Ozzfest 2k7 part two - notes and review ...

Ozzfest 2k7 part two - notes and review ...

Ozzfest - July 12, 2007 - Auburn WA
White River Amphitheater

From the top down ...

1 - Band Listing and Times
2 - Ozzy on the Main Stage
3 - Ozzy on screen on the Main Stage
4 - Ozzy on the Main Stage
5 - Zakk Wylde on the Main Stage with Ozzy
6 - Behemoth at the Autograph Tent
7 - Bro with 3 Inches of Blood at the Autograph Tent
8 - Bro with Nile at the Autograph Tent
9 - Chtonic on the 2nd Stage
10 - Jefferson with Jolene at the KISW Booth
11 - Sword Swallowing in the Freak Show Tent

Back in Junior High the Alderwood Mall opened. I remember and note this for a variety of reasons. A movie theatre opened across the street from it that had five screens. On one of, if not the first trip I ever took there I bought Blizzard Of Ozz. I loved Ozzy in Black Sabbath and have noted that in an entry that can be read at www.paulsbasement.org or elsewhere in this blog. The guy at The Wherehouse looked at me like I was kidding when I asked for and purchased said cassette, since I don't think he knew who it was and it had just come out that week. It would be 2006 before I finally saw Ozzy perform solo anything from Blizzard Of Ozz. This year, I would get to hear those songs again.











Zakk Wylde is a fantastic guitarist. Ron and I had a long discussion lamenting the loss of the Guitar God in rock and metal. Since Zakk joined Ozzy it seems that there have only been a handful of guitarists whose sound so clearly defined their bands’ style that one riff would tell you it was them. We came up with Darrell Abbot and Jerry Cantrell and basically no one since.








Headline Ideas
- "Lose Weight The Ozzy Osbourne Way"
- "Ozzy Loves Us All"
- "I Am Not Getting Too Old For This"
- "Freefest Got Freer By The Minute"
- "The Tradition Continues"
- "Why Don’t Pasty White People Use Sunscreen?"
- "Ron’s Knowledge Of Obscure Swedish Metal Trivia Earns Jefferson 50 bucks"

Ron knows his obscure Swedish metal trivia. Why is this important? Well, since things like pit passes had to be won Ron got a trivia question correct at one of the vendor booths winning us a pair of pit passes which we promptly sold having no intention of spending more hours standing than we already were. A guy turned to me and offered me 50 bucks on the spot, peeling off a fifty and handing it to me while Ron sold his for twenty to another guy. For the record, Arch Enemy was founded by guitarist Michael Amott.

General
- The F word must be mandatory as there is almost a quota like quality in its use.
- Do they pay people by the f bomb volume?
- I have been twice with Ron and twice alone in an alternating pattern.
- It would have been nice to have Jason, Lorrie, etc ... but the extra tickets got me extra CD's ...
- I missed Jerry and the Philbillys that night at The Little Red Hen ...
- I had never had a seat before --- nice to not be on lawn and twice as close, but the sun crept onto us longer there – scalps were sunburned ….
- Sunscreen and water – did well, but never enough, barely any sunburn though
- The pics are mostly in order and id’d and many are on this blog and in a previous entry ...
- I took everything free I could get – JIB T and wrist bands, Lovers package water bottle and gloves – phone sock – windshield guard – 3 monsters + calendar – 2 old cds – 3 new cds – flyers ...
- Why do gloves blow up so huge? No wonder they don’t tear easy ...
- Everything vibrated from the sound; pants, seats, bottles, bag ...
- At work in the office a number of people had curiosity questions since they would not have been able to bring themselves to go.
- The parking lot is easy to get in and a nightmare to get out. I moved lanes and it worked as it turned out there was an accident that was stopping traffic, not incompetence (one guy did not take Ozzy’s advice and was cuffed).
- I got home after 1 and was at work by about 745 ...

In Line
- Early = on time / On Time = late / Late = no 2nd stage
- We spent an hour talking smack in line with a dad and his 13 year old son about other concert stories. We were the loud people that irritated the quiet ones in line, oh well.
- Being organized makes you popular. See, I had the set list printed off and a seating chart …
- Random drug testing for employees? - There was this one screaming guy in line from security that was actually trying to rev up the crowd while we stood in line, which was really weird and led to speculation that there was an actual security guy unconscious somewhere while this guy partied in his security shirt.
- Being older is actually good sometimes: they did not want to search us even though we had out bags open which was kind of strange.
- Even though we were prepared for the heat, it sprinkled ever so briefly a little before noon and then burned off fast.

People Watching-
- Monster Energy Drink Girls Desiree and Melissa were good sports.
- Some people just don’t understand the true importance and value of sunscreen.
- I found cat eye girl later and she explained how to see through the contacts.
- KISW Rock Girl photo tradition was continued of course ...
- Jolene was a good sport for another photo.
- A number of good sport parents, which was nice to see.
- MILF alert a couple times, especially the red girl mom ...
- Two really big guys got into what was like a Sumo fight at the 2nd stage that went to ground very hard and looked bad – and then it appeared that they high fived?
- Ozzfest is actually better behaved than other crowds according to security.
- The free tickets meant a different crowd, as in fewer tattoos ...
- Ron was in line for autographs and was one of four people in a row in camo shorts, plus 2 others near them in line , that is a lot of camo.
- The Tesla Guy – this one guy was trying very hard to look the rocker part, as in trying very hard by wearing camo, a hat, a new button up flaming designed shirt, and a concert tee underneath - but Tesla?
- There was a horrified look from blonde kid from the alternative school I sometimes work at. I apologized for speaking to him.

2nd Stage- Early = on time
- We stood for 6 hours of heat on concrete, but less than in the past since the show started at noon instead of nine.
- We missed a few; had to eat, stand in autograph lines, and use facilities.
- I went to the freak show tent since I had extra cash. It was not what I expected and didn’t stay long.

Main Stage- The crowd booed down a Green Day song between sets, then it stopped and restarted and played in its entirety, which was funny to us both.
- I looked through photos and decided I am in worse shape than I thought, maybe upon further review later.
- There was this one little psycho bird that came flying through low and at top speed and nearly took out a number of people before flying off.
- Our row was mostly empty it seemed. Sold out? All given away?
- I could have saved the wrist band and gone down close for a while, but the 50 was worth it given the circumstances.
- The seats we had are the closest I have been in the 4 years I have attended Ozzfest at White River, which was nice since it was free. I normally just get lawn seats and save the cash.

Bands
Lamb of God – They ran ten minutes less than announced, but were clearly a deserving main stage band. No politics this time … ??? (compared to the last time especially)
Static-X – They are just hyper fast. They were actually pretty good, but it looks like they have Don King’s son up front. We also had their biggest fan dancing at an absolutely frenetic pace in our aisle while they played.
Lordi – “Who’s Your Daddy?” sounded like a Winger song. Ron made a Celine joke that almost seemed true with one of their intros. Entertaining, but not the sound you would expect from their look. In fact, they are very “poppish”. The “Monster Energy” sponsorship logos were interestingly placed for Lordi – but like Dimmu Borgir in 2004- they looked out of place during daylight.
Hatebreed – Jamey is so thankful it seemed like a Thursday in November. They are better on the 2nd stage as it suits them better. But 3 times in 4 shows is enough for a while.
Behemoth – The corpse paint actually worked during daylight because they didn’t overdo the stage show during daylight and had their music to fall back on. Their singer likes the picture I took of him singing in a mask and had me zoom it in to give him a better look at it in the autograph line. But, one of their guitarists is this poor Polish speaking guy that got stuck at the front of the line and should have been at the end since he didn’t speak English. However, I did find out he was from Gdansk. A couple of the guys speak English and were really very cool about talking about the show.
Mondo Generator – Missed seeing much of it, heard some of it.
Ankla – Missed seeing much of it, heard some of it.
Nile – I actually liked them. Ron really liked them.
The Showdown – Missed seeing much of it, heard some of it.
Circus Diablo - Some bands try too hard. A nice cover of Sex Pistols’ Pretty Vacant.
3 Inches Of Blood – There is always a band that takes you by surprise on the 2nd stage and they did. I bought the CD and met them and they were very cool about it.
Daath – Missed seeing much of it, heard some of it.
In This Moment – They are very good and will go far commercially. They were the only woman fronted band and when they were done, no more women were on stage the rest of the day.
Chtonic – The “cello” player did not move. The band was half female and had the only women instrumentalistson the tour this year.

Ozzy-Was it really Ozzy that came down our aisle? I think so – the security presence seemed to authenticate it . One kid was “I touched him!” excited and “People look different in person” questioning it within moments, while another kid was certain it was a hoax …
- I considered doing an F Bomb count, but no way … So, I went with an “I Love You All!” count which came to 10, plus he used the “I want a wild crowd!” line and “God bless you!” all phrases a bunch too, and used his “Don’t drink and drive because the cops are out there to bust you!” at the end of the show speech.
- His set still ends with Paranoid.
- He played one other Black Sabbath song War Pigs.
- Ron came up with “Ozzy Jacks” to stay in shape line, then that was all I could think of whenever Ozzy would flap his arms the rest of the show.
- It was an interesting set which included, Bark At The Moon to open … Mama I’m Coming Home, Mister Crowley, Crazy Train, I Don’t Wanna Change the World, I Don’t Know, and about 3 new ones, but not the single (I Don’t Wanna Stop) …
- The opening video montage was 8 minutes, with Ozzy "Forrest Gumped" into Pirates 3, Lost, The Queen, The Office, Dancing With the Stars, The Sopranos, and others …
- Ozzy’s obsession with dousing his crowd with water continues – the traditional buckets were of course quickly in use, as was a hose of suds, then falling water a bunch of times until Ron pointed out “Black Rain” title … oops, my bad.
- The set ran 80 minutes, not 70.
- I got an opening video of about 20 seconds.
- You can hear the age in his voice like Johnny Cash had.
- The continued use of the teleprompter was painful on the new songs.
- Zakk is the last of the great guitar gods that can still pull off a ten minute solo and enjoys being the guitar god.

2007 Sampler
- It always is a little weird that there are bands not performing this year on the sampler. It must be that some of them are on the fence at one point and get included for production deadline reasons or something.
- It was nice to get the In This Moment single.
- It would have been nice to get I Don’t Wanna Stop on it.