Geezer Butler has shared his reminiscences of Black Sabbath’s notorious Stonehenge incident.

It was 1983 when the group briefly welcomed former Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan into their ranks. Together, they recorded Born Again, an album which was roundly panned by followers and critics alike. Still, the larger embarrassment got here with its related tour.

Inspired by different artists on his roster — together with Electric Light Orchestra and Ozzy Osbourne — supervisor Don Arden sought to combine theatrical components into Black Sabbath’s live shows.

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“ELO had a flying saucer landing on stage at their gigs,” Butler recalled throughout a latest look on the Bob Lefsetz podcast. “[Arden] put on the most spectacular shows you could imagine and, he was doing [them] with Ozzy as well.”

“Don Arden came up with this idea of having Stonehenge as the backdrop,” Butler continued. “As we were playing, the sun would gradually rise behind the Stonehenge like normal Stonehenge.”

What Went Wrong With Black Sabbath’s Stonehenge?

Unfortunately, the stage manufacturing Arden dreamt up for Black Sabbath didn’t go to plan. The supervisor mistakenly wrote down the design in meters relatively than ft, creating an outsized downside.

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“They got all the dimensions wrong,” Butler recalled, laughing. “So when we finally went on tour with it, it was too big to put it in any of the gigs, so we had to leave it on the docks in New York. So that was a total fiasco.”

Black Sabbath’s Stonehenge fake pas would encourage a well-known scene in 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap. Meanwhile, Sabbath continued struggling by means of a tumultuous time interval. The band went on hiatus after Gillan departed to rejoin Deep Purple. Sabbath finally returned for 1986’s Seventh Star, nonetheless solely Tony Iommi remained from the group’s authentic lineup.

Watch the ‘Spinal Tap’ Stonehenge Scene