Livesey Blog

Last night we went to see Ozzy Osbourne with Halford opening up the show at the Scotiabank Place in Ottawa, Ontario.   We headed to Wild Wings to meet friends before the show for some wings and a quick beer.    Their selection of wings is overwhelming and creative.    Dinner was very good, me being not very adventurous, I went with plain hot wings with a side of sour creme.  lol

We got to the show just on time, as we were heading to our seats, the lights just dimmed, and Halford was just making it to the stage.   Halford put on a good show, Rob Halford (formerly from Judas Priest and Fight) still has it after all these years.   Live, his voice was unmistakening Rob Halford, sounding the same as he always has, he still can scream and low growl like he always has.    Their setlist was mostly Halford, but they still played a couple Judas Priest song, a Fight song and a cover from Fleetwood Mac, Halford style.    Their sound was great, and as Rob Halford was setting up a Judas Priest song, he mentioned something quite interesting "The next time I see you next year will be with "The Priest!"    So Judas Priest is getting back together...  I just might have to check that out, I was a little young to go to their shows when they were in their prime.

The beginning of the Ozzy show was a parity video of Ozzy in different situations.   He was an Avatar, in Jersey Shore, among others which I did not know, but the Twight one was good. It was a scene where Kristen Stewart is telling Ozzy he is now a vampire...  he replys, "Vampires are for p*ssys, I am the Prince of f*cking Darkness."    Ozzy was full of energy and still knows how to engage the crowd.   He is hard to understand between songs, and at one time I think he realized he made no sense, but recovered with "I am getting old, but you make me young!"   We saw him a couple years ago and like last time, he had his foam spraying gun to shoot at the crowd again.     The first time he pulled it out, his first targets were all the media with their expensive cameras with lens worth $1000's, and he just went off on all of them, then after the song, you still all the media running out of the show, probably to dry off their gear.   Priceless.    And of course, he still uses his buckets of water, which he mostly used on himself, but I do not know why Ozzy was picking on this one security guard at the stage, but this guy got shot with the foam gun multiple times, and had a full bucket of water poured on him.  I am sure the guard really appreciated it.   Ozzy can still sing as good as ever, still relying on his teleprompter on some songs, he sounded great.   Amazingly, this is his 42nd year touring, and still going strong and still incorporated his "frog jump."   Near the end of his set, he played Momma I am Coming Home and brought 2 kids maybe 8 or 9 years old on stage with him, with his arms around them singing the song, finishing with "This is the future man!" he yells.  

On this tour he had 2 new members in the band, drummer Tommy Clufetos (formerly Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper and Ted Nugent) and Gus G (formerly from Firewind).   Ozzy introduces the band, and when he gets to Gus G, he mentions that through his years he has always had the best guitarists in the world play with him  (which is very true), mentioning Toni Iommi, Randy Rhodes, Jake E Lee, Zak Wilde, and now Gus G.   Then Ozzy goes on break while Gus G plays his guitar solo, then the band comes back for a jam session, finishing off with a drum solo as the drum set raises in the air on a lift with smoke flying out the bottom.   Gus G did a great job playing t he songs with Ozzy, but I was not impressed with his guitar solo, maybe I expected more from one of the top guitarists, or I just missed Zak Wilde.   Gu s G had a great guitar tone, with great crunch, and really deep chugging.   The drum solo was awesome.

Ozzy's setlist was huge!   18 songs in total, with 5 Black Sabbath songs, which included songs spanning his entire career, including "Shot in the Dark" surprisingly from his late 80's pop glam period.

We really enjoyed the show, if Ozzy doesn't retire, we would definitely go again to see him again. With Rob Halford mentioning Judas Priest touring again, will have to see that, and without Zak Wilde there last night, I have to see Black Label Society to get my Zak fix too.

Pictures from Halford show


Pictures from the Ozzy show


Here is the setlist from both Halford (Winnipeg was same as Ottawa) and Ozzy

Comments (0)
Jeff Livesey November 26 2010 12:44:55 PM