OzzFest 2001 and Beyond

So You Want to Attend a Loud, Loud Rock Concert?

OzzFest is a large, loud outdoor summertime music festival of multiple bands¹.
The festival is named after Ozzy Osbourne² and managed by his wife, Sharon Osbourne. For current info on this mega-concert, consult the official OzzFest web site.

All in all these concerts are fantastically, marvelously loud. Bands like Slipknot and Black Label Society cause the most ear-damage directly, with their non-stop grindcore sets of semi-musical mayhem that will make you wish you had purchased ear-plugs. OzzFest wouldn't be what it is without one or two obscenely loud performances.

Other acts may include popular MTV bands, like Crazy Town and Papa Roach for example, which will seem decidedly out-of-character for a hardrock venue, but appearing there none-the-less to draw in the teen market³. Such bands may also be impolitely booed and heckled, if stronger methods of disapproval are not immediately obvious.

Marilyn Manson often hits the stage with his unique brand of shock theatre and industrial goth-metal. See the Marilyn Manson web site for details about his OzzFest appearances.

Past Highlights

In 2001, Ozzy Osbourne reunited once again with his former bandmate from Black Sabbath and gave a beautiful rendering of their classic material.
Toni Iommi radiated stage presence with his trademarked cool-casual, subdued demeanor. Ozzy, as usual, practised mass crowd control techniques and occasionally relied on his floor teleprompter to sing songs ⁴ that he had obliterated from his memory through years of legendary substance abuse.
Bill Ward hit the drums as though he were calling forth his next heart attack and, of course, Geezer Butler droned away flawlessly on his bass guitar.

Things You Might Notice

OzzFest would be incomplete without water-sprayers, lots of multi-coloured lights, fire, pneumatically launched bird feathers and vast overhead display screens making the performances seem generally dreamlike and transcendent. The night ends with a gluttony of on-stage fireworks.

Ozzy, you might notice, could be showing a bit of middle-aged pouch again and, you might think, he should probably ease into a work-out routine at his favourite gym.

Things You Might Want

Although OzzFest has been commercialized to the hilt⁵, it remains a fun time for nearly everybody. A few people will pass out due to the combination of overexposure to sunlight, expensive cheap beer and undoubtedly some recreational drugs of their own import. Those people will be wisked away in stretchers for prompt (and probably undeserved) medical attention.

Products Related to OzzFest

"We Sold Our Souls For Rock 'N' Roll," a behind-the-scenes documentary film of past OzzFests is the work of the director of "Wayne's World" and features interviews with Rob Zombie, Godsmack, Ozzy himself and assorted other heavy metal lifeforms.

For the Playstation 2 platform, a computer game called "Ozzy's Black Skies" has been created for youthful fans who are probably too young to ask what this game has to do with Ozzy Osbourne or recall the old two-word parser text-adventure games of dinosaur game programmer Scott Adams.

OzzFest bring-alongs should include sunscreen, sunglasses, piercings and tattooes, cigarettes (if you smoke⁶), sums of local currency, ear-plugs and a towel. And by all means bring a book if you're only interested in one or two bands.
All things considered, incidents of redneck violence and out-and-out hooliganism should be quite minimal for such a large, loud and well-policed event.