The 1st Ozzfest tour...what an odd gig that was...

The version of Ozzfest I saw was only 4 of the main stage acts, they toured around the country with this lineup and then added extra acts and a second stage for 2 actual festival dates.  It wasn't until the following year that they established the festival style tour.  

Anyway, it was October 18 1996 and Ozzy was playing The Tacoma Dome in Washington.  I went with a couple friends I was going to college with, we drove down from Seattle to catch the show.  

You have to remember that in 1996 metal was in seriously bad fucking shape.  All the music critics had declared it dead, bands were flailing around wildly trying to figure out a way to stay relevant (most failed) and personally I was getting really burned out on the entire genre.  About 4 months after this gig I got a job at a record store where two of the other employees were big jazz fans, my life was about to change...

Back to Ozzfest.  

The lineup was: Ozzy (with some guy from Lizzy Borden on guitar), Danzig (on tour for Blackacidevil), Sepultura (on tour for Roots) and Biohazard.  They booked the Tacoma dome but were only able to sell 50% of the tickets (metal was very unpopular in Seattle at the time, much moreso than back east), so they curtained off half the arena.    

The rules were incredibly strict in that place, no smoking was allowed and they were militant about it, they would toss you out.  About 10 minutes before Biohazard was to start Ozzy just strolls out onto the stage, all the houselights up, grabs a microphone and says to the crowd:  "I understand this place has some fucked up rules.  I just want you to know, that you have my permission...to do...whatever...the fuck...you want!!!!" Slams the microphone down on the stage and walks back to his dressing room.  The INSTANT Ozzy vanished from the stage THE ENTIRE ARENA lit up at once, it was insane, I've never seen so many lighters in my life.  Smoking was still widespread in Seattle in '96.  Within minutes the entire arena was a haze of tobacco and pot smoke (I contributed both).  

The show itself was...odd.  

Biohazard was...annoying.  That white boy, strutting badass macho bullshit can go get fucked.  

Sepultura was pretty badass, I know everyone hated Roots but the few songs they played from it sounded as good as everything else in the set.  This was the final tour with Max so I'm glad I saw it.

Danzig...confused.  I love Tommy Victor (Prong), he's got his own approach to guitar...but that approach didn't gel with Danzing at all. It was so weird hearing goofy Glenn trying to be Nine Inch Nails, it was a painfully obvious attempt to try and sound "hip", but it was a complete and utter train wreck.  

Ozzy was perfectly entertaining and still sounded pretty good at the time.  Zakk had left and Ozzy hadn't figured out a replacement, so he grabbed some guy from Lizzy Borden to fill in for the tour.  The dude was serviceable, just learned all the guitar parts note for note from the studio albums.  The guy from Faith No More was still on drums, he was badass as usual.  I don't remember who was on bass.  I remember it being an "okay" set.  

But I think that particular gig is a perfect example of everything that was wrong with metal by '96.  It was confused, lost, desperate and not the authoritative badass it once was.

I think this came to Fresno as well--maybe it was Sac--and I do remember the gig not selling well at all. It was a very weird time for metal; it was also very bland with a huge identity crisis. Total mediocrity. Interesting that reading your write-up here on the show was exactly what I expected when I saw your post title. There wasn't much that Ozzy and co. could've done to secure a decent lineup. The availability factor was so minimal.

I remember that time well. I wore ripped jeans and steel-toe boots and a leather jacket ONLY because I was pissed at the music industry, radio, and fashion trends of the day. Obviously I overreacted the only way a 16-year-old could, but it was so discouraging watching MtV and seeing so much garbage compared to what I saw earlier in the decade. The fascination, the splendor, was gone.

More stories like this please.

I avoided anything Ozzy related post-1992. "No More Tears" was his last album that was worth a crap in my book.

OzzFest was a neat idea in theory but it quickly became yet another corporate rock crapfest.

....and yeah, Biohazard were (and still are) godawful. I swear they are one of the most irritating bands ever to walk on God's green Earth.

I like that first Biohazard album but I can't stand their schtick. Even the Beastie Boys were more tolerable. White gang-bangers are the lowest on my totem-pole of stereotypes I detest.

I didn't buy tickets to that Ozzfest show, one of my friends at college won two tickets from a radio station call-in contest.

The next time I saw Ozzy was on the first Black Sabbath reunion tour in either 98 or 99, I can't remember which year at this point. That show was about 5 billion times better than that shit ozzfest gig.

Sounds like it was a shit storm... glad I missed it! LOL! I'm with Keith - anything after No More Tears by Ozzy (solo) doesn't interested me at all.... and those albums are OK but not great. The Metal scene in the US was pretty much decimated at that point in time.

My one-and-done Ozzfest experience was a few years ago (9 or 10?) with Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Slayer, Black Label Society (I think) and Superjoint Ritual. There was probably other bands on the 2nd stage, but I didn't see any of those.

My first mistake was getting tickets in the lawn area. It's the dregs of humanity there. We should have ponied-up for actual seats towards the front. I saw some chick drop trou right in the middle of the lawn area and piss in broad daylight. Then you get the meathead frat boys swingin' fists and trying to get a pit going. This was a good indication of both the crowd and the general atmosphere of the all-day festival.

I took a half-day and work and met my buddies there. By 5:00 or so, one of them was so hammered/stoned, we left him passed out against a railing and he missed most of the concert.

Superjoint Ritual were terrible. Just awful noise with Phil Anselmo beating his chest and doing his bull-shit macho posturing act.

Slayer was Slayer.

Judas Priest was good. If I remember correctly, they were celebrating Rob's return to Priest, but before Angel of Retribution came out, so it was basically a "greatest hits" set list. It was probably the my main reason for going. a few years earlier I saw Priest with Ripper Owns in a small theater. It only felt right that I see them again as the "real deal".

The high light of the night could have been a disaster but was narrowly averted at the last minute. It was announced that Ozzy couldn't perform that night and in his place was none other than the Metal God himself. Rob F**king Halford was going to do the whole Sabbath set after just finishing his own. Having seen Sabbath with Ozzy before (and since then), it made the evening all the more memorable. He flubbed a few words here and there, but otherwise it was pretty cool seeing him up there with Tony, Geezer and the dude from Faith No More. I think it was him. I don't think Bill Ward joined back yet.

I vowed to never attend an Ozzfest after that, but more importantly to never, ever get general admission lawn seating again.

I've heard that if one is planning on buying the cheap lawn seating, that it'd be best to save the money and buy a live album of the band. I can imaging it's chaotic.

I would've killed to see Rob as Ozzy's replacement for a night; the bootleg I heard of him doing this sounded quite good.