Bassist Geezer Butler recently talked with Mike Brunn, about Black Sabbath’s 1978 tour, with Van Halen as the opening act back then. Asked if Black Sabbath was a “better band” on the tour, as opposed to the popular sentiment that Van Halen were, Butler replied:
“I wouldn’t say better, but we certainly held our own. Because people were coming to… It’s the Sabbath following that was coming, and a lot of them when Van Halen went on, were surprised how good Van Halen were. […]
“We were fans of Van Halen as well. We’ve gotten great with each other, and we used to party every night. Tony and Eddie got on great. At first, Tony was a bit pissed off that Eddie was doing these longer and longer guitar solos.
”Ozzy was peeved that Dave Lee Roth was going out and using all Ozzy’s things. I think that really started getting us down in the end.
“Some people love Sabbath, some people love Van Halen. The one thing… The record company was out promoting Van Halen, and we were on the same record company.
”But all the backing was going into Van Halen, they were forgetting about us. I think it was just a good show all around.”