OZZY at the Izod Center Dec. 3, 2010

Review: Ozzy Osbourne
Location: Izod Center, East Rutherford, NJ
Date: 12/3/10

Ozzy’s Birthday Show 2010

Ozzy is officially now 62. The man who helped bring to fame the heaviest and gloomiest rock and roll band of the seventies, Black Sabbath, the first anti-peace and love child to rise to immense stardom, Mr. Ozzy Osbourne is now legal retirement age in many countries. The great thing is: Ozzy won’t retire. In fact, he recently started an eighteen month round the world tour, longer than anyone else out there even near his age. Just goes to show, Ozzy is the ultimate godfather of heavy metal. The ultimate Prince of Darkness, the ultimate showman.

The night was December 3, 2010. Exactly sixty-two years after the day Ozzy’ entered this planet’s circle of consciousness. It was at the Meadowlands Brendan Byrne Arena, or the Continental Airlines Arena, or the Izod Center, depending on which era you started going to concerts. Located in East Rutherford, NJ, just a few miles from NYC it’s a great location and easy to get to. The brand new non-smoking facility is well-designed, nice and clean making the concert experience enjoyable. 

Having seen Ozzy more than any other rocker, I thought I saw it all before. He had the usual water buckets for the fans, and even the firehoses with whipped cream to absolutely drench the first ten rows with. But this time Ozzy was different. This time he’s got something fresh and new to deliver. This year it was a fantastic new band. With lead guitarist, Gus G., an excellent choice to deliver the historic chords of the anthems of Sabbath as well as the innovative technicques all of his phenomenal past guitarists. One thing for sure, they didn’t shy away from the usual lead guitar anthems. He did them and he did them in style. When he nailed the solo for Bark at the Moon I just smiled and said to myself, Ozzy did it again! Accompanying Gus G. is Adam Wakeman, son of the legenday Rick Wakeman from Yes on keyboards.. He joined the band back in 2005 and his chilling intro chords to Mr. Crowley affirm the obvious. He’s walking in his father footsteps, leading a fantastic band to soaring new heights. Their new skin basher Tommy Clufetos does something I’ve never seen before. He raises his arm way up in the air and then comes barrelliing down on the skins to deliver an unbelievably incredible bonzo-like crashing sound that is rarely achieved even by the strongest of drummers. You gotta see it to believe it! His solo was also especially unique. His entire drum set elevated on a huge platform about thirty feet above the stage with rocket launch-like pyrotechnics lighting up the whole place. A sight to behold for any drum solo loving rock and roll fan. 
With Rob Nicholson on bass(AKA Mr. Basco) from Rob Zombie rounding out the band they deliver like every ozzy band in the past. Above and Beyond. As always with Ozzy.

They played for over two hours, a pretty rare feat by metal bands. Even past Ozzy shows have only been ninety minutes or just a bit more. Just goes to show Ozzy isn’t slowing with age, he keeps getting better and better. Like a fine wine….well kind of…sort of.

We were especially lucky to be in attendance tonight. Since tonight was his 62nd, the crew and Sharon bought out a big cake and we all got to sing happy birthday to the Ozzman. After thirty Ozzy shows, something I never had the pleasure of doing, Sharon gave him a great big kiss onstage and I thought for sure it was coming but for some reason though they didn’t throw the cake in Ozzy’s face! It looked like he was going to but then backed down.