OZZY OSBOURNE
De Montfort Hall, Leicester, England
March 3rd, 1986
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After witnessing Ozzy Osbourne’s disastrous show at Birmingham I really wasn’t expecting much the second time around. The Brum show was a major letdown and had bad sound for the entire duration, Ozzy himself looking tired and far from happy, and to cap it all just one encore bringing the total set to a mere one hour and ten minutes.
Unfortunately, the opening numbers here were again marred by a terrible sound in which Jake E. Lee’s guitar was the main victim. By ‘Bark At The Moon’ this was put to rights and suddenly the riffs came crashing out of the PA at least twice as loud as they had been before.
Ozzy looked a lot happier when all the problems were rectified, and from then on seemed to be having a great time onstage. Jake spent most of the evening thrashing around like a demented ragdoll on angel dust, leaving the mainman to casually wander around in circles as though he’d lost his contact lenses. In the Black Sabbath days of yore, Oz would bound around like a baboon, but I’ve noticed he keeps his leaps to one per show nowadays. He still clowns around by bunging bats into his mouth and piggy-backing his water-bearer. There’s also the ritual of throwing Jake around after his solo.
A majority of the set is from The Ultimate Sin LP, with ‘Thank God For The Bomb’ being the night’s monster. Of all the riffs in all of heavy metal, Jake can be justly proud of this one. It’s as nasty as cleaning out your ears with rusty barbed wire; it sticks in your head, y’know? Other newies on parade included ‘Never Know Why’, ‘Killer Of Giants’, ‘The Ultimate Sin’, ‘Shot In The Dark’ and ‘Secret Loser’.
‘Mr Crowley’ had everyone swaying to and fro, and ‘Iron Man’ has the same effect. For some reason I find the sight of a full hall wafting around in the manner of a cornfield disconcerting, but there’s no denying their unflinching loyalty to Ozzy. I’d take a bet that if Oz pulled a moon then the De Montfort would rapidly witness 2,500 spotty bums projected to the skies. I suppose a tattoo is a fairly good indication of how much the man is held in reverence as well, and there was a lot of “Ozzy”’s needled into people’s skins.
Ex-Stone Fury drummer Randy Castillo proved himself a potent pummeler, and at least tried to jazz up the drum solo by going walkabout round his kit. On the whole, I still find drum solos tedious at any gig. Phil Soussan’s a good enough bassist, but didn’t seem to do a lot else to liven up his act.
So onto encore time as ‘Paranoid’ is predictably wheeled out and given an autopsy by Mr. Lee, who just tears this old brontosaurus to shreds. And again – one encore! Why? The audience wanted more, and for £7.00 a ticket (roughly 10p a minute) deserved more. What’s the problem Oz?
Garry Sharpe-Young
Review taken from Metal Forces, Issue 17 (1986)
