Breaking News folks: Heavy Metal LIVES! Hello again people, what goes on? Well tons of stuff with myself, as Tonight the 41st edition of the Jay Porks Never Ending Concert Series takes us to the world's most famous arena: Madison Square Garden, to catch the legendary Ozzy Osbourne. A long overdue first time ever for me getting to see Ozzy, safe to say I'm a little stoked. Supporting Ozzy on this first leg of the tour is Halford, band fronted by Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford ( Any chance they play "Breaking the Law"? It's the only Priest song I think I know). And an added bonus- I acquired these tickets through a website "Ticket Liquidator" for $39 a pop and avoided Livenation/Ticketmaster's big business services charges. Sweet. Meeting Pam there, an accompany to several Jay Porks Experiences(six this year) and the show starts at 8PM. All signs point to a fun night, now let's get this party started.
Heading up the escalators at 8:15 I could hear that Halford has already kicked off their set. Rob Halford kept thanking the crowd for keeping metal alive- glad I could do my part. Had trouble finding our seats so we sat in the second row(row B) in section 348 (tickets had us in row E). We sat and watched Halford storm through energetic set of some extremely heavy tunes. They were pretty cool having not listened to them until tonight. I wish they would've played 'Breaking the Law'- but unless they played it first it wasn't on tonight's agenda. But they did play 'Jawbreaker', which I didn't know that I knew until I heard it. So that was pretty sweet. They played one more and thanked us for again, “Keeping true metal alive” before ducking off at 8:53pm.
Before Ozzy came on they played a little intro video on a large screen set up on stage( a screen that for once they'll use to show live shots of the band for those of us a mile away. What a thought!). The video consists or various clips from popular movies and tv shows only with Ozzy staring in all of them. Started with Avatar where he's laying on a table in a lab being turned blue. Then they went Jersey Shore and showed Ozzy dressed like one of those douches from the show as he was cursing out that fat orange Snoopi girl. Cut to a forest circa 'Twilight', and insert Ozzy into Robert Patterson's Character. The chick is like "Your a... But your a... A vampire." he turns and says "Vampires are for pussy's- I'm the prince of fucking darkness" before opening his coat revealing gigantic boobs. I gotta find it on YouTube somewhere- a very entertaining couple of minutes.. But now folks, LET THE MADNESS BEGIN
!Now on to the set- which kicked off with "Bark at the Moon" after Ozzy gave us a little pre-show pep talk. Fireworks shot off loud scaring the hell out of me as the band jumped into it. From the first second you knew it was going to be one of those amazing nights. Whole arena was screaming bark at the moon midway through and on screen as the song plays their showing alot of Gus G- who has been getting ridiculed by everyone I told I was going to see Ozzy too for not being Zakk Wylde-well from where I was sitting he was literally tearing the guitar to shreds. Song ends and Ozzy starts talking-his beaten up English
makes it hard for me to understand full sentences, but I did hear that every other word was 'fuck' besides constantly reminding us throughout the night as he did before the show that "The crazier you people get the longer we'll play", Sounds like a deal to me. “Let me hear you Scream” came next before one of my favorite Ozzy songs was played: “Mr. Crowley”.. as the harrowing tune begins fireworks begin to drizzle onto the stage before revealing the word 'Ozzy' in satanic text on the screen. Now I've hit the point where I'm sitting there looking around telling Pam constantly “Damn-this is fucking awesome!”. Trying to sustain a decent head nod going while taking video is a task in itself-but it worked out well. The Garden's awesome sound + Ozzy having a video screen led to a few awesome videos if I do say so myself. I sat back and took it all in as we jumped into “I don't know”,-(Insert the title of the ONE song of the night I 
couldn't name here)-, “Suicide Solution and “Road to nowhere” before I pulled out the camera another time for “War Pigs”(which can now sit alongside the video of 'Cake' doing War Pigs back at Central Park). Then N.I.B. started and at the height of my buzz from the only 2 beers I could afford($9 a pop!) I was air drumming in my seat as I, as they say 'let the tunes take me away'. Epicness! “Killer of Giants” and “Shot in the Dark” came next before Ozzy walked off stage leaving Gus G. alone on stage soloing something wicked.. this went on for several minutes-there was then a bass solo for a minute before a drum solo during which the drum kit was like rising up slowly with smoke blowing outta the bottom of it. Like a rocket ship taking off, that looked freaking
incredible. So it's about 10:30 while all this heavy amazing soloing is going on up on stage- so I'm at this point assuming this will serve as the encore and we'll probably be out of hear before 11PM. Ozzy returns to stage screaming the same line he's been screaming all night: “ Come on fuckers! The crazier you fucking go the longer I fucking play!”.. Then you hear the drum beat that leads into “Iron Man”. Roars from the crowd, as the dope smoke in the air at this point is giving it the feel of PacBell during the World Series-hell I'm on board. “I ain't going no fucking where man it's too much fun for me” Ozzy says as the set continues on strong with “Fire in the Sky”, “Flying High Again” and “Into the Void” was followed by “I don't wanna change the world”. After each of these songs Ozzy just leans back on the drum kit arms crossed listening to the packed arena go crazy.
Keyword crazy, as we're well passed the 11PM hour getting into an epic version of “Crazy Train”. To say Gus G impressed would be an understatement. Then again it's not like the Prince of Darkness would have some slouch guitar player or anything, so I guess it should've been more expected. Then came the nights only down point. Sorry people, I'm not into “Moma I'm coming home”-and when it's past 11:30PM and you're afraid you're not gonna have time to squeeze in “Paranoid”-you don't want to look around at people embracing each other swaying back and forth with lighters raised 'Kansas' style. I turned to Pam and said “You know, I friggin' hate this song”.. but my dreams were not shattered, as they ended up playing “Paranoid” next, before thanking the crowd as several loud BOOMS ensued wiith fireworks shooting into the air behind them. Ozzy says “Thank you good night! you
guys are fucking cool...Oh yea and a merry christmas too, don't get too fucked up!”. Lights came up about 11:45PM.
If I clocked that correctly, that was a two and a half hour set by a 61 year old dude who's consumed more drugs in his lifetime than the company of Pfizer has produced since inception. It's really hard to state it in a well educated sounding sentence: All I have is that “That shit was fucking crazy”. That's what I wanted to write as this review. Those five words-that shit was fucking crazy and just post some pics. But Ozzy had to go and be all awesome, and lead me to have to write up a wordy review in order recount all his phases of epicness throughout the evening. Whether hilarious opening intro videos or dumping buckets of water on the standing pit section in front of the stage, the Price of Darkness ceases to amaze us all-even people “haters” like myself.
And with that we're done here. Thanks for reading if you made it this far-and note to everyone. Earlier this year I set a personal goal of getting to at least 20 shows this year, basing it on me attending 9 shows in 2008 and 12 in 2009. Tonight festivities made 20 for this year-so a pat on the back for me. If anyone has any ideas for shows for me to head out to I have nothing purchased, so please send suggestions my way. Thanks for stopping by again, LATE.
Set List:
Bark at the moon
Let me here you scream
Mr. Crowly
I don't know
-(One song I couldn't name)
Suicide solution
Road to nowhere
War pigs
N.I.B.
Killing the Giants
Shot in the Dark
Gus G soloing, drum solo around 1030
(Encore)
Iron Man
Fire in the sky
Flying high again
Into the void
I don't wanna change the world
Crazy Train
Moms I'm coming home
Paranoid
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