METAL IS INVENTED!
BLACK SABBATH
Where: The Pokey Hole, Lichfield, UK
WHEN: AUGUST 1, 1969
Black Sabbath had plenty of gigs under their belts by the summer of 1969, but their appearance at West Midlands blues club The Pokey Hole was momentous for one reason: it was the first time they played an ominous new song they’d written – Black Sabbath. Literally, nothing would be the same again.
GEEZER BUTLER: “The first time I knew we were onto something special was when we wrote the song Black Sabbath. I’d seen King Crimson and they used to do Holst’s Planets Suite, the Mars bit. It sounded really ominous. I started messing about with it on bass one day, and I don’t know if it got stuck in Tony’s head, but he picked up his guitar and started playing the riff. I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s what we want.’
“A couple of nights later, we had a gig at this blues club in Lichfield. We had a bit of a following - we used to do 12 bar blues stuff, which went down well. People were ordering drinks and stuff, and we thought, ‘Let’s do that song we just wrote.’
“That was the first time we ever played Black Sabbath. The whole place went, ‘What on earth is this?!’ It was nuts. The crowd went mental. I thought, ‘Fucking hell, we’re onto something.’”
NWOBHM IS BORN
SAMSON / IRON MAIDEN / ANGEL WITCH
Where: Music Machine, London, UK
WHEN: MAY 8, 1979
It was a defining moment in the annals of rock: the birth of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. Three bands – Angel Witch, Iron Maiden and Samson – making a spectacular re-emergence after years
