Friday, February 24th I got my first live look at the brilliant, highly entertaining “drive-thru metal” outfit known as Mac Sabbath. If you’re not familiar with the southern California band, it’s a gang of musicians that dresses as demonic-looking McDonaldland characters while playing Black Sabbath songs with the lyrics changed to speak of the dangers of fast food.
Really.
And it’s hilarious. Ronald Osbourne leads this outfit with a dead-on 70’s Ozzy persona, right down to the peace signs and the tassles hanging from under his red-and-white striped arms. On guitar is Slayer McCheese, on bass is Grimalice and the drummer is none other than Catburgler, a Hamburgler lookalike with Peter Criss’ cat whiskers painted on his face.
The songs are played perfectly with the lyrics being substituted out for tales of what fast food does to the human body. “Sweet Leaf” becomes “Sweet Beef”. “Iron Man” is now “Frying Pan.” “Paranoid” is retooled as “Pair-a-Buns.”
And on this night they opened their set with “Organic Funeral,” spoofing “Electric Funeral” from the Paranoid album.
“Prostate cancer
Thyroid Disease
Made To Order
As You Please!”
There was a line in the pouring rain to get into Strummers in Fresno, CA, many of the people wearing costuming, whether it be a Hamburgler mask, a red-hair Ronald McDonald wig or a drive-through headset. After the opening band finished up, the Mac Sabbath stage was set up by a guy wearing a McDonalds uniform, complete with the paper hat, who we came to know as Employee Of The Month.
A colorful banner with the band’s logo stretched across the entire stage with giant Ronald McDonald heads with laser eyes mounted on the stacks on either side of the stage. As the show drew closer, the tops of the Grimalice and Slayer McCheese costumes could be seen above the banner. Then, after the opening narrative of Ronald Osbourne’s mission to warn the world, the banner dropped and the band went into “Organic Funeral” with Ronald slinking onto center stage with his crossed arms tied down in a straitjacket.
It was a tour-de-force through the Black Sabbath catalog from there, with the crazy lyrics and silly between-song banter never getting old. “This isn’t a Great White Castle show, you know!” “You didn’t think you were coming here to see Chipot-L.A. Guns did you?” “No Pantera Bread tonight!”
Midway through the show they broke into an homage to the movie “Blue Velvet,” throwing out the Heineken vs. Pabst Blue Ribbon debate and including Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” sung into a work light/microphone.
It was a ridiculous evening of fun and the packed house ate it up. Many in the audience were familiar with all of the bits and the Black Sabbath riffs went over beautifully live. The heaviness of the music against the goofiness of the spectacle is one of those “it’s so crazy, it just might work” brainstorms.
Black Sabbath wasn’t able to save the world from the dangers of evil. But don’t count out Ronald Osbourne in his quest to educate the masses on the perils of junk food. He’s made this acid-trip of an idea into a successful touring band and even Ozzy Osbourne himself got a kick out of it.