Following up last week’s Ozzy review with another Ozzy review, I bring you Waiting on Satan’s Call. This is a new release by somebody called Reek of Death Records, and it’s supposedly limited to 200 copies worldwide. When I saw this one pop up, I knew I had to have it just based on the artwork alone. I imagine this is probably done with AI, but I think the sleeve looks pretty cool. Like a slightly more menacing version of the Devil from South Park, but cool nonetheless. For a couple months, this one was very hard to get a hold of. If you look back to some of the sold prices on eBay, you might be in shock as to how much this thing went for. As these things often do, the price came down when a few more copies hit the re-sellers, and I was finally able to pick one up.
Right out of the gate, you should know that this is basically a raw version of the Ozzy/Randy Rhoads Tribute album. Recorded in Cleveland Ohio on May 11th 1981, this performance is largely what that album drew from, along with a couple tracks not featured here when Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake made up the rhythm section. The big difference between this version and the final, officially released Tribute is mainly the double tracking on Ozzy’s vocals. I don’t know how they did it with 1981 technology, but they did do a good job making the vocals sound a lot more polished. After hearing the Tribute album for so many years, Waiting on Satan’s Call is kind of refreshing. It feels a lot more honest, and more like you are there in the crowd listening live.
Live Recording – Cleveland, Ohio – 1981-05-11
A1 Flying High Again
A2 I Don’t Know
A3 Crazy Train
B1 Believer
B2 Mr. Crowley
B3 Suicide Solution
C1 Revelation (Mother Earth)
C2 Steal Away (The Night)
C3 Paranoid
I don’t (yet) have a copy of the legendary Ozzy bootleg Bat’s Head Soup (if you have one you’ll sell me, hit me up on Instagram), but I believe that what we are looking at here are just those same tracks in a different order. Like I mentioned in the last review I did of Montreal 1981 and Night Terrors, which were recorded on the same tour a few months earlier in Montreal, Revelation (Mother Earth) is censored again in pretty much the same spot. I would need to compare these recordings back-to-back, but the fact that Ozzy makes the same error in the same song is suspicious. Since these bands did so many live shows that sounded so much alike, we are often used to just taking what’s printed on the sleeve as being accurate. I believe that what we have here is labelled correctly, but I’m not 100% sure at this point.
Speaking of inaccuracy, one thing you might notice when you pick up a copy of this release is that there are some egregious misspellings and abbreviations in the track listing. Suicide “Solutions”, “Steel” Away the Night, and simply “Mother” for Revelation (Mother Earth). It always blows my mind that people who care enough to release a small run bootleg album don’t double check spelling or know the songs well enough to catch these mistakes. I get that English is probably a (distant) second language to many of the bootleggers, but come on. In this case, the errors are even more bizarre since otherwise, this pressing is pretty solid. The sleeve has crisp and clear artwork, and the printed labels featuring the Ozzy bat logo are very nice. My copy showed up pretty dirty, but it cleaned up on my VPI without any issues.
Another interesting feature of this 2 LP set is the fact that side D is just blank. This isn’t entirely unusual, but mostly we would see this on official releases. When it happens, most pressings will feature some kind of etching on that blank side. With Waiting on Satan’s Call, it’s just blank. It’s still got a label, but that’s it. I guess you could consider this a bonus feature if you want to use side D to set your anti-skate.
Performance wise, any Ozzy fan should know what to expect here. As I mentioned before, this is basically a raw Tribute album. Ozzy’s vocals are a lot better than they were in the Montreal show I discussed before, but they still aren’t “perfect”. While listening to this pressing, it really struck me how complicated these songs are to sing. The fact that Ozzy could do this well while being high on industrial quantities of drugs is amazing. The rest of the band is fantastic, and as usual, Randy Rhoads steals the show with his amazing guitar work. I don’t think there is much need to go into too much more depth on this, as this is a performance you have probably already heard. If not, my review for Montreal 1981 will apply for this performance as well, as they are very similar.
Pressing wise, this album came out great. The vinyl is quiet throughout, with no clicks or pops. It was easy to forget that I was listening to a vinyl record and not a recording on a CD. This is still a bootleg release, so you shouldn’t be expecting perfect quality here. For what it is though, I would say that overall, I’m very pleased. Taking the spelling errors into account, I would give the packaging (including the quality of materials) a solid 8.5/10. Pressing-wise, I would say an easy 9/10, at least for the copy I ended up with. As usual, your results may vary, but I feel like most people would be very happy with this release.
If you do decide to seek out a copy of Waiting on Satan’s Call, how much should you expect to pay? About a month ago, the few copies that came up for sale were going for north of 400.00 US if you can believe that. Spoiler alert… it’s nice, but it’s not worth nearly that amount. At the time of this writing, you should be able to find a copy domestically in the US for around 75.00. If you have to import one from somewhere, you can expect to pay a bit more. Around 100.00 US seems to be the average. I probably wouldn’t spend too much more than that on it. Good luck in the hunt!