Audio from a 40-minute Black Sabbath live session, shot for Dutch television in 1970, has turned up on an unofficial album called The Lost 1970 Avro Sessions, according to Louder. Fans thought the tapes were gone for good.
The band filmed the session in Hilversum, the Netherlands, just three months after their debut album hit shelves. It was made for Doebidoe, a short-lived show on Nederland 1, the oldest TV channel in the country.
Black Sabbath stretched out songs from that first record. The set had a take on “The Wizard” with lyrics that differed from the original, plus a rare live run through “Warning.”
A German label named Avertigro put out the album. The name nods to Vertigo, the band’s record label, and to AVRO. Only 666 copies exist, per Louder.
The audio can also be heard on YouTube here and on the Internet Archive here.
Until now, all that was known of the session was a 20-second clip of the band playing “N.I.B.” It had no sound. It popped up on YouTube in 2013, and AVRO had claimed a fire destroyed the tapes.
Doebidoe paved the way for the long-running show Top Pop. David Bowie played “Space Oddity” on the program in 1969, and Deep Purple and the Dutch band Golden Earring also stopped by. Golden Earring came back several times.
Three days after the Doebidoe taping, Black Sabbath showed up on the German TV show Beat-Club. They played “Black Sabbath,” “Iron Man,” and “N.I.B.” They also ran through a soundcheck cover of Carl Perkins’ “Blue Suede Shoes.”
