Broke out the Ozzy live in Philly 1988 show the other day. WOW, I forgot what a MONSTER Zakk was back then. I love him... but he is only a shell of the guitar player that he was in his early 20's.

Early Zakk vs Current Zakk

What do you all think?

I love Zakk but his early stuff was definitely the best. I wish he would go back to more of that vibe. One of my fav things he used to do was in his spotlight solos. He had this rocking riff he would play and do some lead in between then go back to the riff. I find the stuff he plays now kind of boring. I know, I know, it is all pentatonic stuff even back then, it just sounded more musical. And of course he was much much faster back then. Not that that matters a whole lot. One thing I think Zakk should look at is his use of his Wah. Not the biggest fan of how he does it now. But hey, top each their own. Do I wish I could play like Zakk now days? Yup. But I wish I could play like he did back in the day even more.

The early Zakk was great! There was fire!
The current Zakk, well I have seen him a couple times say about 4 years ago and he came over very uninspired, I didn't even like his spotlight solo, and he even did some Randy parts which should be cool but still it was borring, borring...... was glad when they continued with the set. Also his guitarsound I liked much better in the early days.
It will be interesting to see if the fire will be back when he comes back to Ozzy?
I think the early Zakk had a lot more personality on the guitar than that Gus G guy now..... (but that's another subject)

Agreed... His tone is very muddy now. all bottom end. Sounds sloppy.

His guitar solo on that Philly 88 DVD could be the best spotlight solo I have ever seen.

In defense of Gus, he really hasn't had a chance to show much of himself with Ozzy. He didn't write any of the last record and when you have a guitar lineage like Ozzy's to live up to, its kind of tough to put your stamp on it without something of your own.

Zakk's NRFTW/NMT rhythm tone is one of the best ever, I still remember hearing Miracle Man for the first time and going "holy sh**, what a tone". To this day its still my favorite song Zakk ever recorded with Ozzy.

For me I always thought the solo for No More Tears is EPIC

I heard he improvised that on the spot. Good grief, old school Zakk was so impressive.

Everything on NMT is epic. Out side of the Randy stuff that is the best album.

I agree with everything you said 100%.

No More Tears saved Ozzy's career. It was his most commercial album and really cemented his career.

The old zakk did not do a pitch harmonic on every note of a song

I would love to meet zakk he seems like a very down to earth guy

Uh, thats not really true, he looked more the part early on, but he is the only one who wrote very intricate guitar work, he did it for at least 10 years, and now hes gone, he rocked a long long time, gus g I guess did not work out, they did a great album, but I think ozz will always be with sabbath, if you want to be randy, start ozzy ozbro.

Yeah, Randy didn't write anything intricate

Zakk's guitar playing, for my liking, was incredible up till the mid 90s. Not saying he isn't incredible but I prefer his style of play before BLS became his top priority.

I remember buying the Philly VHS bootleg and my jaw dropping at how faithful and accurate he would play Randy and Jake's stuff.