Metal pioneers Black Sabbath were in a bit of a tight spot in 1983; their collaboration with Ronnie James Dio ended the year before under strained circumstances over mixing of their live album, and their original vocalist Ozzy Osbourne had meanwhile established himself as a solo artist, backed by some major talent.
Meanwhile, former Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan was intending to take 1983 off, in order to recover from an operation to remove nodules from his throat. He had folded his own band Gillan at the end of the previous year and, unbeknown to many at the time, had been planning with his old Deep Purple bandmates to reform the band (that finally took place in April 1984). However, in the summer of 1983 he agreed to a proposal from Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi that they should join forces, for one album and tour at least.
With a marquee name on vocals once again, and with dates booked including a headlining appearance at Reading, all seemed set for a successful year. However, when the album was released ('Born Again') it provoked controversy because of the 'satanic' cover design (a demonic-looking baby set against a blue background). It later emerged that cover artist Steve 'Krusher' Joule (who had been approached by Sabbath) was reluctant to do the cover. He had a good relationship with the Osbourne camp and not wanting to jeopardise that, he submitted a rough design of a demonic baby, feeling certain it would be rejected by Sabbath's management. Instead (to Krusher's amazement) the design was approved, and he was then obliged to produce a finished album cover. Famously, Ian Gillan quoted as saying "I looked at the cover and puked"! (He had not been party to the decision to approve the artwork, and did not see it until the album was ready for release.)
Further to this, Gillan also said that he felt that the album had been ruined at the mixing stage, he had gone on holiday after contributing his vocals and left feeling that they had made a 'brilliant' album. However he thought differently once he heard the final mix. Nonetheless, the band (with ELO drummer Bev Bevan touring in place of Bill Ward) hit the road for the tour. They suffered more setbacks on the road when the stage set they had conceived, based on 'Stonehenge' was far too big to fit into many of the venues they played at, and the incident was parodied in the film 'This Is Spinal Tap' - only in reverse, with their Stonehenge set being built exactly to the plans (right down to the measurements), so that it looked tiny when lowered on stage! Gillan also struggled when singing older Sabbath songs; not familiar with the material, he had prepared crib sheets with the lyrics printed on them, to be placed on stage monitors. This plan fell apart when the stage was filled with dry ice, obscuring the sheets and resulting in farcical moments where the singer actually had to squint next to the sheets, in order to read the lyric and perform the songs!
Their appearance at Reading did go on as planned, they headlined the Saturday, 27th August. Their set was recorded for BBC Radio One's 'Friday Rock Show' and broadcast a few weeks later. By the end of 1983, Gillan and Sabbath quietly parted company and while Gillan pressed ahead with the Deep Purple reunion, Sabbath struggled through the rest of the decade, and after numerous false starts finally got some stability back in 1987 with the recruitment of Tony Martin on vocals. He went on to record five albums with Sabbath, but his contribution and efforts to restore their shattered credibility is overlooked nowadays, with the band finally reuniting with Ozzy in 2012.
Probably the best song off the 'Born Again' album was the epic 'Zero The Hero'; it is presented here:
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