Black Label Society–guitarist Zakk Wylde’s home away from Ozzy for a full twenty years now–rallied its Colorado “chapter” with a pair of deep-voiced and vigorous shows that celebrated the band’s origins as well as its continued potency. It’s a strong start to their brisk U.S. spring tour, which includes five other two-night stands.
The first of the two nights is all Sonic Brew, the first of BLS’s ten studio albums. Back in 1999, Sonic Brew was an unusual beast, a recognizable descendant of Black Sabbath in its detuned, riff-oriented heaviness, but with a muscular U.S. biker-band ethos in place of the ur-metal band’s angsty occultism. Several commentators, and Wylde himself, have emphasized Southern rock influences, and sure, they are there too, in the full-throated anthemic choruses and outlaw-with-a-humbucker ethos. But with Wylde’s rejection of ‘80s Sunset Strip excess (which even his godfather Ozzy reveled in for a while) and his occasional moments of emotional vulnerability, you could be forgiven for having parked Strange Brew next to Alice in Chains or some other grungy stuff in your 5-disc CD changer. The late 1990s were confusing times in the world of guitar rock.
Concurrent with the tour is BLS’s re-release of Sonic Brew, which has been “re-blended,” which is sort of like remastered, except that Wylde didn’t have all of the component tapes, and had to get creative and re-record some parts. Sonic Brew didn’t have the commercial traction of some of BLS’s subsequent albums, but it clearly touched some people here in Denver. Despite some earlier electrical grid problems in the Berkeley neighborhood–a corner of northwest Denver in which refurbished ranch homes surround a long-shuttered (and possibly haunted) amusement park–the crowd at the old-school Oriental Theater is eager to hear the early stuff, and happy when the acoustic guitars come out.
The second night gets more interesting. Spring is in the air, the band is already loosened up, and the consensus up in the balcony is that the acoustics of the house are extremely well tuned. After “Whole Lotta Sabbath,” a silly-funky Sabbath-Led Zeppelin mashup recording played through the PA, the giant BLS-skull curtain disappears. And suddenly there’s Wylde, already in full Viking attack-mode, fist-pumping and swirling his hair around and giving the audience the crazy-eyes while blasting high-gain sounds out of his guitar, which like most of his Wylde Audio signature line, suggests a cross between a high-end Gibson and a battle-axe from the cover art of a D&D module. Wylde and his pile-of-skulls microphone stand are front-and-center, a raised platform amplifying his already imposing presence (he’s 6’2” and lifts a lot of weights). Along with his BLS biker-denim vest, he’s wearing a kilt.
Night two is very much a greatest hits evening, celebrating tunes released in the two decades since Sonic Brew, including several from the ironically titled Grimmest Hits album, which was released last year and contained all new material. (“I just wanted to confuse people,” the ever-jokey Wylde told Billboard.) A few songs in, the band downshifts into the high-torque groove of “Trampled Down Below,” fresh from the new album, and the crowd cheers in recognition.
“All That Once Shined,” a mid-tempo minor-key stomp with Ozzy-esque vocals and an interlude reminiscent of Black Sabbath Vol. 4, gets people head-bobbing. There’s not really a moshpit–median age here is like 45–but the energy is palpable. There are many BLS biker jackets. One of Wylde’s more ingenious moves early on, well before the TED-talkers started talking about tribalism as a marketing vehicle, was to appropriate some Hells Angels trappings, as well as the outlaw rhetoric of biker-gang loyalty. Fans will tell you they “bleed BLS” and their intensity is convincing. There is, no joke, a BLS-themed Harley parked out front.
Rhythm guitarist Dario Lorina, the lanky and versatile Shrapnel Records shredder, takes to the piano for “Bridge to Cross,” originally released on the 1919 Eternal album (2002), but yields the bench to Wylde for “Spoke in the Wheel,” a ballad from Sonic Brew repeated on the Unblackened live album (2013) and later re-released in an “unplugged” video. Wylde plays piano much like he plays guitar, with lots of heavy pounding and a palpable sense of humor–several times he pretends to lunge at the audience, teasing them with his wild-man glare–but his emotional commitment to this song is significant. Covered in sweat, his hair sticking to his face, Wylde is resonant and affecting with his gruff baritone:
“Some day you’ll know just how it feels
Shattered, cast aside, stripped of your pride
Like you were never nothing special
Made you feel like another spoke in the wheel”
I’ll tell you my secret theory about why Black Label Society engenders such loyalty among its fans. It’s not because the band is particularly heavy, or rocks particularly hard, though they are, and they do. Nor is it the biker stuff, though that certainly helps to establish a tribal mindset. Nor is it the abundant testosterone: the bared biceps, the ripped denim, the leather forearm bracers, the vaguely orcish vibe one gets from mega-talented bass player John DeServio. Rather, I think it’s the ache and anguish of ballads like “Spoke in the Wheel” and “The Day That Heaven Had Gone Away” and “In This River,” that bind this group together. Tribes are about shared values and apparel choices, but they are also about shared vulnerability. And the loss and regret seeping from these ballads connects hard with the BLS tribe precisely because it’s made OK by all of the hard-rocking masculinity, as dudes with motorcycles and mountain-man beards pour one out for their brothers who couldn’t be with them tonight.
Case in point: during “In This River,” the roadies unfurl giant pictures of fallen Pantera musicians Dimebag Darrell, shot to death by a deranged fan in 2004, and Vinnie Paul, felled by a heart attack last year. People raise their drinks. Wylde, too, raises his cup even though he stopped boozing a few years ago. It’s a genuinely moving display.
Come to think of it, BLS owes a lot to Pantera as well. The crunch, the groove metal-thing, the biker-outlaw mystique. The guitar prowess but also the sense of mischief.
Personally, the highlight of the night was when I stepped out briefly to take some notes and use the restroom, and was nearly knocked over by Wylde himself, who along with a security detail had barrelled up the front aisle en route to the balcony, all the while hammering triplets on his guitar, played behind his head, Hendrix style. It was red meat for the fans, who were allowed to swarm close but just out of reach. And oh how the tribe loved it.
TOUR DATES
Apr-24 Denver, CO The Oriental Theater
Apr-25 Denver, CO The Oriental Theater
Apr-27 Dallas, TX Canton Hall
Apr-28 Dallas, TX Canton Hall
Apr-30 Chicago, IL Concord Music Hall
May-01 Chicago, IL Concord Music Hall
May-04 Jacksonville, FL Welcome To Rockville
May-06 New York, NY The Bowery Ballroom
May-07 New York, NY The Bowery Ballroom
May-11 Rockingham, NC Epicenter
May-14 Toronto, ON Opera House
May-15 Toronto, ON Opera House
May-17 Columbus, OH Sonic Temple
May-18 Clarksville, TN O’Connors
May-22 Los Angeles, CA El Rey Theatre
May-23 Los Angeles, CA El Rey Theatre
