It was called “Back to the Beginning”, Ozzy’s farewell to touring. He’s ill; he has Parkinson’s but from watching the videos of the epic concert, it has not diminished him as an artist.
Unabashed Ozzy fan since the early days, bought my first album (LP) when it came out in 1970. I bought it at Woolco (🤣Does that date me or what? Woolco…) . Anyway, needless to say, at that time my Mom (Ukrainian/Irish) a DEVOUT Catholic was absolutely horrified by the album cover…
Poor Mom was convinced I was on that proverbial “Highway to Hell” (See what I did there? 🤣🤣), as I was a huge metal fan, although, it wasn’t called “Metal” back then and heavily into reading as much about the occult/witchcraft as I could sneak past her. Luckily for me, and according to Mom, not so lucky for my soul, my uncle was also very much into the occult – not low Magick but the High Magick stuff. Levi, Crowley, Israel Regardie and had a drawer full of these books. My uncle was not a hippie, far too pragmatic for that. He had been a paratrooper in WWII, he was a scientist and held two different degrees, he worked as a researcher for the Le Dain Commission. So yes, he was a huge influence in my life.
Sidebar: As a teen in the 70’s, I did “partake” of various chemicals – my chemical of choice was LSD. Loved the acid, loved the acid A LOT. Well, my folks were at their wits end with me, and so, as was his way, my uncle spoke with me, quietly during one of his visits, in my grandfather’s garden, the memory is etched. His words were simple but VERY effective; “I have something to say to you and I want you to truly think about it. If drugs were safe? Do you not think I would be taking them? This is my job and I know these drugs. They are not safe, especially street drugs.”, then he walked away. No huge lecture, no angry words. I won’t lie and say that I stopped immediately, I did not but I did shortly after, his words even popped up during “trips” and it just wasn’t fun for me anymore.
Where was I? Oh yeah, before that little flashback to memory lane; Black Sabbath. The music, the lyrics, it all spoke (This will seem really lame…) to my soul. It did, laugh if you want but damn, that music just took me away from life. It STILL does. I bought most of the LPs after that first one:
- Paranoid
- Master of Reality
- Vol. 4
- Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (Mom almost passed out when she saw that one..)
I kind of lost interest after that…the music just didn’t seem to catch me and I switched off. I was pretty heavily into Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull to name a few, so they filled the void. Meddle was a particular Floyd favourite, still is.
Ozzy and Black Sabbath defined my generation of Metalheads and generations that followed.
Ozzy is retiring on a high note (no pun intended); Sabbath and he wrote Metal’s history, for that, we all owe thanks and reverence to the “Prince of Darkness” as well as to his wife, Sharon, for keeping it and Ozzy on the road to that legacy. We love and will always love Ozzy Osbourne; thank you for everything.
Sharon? Bubble aren’t evil! 🤣🤣
Wicked Emerald - Live From The Montérégie 