44 Years Ago This Week, Black Sabbath Crushed the Bangor Auditorium
Tons of HUGE bands used to play the Bangor Auditorium.
Before the Cumberland County Civic Center was built in Portland by the end of the 70's, Bangor was pretty much the concert capital of the Northeast, up past Boston. Alice Cooper played there. Twisted Sister, Loverboy, Rod Stewart and Faces, Jethro Tull... all of them made stops in Bangtown back in the day.
Plenty of huge artists have made Maine a destination. Even the late, great Elvis Presley was supposed to play here. Sadly, we all know why The King didn't make it here. But for years, Bangor was the spot where all the biggest bands came to. And 44 years ago, the absolute Godfathers of heavy metal came to the Bangor Auditorium: Black Sabbath.
This also just happened to feature Ronnie James Dio on vocals.
Now, while I understand that Ozzy will always rightly be known as the singer of Sabbath, we can all agree that a chance to see this version of Sabbath was quite special. It was short-lived, but many will argue that this was a golden era for the band, sort of a perfect storm of talent.
They performed all the hits from the two albums Sabbath did with Dio, but also apparently played a ton of earlier Sabbath tunes as well. Which is something they definitely did NOT do when they reunited in the earlier 2000's when the lineup reformed as Heaven and Hell. This was a definitely a special night in metal history.
One of the coolest features was the opening act...
In a move you don't see very often these days, Sabbath actually had a local Maine band open for them. A local band from the Bangor area at the time, called The Dogs. The person who wrote the review for the Morning Sentinel, Lucky Clark, specifically called out how awesome The Dogs were. That's high praise when you're opening for Black Sabbath.
I was just a smidge too young at the time to attend a show like this. Although, I did end up seeing Ozzy in '89 at the Civic Center, and Dio a few years later, also at the Civic Center. So while I may not have seen the metal OG's in Sabbath, I feel like I still got a taste of the magic. Or is that magic with a K at the end?
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