Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Ozzy brings the thunder to the Pepsi Center

Tonight the Prince of Darkness and Slash played at the Pepsi Center and I was privileged enough to be there and I couldn't be happier. The whole experience of this show was great from the moment we parked until the very end of the show. We have our hidden parking spot that very few people park at and I will not disclose the location at all and headed on over to the Pepsi Center. We initially had nosebleed seats and were told when we got there that our seats had been upgraded due to not very many people buying that level. We moved to section 118. We headed in and got comfortable in our closer seats and awaited the lights to go out at 730, but as most shows seem to start late, this one started 10 minutes early. Bonus.

Slash opened up the show and I was excited. I've loved GnR since Appetite For Destruction came out and it was great to see him play again. When the show started, I found out that he was not the actual singer, but he kept doing what he does best and that's shred the guitar. The first few songs were new songs for his band and while they were good, they weren't doing it for me and it appeared most of the audience felt the same way. It wasn't until Night Train that the crowd started to get into this set. I don't know who the hell Slash got to sing for him, but damn did he do an awesome Axl impersonation. He had some of the swaying down, the high notes down perfectly, and created an illusion that this could have easily been GnR playing again. Not only did they play Night Train, they also played My Michelle, Rocket Queen, Paradise City, Sweet Child o Mine, and even Slither by Velvet Revolver. All through the set, Slash basically showed why he is one of the greatest guitarists of this generation. Axl better watch out, GnR is nothing without Slash and you could hear how much he brought to GnR just by the few original songs they did tonight.


After about an hour, it was Ozzy's turn to rock the Pepsi Center. When the lights went back out, they showed a little movie of random movie clips like Avatar, Jersey Shore, Hangover, Twilight, and Iron Man with each one having Ozzy inserting himself as a character. The best line of that whole skit was during the Twilight one where the chick in that says "I think you're a Vampire" to which Ozzy responded... "Vampire? Vampire's are pussies, I'm the Prince of Darkness" When Ozzy came out, he kicked off the show at a high level with Bark at the Moon. From there he jumped into the only new song in the setlist. Let Me Hear You Scream. While I'm not a fan of that song, everyone else seemed to love it. I have to say, I'm quite thankful that it was the only new song because his classics are some of the best rock and roll out there. At times, Ozzy looked like a special needs child on stage, waddling around like he normally does, dunking his head in buckets of water, waving his arms back and forth in an overly dramatic way to get the crowd going, and spraying them with the hose. Ozzy promised to play really long if we all got crazy so he topped off at around 95 minutes. I guess we weren't crazy enough for him. There were two things I was really glad to see make a comeback at this show. The first was heavy use of pyrotechnics, with the most beautiful of the fireworks coming right before Mr. Crowley as sparks rained down on the stage during the intro.... and people using lighters instead of their fucking cell phones during ballads. Sorry kids, but lighters look awesome, cell phones look dumb. This was my first and probably last time seeing Ozzy (since I'm sure this is his final tour, just a feeling) and he didn't let the fans down. There was a great mixture of Sabbath songs with a surprise appearance of Fairies Wear Boots, to his solo career. The only part that got a bit boring was the way too long guitar solo. It was cool, but dragged out for a bit too long. Here is the Setlist


*
1.
Bark at the Moon
2.
Let Me Hear You Scream
3.
Mr. Crowley
4.
I Don't Know
5.
Fairies Wear Boots

6.
Suicide Solution
7.
Road to Nowhere
8.
War Pigs

9.
Shot in the Dark
10.
Rat Salad .
(with Guitar and Drum solos)
11.
Iron Man

12.
I Don't Want to Change the World .
13.
Crazy Train
14. Encore:
14.
Mama, I'm Coming Home Play Video
15.
Paranoid

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