# Watch a young Black Sabbath confuse the hell out of stoned European hippies one week before Paranoid became a hit single

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/watch-a-young-black-sabbath-confuse-the-hell-out-of-stoned-european-hippies-one-week-before-paranoid-became-a-hit-single/
- Published: 2026-08-23T01:00:00+00:00
- Original publisher: Louder
- Original article: https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/watch-a-young-black-sabbath-confuse-european-hippies-in-1970
- Topics: Europe, World

## Key points

- Rare footage shows Black Sabbath playing Paranoid live in Belgium, August 1970
- Performance came a week before the song hit the UK charts
- Confused hippie festival crowd hadn't yet heard the soon-to-be classic

## Summary

An archival video circulating on Black Sabbath's official YouTube channel shows the band performing their now-classic song Paranoid at the Jazz Bilzen festival in Belgium on 21 August 1970, a week before the track reached the UK singles chart. The footage is notable because the audience, gathered to see acts such as Cat Stevens, The Kinks and Dizzy Gillespie, would have had no familiarity with the song, making their bemused reaction to Ozzy Osbourne's dark lyrics and Tony Iommi's heavy riff a striking snapshot of a genre still in its infancy.

At the time of the performance, Paranoid had yet to make an impact on UK charts or European radio, meaning the largely unprepared, laid-back festival crowd was among the first to witness what would become one of heavy metal's most enduring anthems. The song itself was famously written by the band in around 30 minutes, and the clip offers a rare glimpse of it being performed live in public before it achieved mainstream success.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.