Live Evil vs. Speak of the Devil

Listened to both and both are great but Speak Of The Devil gets the edge for me. Granted, Tony and Geezer play the old Sabbath tracks better than Brad and Rudy, but I just like it better. Dio rules and he does a great job on the Ozzy tracks, but to me they sound better when Ozzy sings them (well, 1982 Ozzy anyway). The Dio Sabbath tracks, performance wise, are good but the same bands performs them better on the Wacken or Radio City DVD's. The production on Speak sounds better to me than Live Evil.

BTW - I listened to both on vinyl

I never liked DIO singing Ozzy era songs, he wrecked them.

Speak of the Devil

Iommi is a favorite of mine. But I gotta go with Ozzy/Speak of the Devil.

Haven't heard both, but vote for Live Evil for obvious reasons

Live Evil because of

Went with Speak of The Devil.... I haven't heard either album in many years but I remember digging that one a lot more....

Live Evil felt a little bit sterile as I remember.... Sorta like the first Dokken double live...

I really need to hear 'em both again....

I never really gave Speak of the Devil a chance because it was Ozzy playing Black Sabbath songs solo. I guess at the time I was pissed that Ozzy didn't play his songs. I had heard rumors of a live album and I just asummed it would be his solo stuff with a couple of Black Sabbath songs. Hearing about the reasons why years later helped, and I did eventually get the album to finish my collection and it is good. Bought Live Evil when it came out.

Anyone remember the YEARS of debate/talk , not just in magazines, but with your friends, about Live Evil not actually being live, but fake like Frampton Comes Alive, or Kiss Alive II except Alive II WAS live...just they kept going back to fix mistakes... finally it was revealed the same wa done with Live Evil. They kept secretly going in, one member after another, fixing their "mistakes", re-recording their parts.

Ozzy admitted for Speak of the Devil that his vocals were put through some processor/effects afterwards because he had a cold and he thought he sounded horrible on the raw mix, but the instruments were not touched.

Black Sabbath - Live At Hammersmith Odeon is the best live Sabbath album with Dio from the classic era. It's available on LP or as the bonus disc to the Mob Rules Deluxe Edition.

There are no overdubs or post-production tampering, it smokes Live Evil in every conceivable way.