Sometimes, you decide at the last minute “ let’s go to a concert.” Sometimes you may not be in the mood to go ahead of time, but the day of the show you decide to pull the trigger on the tickets. This is precisely what happened on Friday, March 13, 2026 when Black Label Society came through LA. Let’s take a look……….
I’m not gonna lie going into this I really wasn’t expecting much because they weren’t that great the last time I saw them. The last time I saw them was in 2022 when they played with Anthrax and Hatebreed and after their set I remember thinking “there should’ve been another band instead.” Even before that the last time I saw them on their headlining tour in Ventura, they just sounded OK and not to mention they took about an hour or so to get on stage. I even remember thinking that if I never see this band again, I think I’ll be just fine. In fact, when I saw that they’re playing Aftershock 2026, I remember thinking that since they’ll only be getting around a 40 minute set, they’ll be done quickly. Now you may ask “ if they were so bad the last time and you’re really not interested in seeing them why did you even go?” well the answer is simple really and that is the tickets were cheap and if they sounded bad, I would just leave. I will say it was definitely nice to be proven wrong.
Opening the night was a band called Dark Chapel followed by Zakk Sabbath which is Zakk playing Black Sabbath songs. My friend who I went with and I got there about 2/3 of the way in to Sabbath and they actually didn’t sound too bad. Zakk really channels his inner Ozzy Osbourne and he actually almost sounds just like him at times. But of course in typical Zakk Wylde fashion, he turns a 2 minute guitar solo into a 5 minute solo but that’s to be expected with him. I do remember seeing Zakk Sabbath back in 2016 when they played the Ozzfest Meets Knotfest announcement at The Palladium and I thought they were fine. At the end of the day, it’s a tribute band but in this case it’s the kind I would go see much like the Motörhead tribute band Murdërone. After Sabbath, it was time for the main event………..
Once the prerecorded tape of “Whole Lotta Sabbath” was done and the Black Label Banner dropped, they opened the set with “Funeral Bell” and man what a great choice!!! Immediately after that song they went right into “Name In Blood” which is a brand new song off of their upcoming album Engines Of Demolition and this is my first time hearing that song. I’m a huge fan of when bands debut new songs live before the album is released. It kind of gives you a taste of what is to come and I’ll be honest if the rest of the album is like that one song then I have a lot of hope for it. No obviously I wish they could’ve played more songs, but for the Setlist that we got, it was actually a pretty decent set. It would’ve been nice to have heard some older material but the songs that we had from their respective albums all sounded great. They did play the Ozzy song “No More Tears” which is one of my favorite songs and of course it sounded amazing. When they played the song “Stillborn,” a giant banner of a young Ozzy Osbourne was revealed and it was absolutely awesome and my friend who went with me said he got goosebumps (and rightfully so). Overall, it was just a great night of metal and hard rock with a couple of small tributes. One of my biggest grips with this band live is the 20 minute long guitar duel with Zakk and Dario Loreno (his other guitar player) but even that didn’t seem to take forever. This show definitely brought them back in my good graces and I would actually go see them again. I’m very much looking forward to seeing them at Aftershock 2026 and the next time they’re in your neck of the woods go see them.
Final Grade: A
Setlist:
- Funeral Bell
- Name In Blood
- Destroy & Conquer
- A Love Unreal
- Heart Of Darkness
- No More Tears (Ozzy Osbourne cover)
- In This River
- The Blessed Hellride
- Set You Free
- Fire It Up (with dueling guitar solos and Deep Purple’s “Smoke On The Water”outro)
- Suicide Messiah
- Stillborn (with jam on “Black Sabbath” riff)
Black Label Society is:
Zakk Wylde: voice and guitar
Dario Lorina: guitar
John “JD” DeServio: bass
Jeff Fabb: drums
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