It's been a week now...can we all admit...(Ozzy/Sabbath)
Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2025 2:11 pm
...that in hindsight this show was more or less awful to depressing?
Yes, I said it.
I'm a huge Sabbath fan and early Ozzy too, but the majority of the performances either had zero to do with either of those things or were utterly destroyed by bad vocals. Even the "Changes" version wasn't 1/2 as OMFG-great as a ton of people seemed to think. The guy can yell high. Aside from that, it was not really fantastic by any stretch.
The excitemtn/vibe of the event was cool and the sentiment was good, I suppose, but the show overall was a cluster of sub-par performances. While most of the music was decent to nearly-great and the drummers killed it across the board, collectively, I doubt many people will be listening to any of this more than a time or two. Will there be an official release of this? Would anyone actually listen to it again?
Nuno gets a gold star and was MVP for all the heavy lifting he did (even while staying low-key and not show-boating), but some of the performances sounded embarrassingly amateurish. Ozzy is not Halford or Tate, but he does/did have a deceptively high range and of course a unique style which fit especially the Sabbath stuff perfectly. I would expect some of the best singers around to struggle with pulling off Freddie's song, but Ozzy? I've heard bar bands for decades do this stuff flawlessly. It's actually odd how many famous singers can't sing anything they didn't write or that wasn't written for them (I'm guilty too, but not famous so FU).
There was WAY too much non-Ozzy/Sabbath music throughout. Steven Tyler sounded surprisingly good for his age, but what does him singing "Walk This Way" have to do with anything really? Or a bunch of Slayer songs or GnR or Tool songs? Because they were Sabbath fans I suppose. Then why not at least play stuff that shows those influences and not just your "popular" songs? The Sabbath and Ozzy covers all seemed like an afterthought thrown in out of obligation in order to be included in this huge event. I'm sure many or most of those musicians were fans, but you could barely tell a lot of the time. The Ozzy/Sabbath stuff should have been the main focus. Not 3 or 4 greatest hits and then "oh, here's a bad version of _____ we threw together this week". There were a couple of exceptions, of course, like Metallica, but they were always known for pretty damn great covers.
Then there is Ozzy/Sabbath. Lord God, was Ozzy horrible in real life. YES, I GET IT, but it's borderline(?) humiliating to have him do so much if he is basically the walking dead. WTF? It's worse than Frankie Valli because Frankie's handlers aren't doing it in front of zillions around the world. I'm assuming Ozzy was a willing participant, but at a certain point we don't let grampa make the big decisions for himself anymore, right? This whole thing obviously felt like more of a tribute to (dying?) Ozzy than Sabbath as a band and I personally think it should have ended with Ozzy solo instead of Sabbath. I get the "back to the beginning" marketing angle, but Sabbath sounded beyond horrible after Ozzy used up his 10 seconds of energy on his solo stuff. The band was fine (especially Geezer), but Ozzy was crazily bad. Again, I get it, but it's like putting a 70-year-old boxing champ in the ring "one more time" (so WE can relive a bit of OUR OWN youth) to see him beaten and humiliated in front of the world. "Remembering" or "honoring" Ozzy shouldn't have been a carnival side-show, IMO. It's like the old version of the stage moms who tell their tin-eared daughters that they are "superstars" only to see them decimated publicly by the judges on American Idol for their obvious lack of ability. I think having Ozzy off to the side like the opposite of a roast watching musicians honor him without the pressure of doing what everyone knows he can't do would have been a MUCH more respectful move. This whole show felt more like "look how great WE are and oh yeah, some of us were also Sabbath fans". I think it was more about people wanting to "see Ozzy live" one more time before their own youth disappears altogether. It looked selfish.
Another thing is the "depressing" part. I'm an aging metal guy myself and I know lots of us can "still do it", but there is an old adage that says, "just because you can, doesn't mean you should". I'm not talking about middle-aged guys here, I'm talking about fucking elderly people playing music primarily BY and FOR young males. There is just something very depressing about an all-white-haired Slayer with Tom looking like someone just woke grandpa up from an after-dinner Thanksgiving nap. Yes, they sounded good, but still. I remember joking with my own band at our 2019 reunion gig that we were all older than our own parents were back when we all were doing this shit for real. I told them to imagine our dads (back then) up on stage doing this show to illustrate the absurdity of it all. NO, it should be against the law, but it is just odd as hell. Old McCartney is one thing, and guys in the 40s or early 50s maybe, but senior citizens playing thrash is just bizarre to me. Steven Tyler looked like "cool grandma" dressed up as a "rocker" for Halloween, ffs.
Good for Jake E. Lee for being given some of the spotlight that Sharon (that cunt) tried so hard to snuff out. There were definitely a couple really good performances too, but in the end, this was more Ozzfest than Ozzy tribute.
Bring the hate or be adult enough to admit this was a shitshow of epic proportions. And save the "shouldn't people be allowed to do what they want????" horseshit too. Of course, they can do what they want even if it is ridiculous/laughable. While it might be fun to get an autograph from your favorite '80s porn star, that doesn't mean you want to see them fucking at 60 or 70. There just comes a time, IMO.
Yes, I said it.
I'm a huge Sabbath fan and early Ozzy too, but the majority of the performances either had zero to do with either of those things or were utterly destroyed by bad vocals. Even the "Changes" version wasn't 1/2 as OMFG-great as a ton of people seemed to think. The guy can yell high. Aside from that, it was not really fantastic by any stretch.
The excitemtn/vibe of the event was cool and the sentiment was good, I suppose, but the show overall was a cluster of sub-par performances. While most of the music was decent to nearly-great and the drummers killed it across the board, collectively, I doubt many people will be listening to any of this more than a time or two. Will there be an official release of this? Would anyone actually listen to it again?
Nuno gets a gold star and was MVP for all the heavy lifting he did (even while staying low-key and not show-boating), but some of the performances sounded embarrassingly amateurish. Ozzy is not Halford or Tate, but he does/did have a deceptively high range and of course a unique style which fit especially the Sabbath stuff perfectly. I would expect some of the best singers around to struggle with pulling off Freddie's song, but Ozzy? I've heard bar bands for decades do this stuff flawlessly. It's actually odd how many famous singers can't sing anything they didn't write or that wasn't written for them (I'm guilty too, but not famous so FU).
There was WAY too much non-Ozzy/Sabbath music throughout. Steven Tyler sounded surprisingly good for his age, but what does him singing "Walk This Way" have to do with anything really? Or a bunch of Slayer songs or GnR or Tool songs? Because they were Sabbath fans I suppose. Then why not at least play stuff that shows those influences and not just your "popular" songs? The Sabbath and Ozzy covers all seemed like an afterthought thrown in out of obligation in order to be included in this huge event. I'm sure many or most of those musicians were fans, but you could barely tell a lot of the time. The Ozzy/Sabbath stuff should have been the main focus. Not 3 or 4 greatest hits and then "oh, here's a bad version of _____ we threw together this week". There were a couple of exceptions, of course, like Metallica, but they were always known for pretty damn great covers.
Then there is Ozzy/Sabbath. Lord God, was Ozzy horrible in real life. YES, I GET IT, but it's borderline(?) humiliating to have him do so much if he is basically the walking dead. WTF? It's worse than Frankie Valli because Frankie's handlers aren't doing it in front of zillions around the world. I'm assuming Ozzy was a willing participant, but at a certain point we don't let grampa make the big decisions for himself anymore, right? This whole thing obviously felt like more of a tribute to (dying?) Ozzy than Sabbath as a band and I personally think it should have ended with Ozzy solo instead of Sabbath. I get the "back to the beginning" marketing angle, but Sabbath sounded beyond horrible after Ozzy used up his 10 seconds of energy on his solo stuff. The band was fine (especially Geezer), but Ozzy was crazily bad. Again, I get it, but it's like putting a 70-year-old boxing champ in the ring "one more time" (so WE can relive a bit of OUR OWN youth) to see him beaten and humiliated in front of the world. "Remembering" or "honoring" Ozzy shouldn't have been a carnival side-show, IMO. It's like the old version of the stage moms who tell their tin-eared daughters that they are "superstars" only to see them decimated publicly by the judges on American Idol for their obvious lack of ability. I think having Ozzy off to the side like the opposite of a roast watching musicians honor him without the pressure of doing what everyone knows he can't do would have been a MUCH more respectful move. This whole show felt more like "look how great WE are and oh yeah, some of us were also Sabbath fans". I think it was more about people wanting to "see Ozzy live" one more time before their own youth disappears altogether. It looked selfish.
Another thing is the "depressing" part. I'm an aging metal guy myself and I know lots of us can "still do it", but there is an old adage that says, "just because you can, doesn't mean you should". I'm not talking about middle-aged guys here, I'm talking about fucking elderly people playing music primarily BY and FOR young males. There is just something very depressing about an all-white-haired Slayer with Tom looking like someone just woke grandpa up from an after-dinner Thanksgiving nap. Yes, they sounded good, but still. I remember joking with my own band at our 2019 reunion gig that we were all older than our own parents were back when we all were doing this shit for real. I told them to imagine our dads (back then) up on stage doing this show to illustrate the absurdity of it all. NO, it should be against the law, but it is just odd as hell. Old McCartney is one thing, and guys in the 40s or early 50s maybe, but senior citizens playing thrash is just bizarre to me. Steven Tyler looked like "cool grandma" dressed up as a "rocker" for Halloween, ffs.
Good for Jake E. Lee for being given some of the spotlight that Sharon (that cunt) tried so hard to snuff out. There were definitely a couple really good performances too, but in the end, this was more Ozzfest than Ozzy tribute.
Bring the hate or be adult enough to admit this was a shitshow of epic proportions. And save the "shouldn't people be allowed to do what they want????" horseshit too. Of course, they can do what they want even if it is ridiculous/laughable. While it might be fun to get an autograph from your favorite '80s porn star, that doesn't mean you want to see them fucking at 60 or 70. There just comes a time, IMO.