Sala Barts, Barcelona, June 14th

The last time I saw Zakk Wylde live on stage was way back in 2007, at the Monsters of Rock Festival in Zaragoza. Back then, he played a very praiseworthy double bill with both Black Label Society and Ozzy Osbourne. I still remember that memorable night and I will always treasure it. But nine years is way too fucking long without seeing one of my childhood heroes, Father Zakk Wylde. This is why the night of June 14th I was craving for a special evening, and boy, did I have one!

As you can see in the poster, this is supposedly a Zakk Wylde solo tour to promote his second solo album “Book of Shadows II”, and even though this is certainly true, the same poster suggests an intimate and perhaps acoustic show. Intimate? Sure, but acoustic? Well, not so much…

You see, just as soon as I got in the venue, I went to the merch stand with the intention to buy a Zakk Wylde T-Shirt, but to my surprise, all the merch available was Black Label Society merch, which is fine by me, so I bought a T-Shirt nevertheless, but I started to feel a little suspicious about this whole gig. Next, I bought a beer and got in the room, and what I saw on stage confirmed what I already knew by then: In the stage there were a full drum set, three mic stands, a piano on the side, and no chairs whatsoever. This was going to be a full-electric-guitar, in-your-face Rock n’ Roll show.

At 21:10, Zakk Wylde took the stage by storm. But of course, the legendary bearded berserker wasn’t alone. There they were, in the flesh, with their SDMF vests on: John DeServio on bass, Dario Lorina on piano and Jeff Fabb on drums. The whole Black Label Society was in the house!

With the first song ‘Sold My Soul’ from the album “Book of Shadows”, Father Zakk did an amazing and flawless six-minute solo and made sure we knew his intentions to basically kick our butts that night.

The set list consisted entirely of songs from “Book of Shadows” Vol 1 and 2 from 1996 and 2016 respectively, but with a BLS twist. Songs like ‘Lay Me Down’, ‘Between Heaven and Hell’, ‘Dead as Yesterday’ or ‘Lost Prayer’ were masterfully played by this reincarnation of Black Label Society, that has been together only since 2014, but sounded really tight, as if they had been backing Zakk Wylde for ages. De Servio never stopped smiling and joking with the audience and Lorina exchanged instruments from time to time with Father Zakk, who is clearly in a sweet moment of his musical career and looked really happy on stage. He even came down with the audience to perform a prolonged guitar solo among us, and when he was getting back to the stage, Zakk noticed a

youngling, no more than 8 years old, on top of the shoulders of his father, and offered him a special part of the solo.

With one of my favorite songs of “Book of Shadows II”, ‘Sleeping Dogs’, the show ended and I felt that I had been part of a unique night that would always be in my memory. One of those nights, you know?

Thank you, Zakk, and thank you, Black Label Society!

Setlist:

1. Sold My Soul

2. Autumn Changes

3. Tears of December

4. Lay Me Down

5. Road Back Home

6. Yesterday's Tears

7. Guitar Solo

8. Between Heaven and Hell

9. Darkest Hour

10. Guitar Solo

11. Throwin' It All Away

12. Dead as Yesterday

13. Eyes of Burden

14. Way Beyond Empty

15. The King

16. Lost Prayer 17. Sleeping Dogs