In 1983, Black Sabbath found themselves in danger of being outflanked by not one, but two, of their former vocalists.
Having recruited Jake E. Lee as his new guitarist following the tragic passing of Randy Rhoads, Ozzy Osbourne would return in triumphant form with his third solo album Bark At The Moon, while his replacement in Sabbath, Ronnie James Dio, had bounced back from his own acrimonious split with Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler to launch his own solo band, Dio, with a brilliant debut album, Holy Diver.
Sabbath's notoriously combative manager Don Arden, still smarting over his daughter Sharon's decision to manage Ozzy, wasn't a man who took kindly to his charges being pushed out of the spotlight, and having recruited former Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan to front a new Mk. III Sabbath line-up on their new Born Again album, Arden had a brainwave in regards to how the godfathers of metal could re-establish themselves as rock giants: they should perform live in front of giant rocks.
The concept, and its disastrous execution, is explained in excruciating detail in Geezer Butler's entertaining, recently-released new memoir Into The Void.
