October 31, 1970.  Black Sabbath on Halloween night, a most interesting combination.  University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, USA, outdoors on the soccer field.  I was close enough to see & hear well.  Many in the crowd were costumed up for Halloween. UM students only, I still had my ID, so was able to get in.  I had not yet bought the first Sabbath album, and was only vaguely familiar with the group.  No opening act, only Sabbath.  They arrived more or less on time and started their opening tune.  The power failed almost right off and the entire stage went dark.  Roadies got to work, restored power.  Sabbath started another tune.  Again the power failed.  Roadies quickly restored it.  Sabbath then started and made it all the way through 'Paranoid'.  Second tune, power failed again.  Ozzy threw the mic down on the stage, you could hear him yell "Aw s***", and almost as if by cue, all four walked off stage, not to be seen again that night.  I don't recall how the crowd reacted.  My thoughts were, 'These guys are hot, I gotta get their album.'

One week later a friend of mine comes home on leave from the Marines, walks into a record store, spots the first Sabbath album, and buys it on the basis of the cover alone.  He had not even heard of the group before.  He brings the record over and says, "Hey man, you gotta  hear this", and gave me the record.  That was it, I was definitely hooked on Sabbath.

March 02, 1972.   Miami Beach Convention Hall.  Sabbath played their entire 'Master of Reality' album and other tunes.  Excellent performance, real smooth, polished, and relaxed, with great guitar work by Tony Iommi.  By then I had formed a group able to render Sabbath and other high level rock with great accuracy.  We were duly impressed by Sabbath.

February 15, 1974: West Palm Beach Auditorium, West Palm Beach, Florida.   I don't really recall anything about the concert except that it was a good performance.  It was their Sabbath Bloody Sabbath tour.

July 27, 1975: WPB Auditorium.  Sabotage tour.  They just weren't so hot that night, seemed to be going through the motions but not really into it.  But . . .

At the end of the concert the arena emptied out very quickly.  I was with my drummer.  He elbows me in the ribs and says, "Hey, let's sneak backstage and meet the group!"  I told him he was crazy, but he really was serious.  Since the arena was round and the stage rectangular, it was easy to get backstage, so when the security guard looked away, we did just that.  We found ourselves lost in a labyrinth of corridors, and just by pure luck spotted them in a large room when someone came out the door right when we were passing by. So we smugly walked in and were promptly thrown out by a roadie.  We begged him to introduce us to the group, telling him that we used to play Sabbath tunes a few years back, and after a bit he said, "OK, wait here and I'll ask them."  We waited in the corridor for 20 minutes, yep, 20 very long minutes just standing there.  Right when we were ready to give it up, the roadie came out and said, "OK, you can go on in, but just a few minutes, and don't bother them, they're real tired."   He introduced us to Tony Iommi and Ozzy Osbourne.  My drummer and Iommi started chatting tech stuff, my drummer was by then playing guitar, and I found myself looking down at Ozzy, who was sitting in a chair.  I wanted to listen in on the tech talk, but didn't want to ignore Ozzy, so I said hello and probably mentioned something about our playing their tunes a bit back.  He was very friendly, but launched into a verbal loop about how he had the flu for weeks and couldn't sing at all that night.  I said something like, "Yeah, you guys were a lot better last year", then realized what I had said and shut up quickly.  Ozzy went on & on & on about his flu in the friendliest manner imaginable, also said he almost didn't finish their latest album because of it. The entire meeting took about 15 minutes.

It sure was a concert to remember. The next day I called our bass player and told him what he missed.  He had decided not to come along because it was a 2 hour drive each way and he had to work the next day.

I never again saw Black Sabbath in concert, and lost touch with their albums after 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath'.