I took the long and boring drive to Holmdel last night to see Ozzy for the probable final time. I’ve only seen him solo once before in 2010, but Zakk Wylde wasn’t in the band at the time so I didn’t really get the full Ozzy experience. Anyway Ozzy was...not very good but I didn’t really expect him to be. His voice has not been great any of the times I’ve seen him and now he’s had to tune down yet another half-step in order to sing the songs, and he was still off-key for a lot of them. Also he wears a tight shirt which accentuates his gut and moobs, which is unnecessary since he doesn’t look fat in most pictures. He can hide it if he tries, that’s all I’m saying. The whole set list consisted of songs he played the last time I saw him - Bark at the Moon, Mr. Crowley, I Don’t Know, Faeries Wear Boots, Suicide Solution, No More Tears, Road to Nowhere, War Pigs, then a long instrumental jam where they played excerpts from songs that I would have liked to hear in full like Miracle Man and Perry Mason, then Ozzy came back and they did I Don’t Want To Change the World, Shot in the Dark and closed the main set with Crazy Train. He came back with an encore of Mama, I’m Coming Home but he kinda spaced out on the “you made me cry, you told me lies” lyrics and then Zakk whispered something in his ear and he resumed singing but did so unconvincingly, like he was reading the lyrics off the TelePrompTer and wasn’t sure of the vocal melody. But he picked it up again and finished the song without issue. However, Ozzy must have been unsatisfied with his performance because he then played the whole song again, not missing any lines this time. I think he may have dementia. He closed with Paranoid and the evening was mercifully over. I was pretty close to the stage, about 22nd row or so, and I paid $45. Others in the section paid a lot more and wow did they get screwed, but the show met my expectations. I enjoyed watching Zakk shred all night. The singing wasn’t great but I had fun.
