Fact #117530
When:
Short story:
Black Sabbath play at The Falconer Theatre, Copenhagen, Denmark, Europe, supported by AC/DC.
Full article:
David Tangye (PA to Ozzy Osbourne) : We played at the Falconer Centre with AC/DC, we stayed in The Plaza Hotel near the Tivoli Gardens. Tony was having trouble with getting an awful buzzing sound on his guitars. John Birch, who made Tony’s guitars, decided to come over to Copenhagen, to see first hand what was causing the problems.
So we met up with John in The Plaza, and I remember Dr. Hook were also on a Scandinavian tour, so I met Dennis Locorrierre. So we met up to have a drink, Ozzy, Bill Ward, myself and John Birch in the bar, with some of the Dr. Hook people. So we asked Hans, the bartender, if he could recommend anything to drink, and he says, "Well, you must try the Elephant Beer … but it’s very, very strong."
Well, we considered ourselves quite used to strong beer, so we got a session going, drinking pint after pint of this stuff, and Hans was saying, "No, you must drink it like wine, not beer." After a few of these, John Birch fell asleep, passed out, and Ozzy borrowed a felt-tip pen from a guy at the bar, and wrote on top of John’s bald head, "I am a twat". So we carried on drinkin’, and then John woke up and started back into the conversation exactly where he’d left off. It was very strange, you know?
As the night went on we started feeling the effects of this elephant beer, and I was sharing a room with Ozzy, so we go back up to the room and crashed out on the beds. I was woken up by the sound of Ozzy being violently sick and I wasn’t feeling much better myself. I was feeling very strange so I decided to phone the hotel doctor. When he came, the first thing he did was give us a telling off about drinking so much of this beer, then he gave us each a jab of something to calm us down, valium or something.
So we got up the next morning, and went down to the reception area where we found John tucking into a big breakfast, as if nothing had happened, but he still had "I am a twat" written on his head.
I think the last gig on that tour was in Gothenburg, and it was after that tour that I left them. It was all going a bit strange. They weren’t fighting or anything, but they had their differences, and I could see it escalating. It was almost like one of those familiarity breeds contempt things, and they had just got over-familiar.
I was getting paid by the band and they didn’t have a lot of money at that time. They’d gone into a bit of a decline which I think was basically to do with all the touring they were doing. It was non-stop, playing these high-energy shows.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Jan 2015)
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So we met up with John in The Plaza, and I remember Dr. Hook were also on a Scandinavian tour, so I met Dennis Locorrierre. So we met up to have a drink, Ozzy, Bill Ward, myself and John Birch in the bar, with some of the Dr. Hook people. So we asked Hans, the bartender, if he could recommend anything to drink, and he says, "Well, you must try the Elephant Beer … but it’s very, very strong."
Well, we considered ourselves quite used to strong beer, so we got a session going, drinking pint after pint of this stuff, and Hans was saying, "No, you must drink it like wine, not beer." After a few of these, John Birch fell asleep, passed out, and Ozzy borrowed a felt-tip pen from a guy at the bar, and wrote on top of John’s bald head, "I am a twat". So we carried on drinkin’, and then John woke up and started back into the conversation exactly where he’d left off. It was very strange, you know?
As the night went on we started feeling the effects of this elephant beer, and I was sharing a room with Ozzy, so we go back up to the room and crashed out on the beds. I was woken up by the sound of Ozzy being violently sick and I wasn’t feeling much better myself. I was feeling very strange so I decided to phone the hotel doctor. When he came, the first thing he did was give us a telling off about drinking so much of this beer, then he gave us each a jab of something to calm us down, valium or something.
So we got up the next morning, and went down to the reception area where we found John tucking into a big breakfast, as if nothing had happened, but he still had "I am a twat" written on his head.
I think the last gig on that tour was in Gothenburg, and it was after that tour that I left them. It was all going a bit strange. They weren’t fighting or anything, but they had their differences, and I could see it escalating. It was almost like one of those familiarity breeds contempt things, and they had just got over-familiar.
I was getting paid by the band and they didn’t have a lot of money at that time. They’d gone into a bit of a decline which I think was basically to do with all the touring they were doing. It was non-stop, playing these high-energy shows.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Jan 2015)