The first was the 1980 release of the unsanctioned Live at Last album, and the second was former lead vocalist Ozzy Osbourne's 1982 release of a live album consisting entirely of Black Sabbath songs. Iommi also admits that the band had to cancel a show at Madison Square Garden when the bombs blew out the tubes in all the amps during the first note of the first song "War Pigs".

I always liked the ‘Live at Hammersmith Odeon’ album better; I feel it has a more stronger sound but Joe I’m pretty sure your aware of the Live Evil video footage, do you know if any release was intended in ’82 or if any future release is coming out? The liner notes state that the album was recorded in Seattle, San Antonio and Dallas during the 1982 tour in support of the Mob Rules album, but doesn't give specific information on which songs were performed in which location. It contains some of Tony Iommi’s finest moments and I was very impressed with Vinny’s drum solo after Warpigs. You can see this constellation in the middle of the back cover and, as you can imagine, is the one that has the shape of a cross.In the same interview, asked to choose "a track that the engineer didn't cock up", he said: "I liked 'Heaven and Hell' flowing into 'Sign of the Southern Cross'. Finally, there’s this image, which is a small picture of the CD longbox from the 80’s when this kind of packaging was the style. citation needed] In the same interview series, Butler described the Live Evil mixing sessions as "the Yanks against the Brits," adding, "I think Ronnie seemed to desperately want to do his own stuff and we sort of wanted to keep it going as it was. Ronnie certainly has the vocal chops, if not the same everyman charm, to handle the Osbourne classics, but his incessant banter between (and during! These next two images are what was inside the vinyl gatefold for the album’s original release back in 1982.

Iommi, a founding member of the band, reckoned he had a power struggle on his hands and he wasn't about to relinquish creative control of Black Sabbath.

The US cassette release has, as its first side, sides 1 and almost all of 2 except for "Iron Man" which fades out at end of Side 1. When Iommi arrived days later, he asked the engineer what Dio had been doing in his absence and was told that he had frequently requested that the vocals be brought up higher in the mix.