up Curt, but unfortunately was unaware that it was the Folsom Street Parade.

The Folsom Street Parade is one of the gay, lesbian, transexual etc. etc. dealies that goes on. Basically where blokes walk round wearing very little leather - the “assless chaps” being one of the favored items of clothing. Now, to sidetrack for a second, this to me is not really playing hard to get is it. You're kind of putting it out there on display. Now if only I could get straight women to do the same for straight men ..... Not going to happen is it?

So, back to the story, I'm sat in traffic as they block the roads off for this event with the choice of either staring at the back of the car in front or the back of some bloke showing his arse. Well, I'm now very familiar with what the Chevy Impala looks like from behind.

Finally, we get to the event in time to see the last song that Queensryche played. Which happened to be the only bank Mike was going for. I couldn't say anything, but this happened the last time he went to a gig in San Jose when he got there late and missed the first band (in that case Whitesnake).

Next was Alice Cooper and I have to say totally fantastic. Thankfully this was the one I was really interested in seeing - I've seen Sabbath and Dio many times before. Cooper put on a fantastic show including a medley that started with Welcome to My Nightmare where these strange creatures came on (one of which was a woman), then went into Only Women Bleed where Cooper had a mock fight to beat up the woman, turning into Dead Babies as the woman came back on with a pram from which Cooper pulled out a baby and drove a stake through its heart before being grabbed, put into a straight jacket and then hanged to go off with the band singing I Love the Dead. I'm sure I'm missing another song in there somewhere, but you get the idea. A fantastic rendition of Halo of Flies and Schools Out, finishing with Elected. And don't you just love the bit in the middle:

San Francisco's got problems
Hell, California's got problems
And you know what?
I don't care!

Sadly the night didn't end there. Heaven and Hell came on. To give credit, Tony Iomi, Geezer Butler and Vinnie Vincent were great. Dio really wasn't on top of his game though. Some of the first songs were alright - I got into Children of the Sea, but it seemed to be a really short set of about 45 minutes into which they put about 20 minutes worth of solos in Heaven and Hell. And when Dio came back after the solos he seemed to be singing different lyrics to those which I know. I had the same problem with quite a few songs. I thought it was me at first as I hadn't heard some of the songs for a long time, but it wasn't. Several people said the same thing.

Anyway, it was still worth it - if not just to see Alice.