Starting Out: 1970

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The last hurrah of Black Sabbath this week in Birmingham prompted a brief flurry of emails from The Lads [blog posts passim], about our listening to a tape of their eponymous first album - pictured above - on a dark evening in Lightwoods Park, Birmingham, just after its release. We were, as my dad would have phrased it 'just bits o' kids' back then, firmly convinced that there was a secret incantation buried within the sounds of the title track that would elicit dark forces. Old Nick fortunately never made an appearance that evening, but we all enjoyed the night, nevertheless. Some time after, we got to see the band in one of their first outings at Birmingham Town Hall [ticket stub also pictured]. My ears rang for a good three days afterwards, and my tinnitus to this day bears witness to those youthful good times of over half a century ago. Glad I was there to see the birth of Brummagem's indigenous musical art form, as it happened, though. By the way, my ticket to the concert in 1970 cost just eight bob, or 40p in today's money; which is about 1000th the cost of a ticket to the farewell gig in Villa Park...

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