Ozzy Osbourne, Black Label Society
London Wembley Arena
19th June, 2007

View: front side-tier, stage-right

Promoting his latest Black Rain with a short trip to Blighty, Ozzy was supported by one of his quintet, Viking axe-wielder Zakk Wylde, and his Black Label Society. They got the mob going at 7:45 with a fearsome nine-song, 45-minute set, rich in guitar-god posturing and Zakk’s patented gobbing. Among the most crunching of his sludge-guitar anthems were the arms-aloft Blessed Hellride and clapalong Suicide Messiah, Black Mass Reverends only slightly dampened by the spectre of a bass solo. Twenty minutes later, a hilarious compilation of piss-taking pastiches of recent movies cut the trail for the black-clad pantomime metal prince of darkness. Kicking off with Bark At The Moon, his illco- ordinated clapping and exhortations to “go fucking crazy – I can’t hear you!” loaned a vaudeville quality to proceedings, and masked sometimes warbly vocals. On Mr Crowley, Ozzy went all Tiswas, lobbing buckets of water into the mosh. New material such as Not Going Away slipped in snugly and the sirens of Warpigs were topped by Ozzy’s mooning! Other highlights of a mixed solo/ Sabs set included the palesaplenty Suicide Solution (marred only by overly long guitar workout), a thumping I Don’t Want To Change The World and encore numbers such as Crazy Train and the climactic Paranoid.

Reviewed by Tim Jones
<< Back to Issue 340

You might also like:

Login Here

Free Newsletter


Subscribe to
our email newsletter by emailing:

anna.bowen@
metropolis.co.uk