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Ozzfest
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Ozzfest is an annual festival tour of the United States (and in some years, Europe) featuring performances by many heavy metal and hard rock musical groups. It was founded by Ozzy Osbourne and his wife Sharon Osbourne, both of whom also organize each yearly tour with their son Jack Osbourne. The Ozzfest tour has featured bands of a variety of genres within heavy metal and hard rock, including alternative metal, thrash metal, industrial metal, metalcore, hardcore punk, nu metal, death metal, gothic metal and black metal. Ozzy Osbourne himself, as well as his band Black Sabbath, has played the tour several times over the years.
Early years: 1996-2008
The festival was created in 1996, when organizers of musical festival Lollapalooza refused to let Ozzy Osbourne join the tour.
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Encyclopedia
Ozzfest is an annual festival tour of the United States (and in some years, Europe) featuring performances by many heavy metal and hard rock musical groups. It was founded by Ozzy Osbourne and his wife Sharon Osbourne, both of whom also organize each yearly tour with their son Jack Osbourne. The Ozzfest tour has featured bands of a variety of genres within heavy metal and hard rock, including alternative metal, thrash metal, industrial metal, metalcore, hardcore punk, nu metal, death metal, gothic metal and black metal. Ozzy Osbourne himself, as well as his band Black Sabbath, has played the tour several times over the years.
History
Early years: 1996-2008
The festival was created in 1996, when organizers of musical festival Lollapalooza refused to let Ozzy Osbourne join the tour. The tour was well-received, which prompted the festival becoming a yearly occurrence.
The first Ozzfest was not a national tour, but rather a two-day festival held in Phoenix, Arizona and Devore, California on October 25 and 26th, 1996 respectively.
In 1998, Ozzfest ventured outside the United States for the first time into the United Kingdom, which featured a different lineup of bands. The festival would eventually return to the UK in 2001 and 2002.
2000s
In the early 2000s, bands including Marilyn Manson, Mudvayne, Slipknot, Incubus, Linkin Park, System of a Down, and Disturbed played the yearly music festival. Two compilation albums of the Ozzfest tour were released, one covering select 2001 performances and another for 2002.
On-stage footage of the Ozzfest 2004 tour was shown on MTV, as Ozzy and Sharon hosted a show on the network titled Battle for Ozzfest where they chose eight out of hundreds of bands to compete for a spot on the following year's Ozzfest. Ozzy selected one member from each chosen band to "tag along" on the tour. Each contestant had to complete numerous challenges in order to improve his/her band's chances of winning the contest. Occasionally, meetings would be held and certain contestants would be eliminated for various reasons. The person who prevailed as the winner and guaranteed his band's spot on the Ozzfest tour was Marc Serrano from metalcore act A Dozen Furies.
At Iron Maiden's last Ozzfest performance, on August 20, 2005 at the Hyundai Pavilion at Glen Helen in San Bernardino, California, several negative events took place. During the first song, several members of the crowd, brought on by Sharon Osbourne, bombarded the British metal band Iron Maiden with eggs, bottle caps and ice. During three of Iron Maiden's songs, the P.A. system was switched off, cutting power to vocalist Bruce Dickinson's microphone and the band's instruments . During the concert, Bruce Dickinson can be heard accusing the festival's organizers of deliberately cutting off the band's power. On Iron Maiden’s departure, Sharon Osbourne came on stage to make a few statements, telling the audience that she "absolutely loved Iron Maiden" but thought that the lead singer Bruce Dickinson is a prick." Her words were met with booing, so she walked off the stage. Rod Smallwood, manager for Iron Maiden, issued a statement shortly after the debacle condemning the attack on the band.
2007: FreeFest
On February 7, 2007, it was announced that tickets to Ozzfest 2007 were going to be free of charge, dubbing the 2007 Ozzfest as "free fest." Tickets were available through sponsor websites, the Ozzfest web site and to those buying an advance copy of Ozzy Osbourne's new release, Black Rain.
Much controversy was generated when Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age was asked by Blender, a U.S. music magazine, what he considered to be his worst summer job.
Homme stated:
"I won't be playing Ozzfest again - they treat the bands like shit... This year you get to play for free under the guise of, 'We're doing it for the fans!' But it's really for the people who fan Sharon and Ozzy with palm fronds at their house."
Sharon Osbourne responded by saying:
"I hope he gets syphilis and dies. I hope his dick fuckin' falls off so his mother can eat it."
Sponsorship money provided the revenue for the tour, but organizers did not pay any of the bands appearing. Ozzy Osbourne returned to the headlining slot on the tour after being absent from the 2006 tour. Ozzfest 2007 featured well-established acts such as Lamb of God, Static X, and Hatebreed.
There were problems with distribution of the free tickets. Fans were given codes to receive tickets through the official Ozzfest website, but due to the heavy load on Live Nation's secure servers, there were issues with ticket redemption. At the Detroit show fans were turned away near the end unless they had non-free tickets. Another problem was that many "eBay scalpers" charged fans to pay for the free tickets, often turning out to be unusable duplicates of other tickets. Then, on July 26, Ozzfest gave away free tickets without requiring its "redemption code" previously required.
At the August 16, 2007 show in Holmdel, New Jersey at the PNC Bank Arts Center, controversy was generated as 83 attendees were arrested at the show, most of them underage and arrested prior to 8:00. In addition, two men died, one after overdosing on alcohol and energy drinks. As of August 18 drinking in the parking lot has since been banned at the PNC Bank Arts Center.
2008: Reduction to a one day event
Questions over whether the event would be held in 2008 began when in April that year Ozzy Osbourne announced that he would be headlining the Canadian Monsters of Rock festival. The 2008 version of the festival took place for only one date at Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, Texas on August 8, 2008. The line-up featured Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne as the headliner bands, and other acts such as Jonathan Davis (frontman of Korn), Sevendust, DevilDriver, Serj Tankian (frontman of System of a Down), Cavalera Conspiracy, Shadows Fall, Apocalyptica and In This Moment. Along with the two main stages there was a third one titled the Texas Stage; according to Sharon Osbourne, that stage featured such Texas-based bands as The Sword, Drowning Pool,Goatwhore, Soilent Green and Rigor Mortis.
2009: New Orleans
Ozzy Osbourne announced in February 2009 that he would be working on his new album and will not be holding Ozzfest this year. However, in early March, it was officially confirmed that Ozzfest would once again hold a one-day event festival in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ozzy Osbourne is scheduled to headline the Main Stage with supporting Acts: White Zombie, Alice in Chains, Static-X, and 3 Inches of Blood. Black Label Society will headline the second stage in 2009 as Ozzfest is expected to continue as a touring festival in 2010.
Ozzfest lineups by year
External links
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