The OZ Man Cometh!

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John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne (3 December 1948 – 22 July 2025)

I saw Black Sabbath’s second ever show in NYC at the Academy of Music on 14th Street, 10/22/71—a very late show, right after seeing the reformed Deep Purple at the Felt Forum.  Jon Tiven, Christopher Chesnutt, and I took the subway from Madison Square Garden downtown into this Gehenna-like late-night scene in the plush old Academy.

They opened with their snappy little tune "War Pigs" and proceeded to bludgeon the midnight gawkers—most of them on downers, semi-comatose—into submission (as if they weren’t already soporifically altered/halfway there already). Hardly a sign of life from the crowd.

Ozzy presided over this necropolis with aplomb and gave it his all with that magnificent baying voice of his. Waving his hands and wiggling his hips at the end, trying to get the audience on their feet. Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward gamely pumped out their thick metallic sludge behind him—but the audience was not cooperating.

"Come on, everybody, clap your hands!!"

Crickets.

"Everybody on your feet!!" 

Nada.

"AhhhHHHH, FUCK THIS!!"

Unable to get the crowd moving one muscle, despite his heroic exhortations, a frustrated, pissed-off, formerly Mr. Peace-and-Love Ozzy rapidly turned rabid.

He whirled around and grabbed one of the floor-toms off Bill Ward’s drum riser, and then hurled the whole fucking thing at the audience. Where it landed—SPLAT!—in the orchestra pit, missing the front row (but not by that much). Black Sabbath then stalked off the stage very quickly.

Unforgettable, total showmanship in the face of apparent audience indifference.

Blame it on the ‘ludes.

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