Back in 1992, Ozzy Osbourne set out to put together the album that would eventually become Live & Loud. The recordings for this live album took place during his legendary No More Tours tour, in the US cities of Atlanta, Cincinnati, Orlando and Miami. The final album and DVD are a mix of the best parts of all of these recordings. However, the individual, full live show recordings have survived and have since made their way into the hands of collectors. My favorite way to get all of these recordings in one place is the limited and now out of print CD box set called Live & Loud, The Alternate Album Collection. If you want to hear them all, I recommend finding a copy of that set. If you want to grab one of these fantastic shows on vinyl though, read on.
Live at Miami Arena obviously focuses exclusively on this one particular show from the several that were recorded. The box doesn’t explicitly say, but I’m pretty sure this has to be a soundboard recording. I have several boxes from the Antenna Concert Radio Broadcast label, and so far, I’ve been happy with all of them. The last one I talked about was also an Ozzy set, but this one seems to be a bit harder to find. It took me a few months of searching to finally find someone who was willing to part with a copy.
Live at Miami Arena is a 3 LP set and comes pressed on some beautiful splatter wax. Each box is numbered out of 150 copies, and the packaging looks great. All of the Antenna boxes I have had so far have a sort of “wrap around” labeling. The boxes themselves are on the thinner side, but they are also very sturdy. The artwork is printed separately and then wrapped around and glued onto the box. This unique approach results in a delicate, but functional paper hinge that keeps both sides of the box together when you open it. I know it sounds like it would be weird, but it actually works quite well and has a nice, professional look to it. The hype sticker was on the outer plastic wrap, but it was easily removable, and I peeled it off and stuck it to a new permanent sleeve.
The set doesn’t really come with any extras, but the printed sleeves sort of make up for it. These are full art, professional grade with vibrant colors, and add a lot of value to the set. As you can see, two of the sleeves feature pictures of Ozzy, and one has a great picture of Zakk. They are very heavy, but I decided not to keep my LPs in them to avoid seam splitting. As usual, I moved the discs into MOFI inners and put everything back in the box. Thankfully, even with the extra thickness, everything still fits inside for easy storage. The actual labels on the LP’s look great too and have the same print quality as everything else. Although it’s not indicated, the sides of the records with the track labeling, not the pictures, are Side A. This means you’ll want to play those sides first.
Looking everything over, each record was totally flat and free of any visible defects. These aren’t heavyweight LPs, but they aren’t exactly light either. A close guess would be about “average” as far as weight is concerned. Even though everything looked clean, I did a pass on the VPI to make sure. One thing I noticed right away was a bit of crackling at the beginning and ending of each disc. This happens with a lot of pressings and is not a problem. Any noise in the beginning is gone by the time the music starts, and the stuff at the end is just an annoying reminder to flip the record. Otherwise, this pressing is extremely quiet, and I didn’t notice any kind of surface noise at all on my copy.
Live Recording – Miami Arena – Miami, FL USA – 14th August, 1992
A1 Paranoid
A2 I Don’t Want To Change The World
A3 Desire
A4 Mr. Crowley
B1 I Don’t Know
B2 Road To Nowhere
B3 Flying High Again
C1 Guitar Solo
C2 Suicide Solution
C3 MC
C4 Goodbye To Romance
D1 Shot In The Dark
D2 No More Tears
D3 Miracle Man
E1 Drum Solo
E2 War Pigs
F1 Bark At The Moon
F2 Mama, I’m Coming Home
F3 Crazy Train
Right away, I was impressed with the audio quality from what is essentially a rough soundboard recording. I think the drums are a bit heavy, but overall, everything sounds great. The show opens with “Paranoid”, which Ozzy fans will know is an unusual first number. I’m guessing the usual running order of the show was probably changed for recording reasons. Just as I was really getting into the music, everything but the drums cut out on “I Don’t Want To Change The World”. There is no getting around the fact that this sounds awful, but thankfully it doesn’t last. It’s a major glitch, but it’s one that doesn’t come back for the duration of the recording. This might be a dealbreaker for some collectors, so I wanted to be clear that this is an issue. It’s got nothing to do with the pressing but is rather a problem with the actual audio source itself.
Except for that one issue, everything else starts off great. Ozzy is in top form while interacting with the crowd, and the musicians are all on point. Ozzy says that even though this is No More Tours, it would take a bullet to stop him, and even then, he’d come back to haunt us. I think I’m going to hold him to that promise. After that, we get to the last song on Side A, which is “Mr. Crowley”. This is a powerhouse version of the classic song, and has what is quite possibly the longest break I’ve heard before the lyrics come in. Ozzy fans will know exactly what I mean here.
Once we get to the second side of the first LP, all of the technical issues have apparently been sorted and the recording sounds superb. Zakk goes into an intense guitar solo after “Flying High Again”, and it somehow turns into the US National Anthem. Just when we think it’s over and put on the second record, the guitar solo continues. At this point, Zakk is doing parts from “Freebird”, and I started thinking that Ozzy has certainly gone to the bathroom and left Zakk in charge of the audience for a while. Finally, Ozzy returns, and the band goes into “Suicide Solution”. As an inside sort of joke, Oz adds the lyrics “get the gun… shoot shoot” during the song, presumably as a nod to his famous court case resulting from (probably intentionally) misheard lyrics.
At this point, the label lists the next track as “MC”. Basically, this is Ozzy talking to the crowd and explaining the Live & Loud recording details. He invites them to “get louder” if they want to help him get this thing recorded, to which they overwhelmingly oblige. After that, we have an incredible version of “No More Tears” where Zakk absolutely kills it on the guitar solo. This might be my favorite live version of that song, which considering all the great recordings out there, is saying a lot. The volume creeps up a bit as the band goes into “Miracle Man”, but it’s nothing too distracting.
The third LP starts out with a drum solo from the legendary Randy Castillo. Clocking in at over nine minutes, this is a long one. I think almost all drum solos are too long, and this one is no exception. It is, however, an excellent solo. Randy somehow managed to keep things interesting the whole time. Some electronic effects on the drums (sounds like a flanger) also help a little bit, too. This is another spot on the record where the volume fluctuates a bit and kind of creeps up, so take care not to blast your roof off if you are listening to this at 3 AM like I was. Or just do it. Rock and Roll!
Finally, we get a spectacular version of “War Pigs”, a few other Ozzy classics, and then “Crazy Train” as the encore. Honestly, you just can’t beat this set list. During Ozzy’s final speech to the crowd, however, some dude gets hold of a microphone and manages to say a few words. This wouldn’t have been heard in the arena, just on the recording. Thankfully, this takes place during the speech, and it does not interfere with the music. I’m betting you’ll probably never forget hearing this dude calling some guy (presumably on the recording crew) a dirty-ass f*g. I almost didn’t want to ruin it for you, but I think it needed mentioning. It’s a special moment for sure.
In the end, I decided that I really love this set. From the beautiful LPs to the mostly great sound quality, I would say this thing was worth the time and expense that it took for me to track it down. I think any Ozzy fan, especially people who particularly enjoy the No More Tears era, will really love this box. The packaging is a solid 10/10 and the audio is around 9/10 if you don’t take the music cutting out during “I Don’t Want to Change the World” into consideration. The overall value will depend on what you can get it for, of course. I hope that Antenna continues to release boxes like these in the future. They are certainly on my list of companies to pick up releases from while they are still new, before the resellers get hold of everything and send the prices through the roof. If you are interested, my advice would be to start looking for one now while some copies are still out there. Good luck in the hunt!