ozzy osbourne and jack world tour

Ozzy and Jack's World Detour

Ozzy and Jack venture to historic Jamestown, Virginia. Jack is determined to find out whether any Osbournes were among the first British colonists in America, but Ozzy is obsessed with the idea of that the early settlers resorted to cannibalism.

In 1982, something happened at the Alamo that instantly became both Rock & Rock lore and a bold question mark in the Osbourne family history. So, nearly 35 years later, Jack and his dad head back to the "scene of the crime" (against Ozzy's wishes and warnings) in an attempt to uncover the truth and hopefully rewrite history. Along the way the guys take a couple of detours, including NASA's Johnson Space Center, where they test drive the new Mars Rover, and a stop at the Museum of Funeral History.

Ozzy and Jack are on a road trip to Mt. Rushmore. Jack wants to get an up-close and personal look at the historic site from a helicopter, but Ozzy wants nothing to do with it.

Ozzy and Jack pack up a camper and travel to the home of all things UFO -- Roswell, New Mexico. While Jack is a true UFO believer and loves camping, Ozzy is a skeptic and loathes the outdoors when it's freezing cold. But Jack's certain that the experience will further deepen their father-son bond.

It's Ozzy's birthday and Jack has a big surprise in store for him. Only problem is, Ozzy hates surprises. So, Jack's pulling a lot of strings to put together a perfect trip for the Prince of Darkness. On the agenda: medical oddities, a penitentiary, chocolate making and a voyage 220 feet underground, where Jack will reveal his biggest surprise - a relic from Ozzy's past.

Ozzy and Jack's bucket lists collide when father and son head to the UK. While both want to visit Stonehenge, the mythic structure of Druid lore, the rest of their itinerary is up for debate, and both Ozzy and Jack each want their way. Will Ozzy get his hands on Alan Turing's famous Nazi code breaking machine? Will Jack convince his dad to go to the newly found remains of a Neolithic monument known as "Superhenge"? And will Ozzy let Jack pursue his dream of getting his dad knighted?

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Ozzy Obourne

Jack Osbourne

Greg Johnston

Rock royalty's road trip filled with history nuggets, fun.

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Ozzy and Jack's World Detour

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Ozzy, Jack Osbourne on Their ‘World Detour’: ‘It’s Been a Laugh’

By Kory Grow

Ozzy Osbourne and his son Jack are gawking at a hulking M24 Chaffee army tank in a Nokesville, Virginia, field, as its owner gets ready to fire a blank missile into the woods. Bang! As the smoke clears from the gun nozzle, Ozzy turns to Jack – his hand on his chest – and says, “You felt that, didn’t you?”

The scene plays out in the first episode of Ozzy & Jack’s World Detour , a new History Channel show that premieres this weekend and finds father-and-son visiting historical sites around the world and doing an even mix of goofing off and learning. They visited the Virginia Museum of Military Vehicles – the United States’ largest collection of vintage, World War II tanks – on their way to Jamestown, Virginia, the first English settlement in the Americas and (of interest to Ozzy) a place of cannibalism. Their travels for the show also took them to Stonehenge, Cuba, Roswell, New Mexico, and the Alamo, among other locales.

But while a year and a half have passed since the Osbournes began their big return to television, Ozzy can still feel that tank blast.

“It was just like a big firecracker,” the Black Sabbath frontman tells Rolling Stone .

Jack agrees. “That’s the only thing you could really compare it to,” he says. “It was like this really deep concussion. You could properly feel it.”

Since The Osbournes , Jack – now age 30 – has been working behind the scenes in the television and film industries. When he looks back on the series that catapulted the rest of his family to Ozzy-level stratospheres of fame, he laughs and says, “I was a teenager and kind of angsty … I was kind of a dick,” but he’s happy he did it. In part, it taught him that the people behind the camera have more control than those in front of the lens. He’s since gone on to produce the documentary Bed Stuy: Do or Die , the National Geographic series Alpha Dogs and a few docs about Ozzy and Black Sabbath.

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The idea for Ozzy & Jack’s World Detour came when Jack was spitballing project ideas with a producer friend of his who suggested, simply, a history program with his dad, age 67. Usually when people suggest television shows involving Ozzy, Jack turns them down. “My dad just doesn’t do TV,” he says. “He won’t do it.” But he decided to pitch it, since some of his earliest memories of his father are watching historical shows on TV. He was shocked to find out that his father was into it.

Ozzy, as it turns out, has always been a history buff. “I was born in ’48,” he says, “and as a young kid, we used to play on bomb sites. For many years after World War II, I’d watch films about it on TV and the insanity of it all just got me interested.”

With his dad aboard, Jack began mapping out the places he wanted to visit – the Alamo and Stonehenge topped his list – and they began scheduling shoots between tour dates of Black Sabbath’s farewell tour . “I don’t get a break for myself,” Ozzy says with a laugh. “But it’s OK. We’re getting on great.”

The two Osbournes traveled with a crew of about 25 people, some of whom did location scouting, and they’d typically arrive with about 10. One of the producers, Greg Johnston, previously worked on The Osbournes . (Incidentally, Jack says he didn’t invite his mother Sharon or sister Kelly along since they’ve established themselves already and have commitments to other projects.)

The travels were largely low-key, with one major exception being Ozzy’s return to the Alamo – the San Antonio, Texas, landmark which he was accused of urinating on in 1982, leading to him being banned from the city. The ban was lifted in 1992. But regardless, when the media got word that the singer was going to check it out, a crowd of what Jack estimates to be around 1,000 people swarmed the entrance, freaking out Ozzy who was already nervous to return.

“I warned the producers,” he says, stressing his speech with his trademark hilarious wry inflection. “I said, ‘You go to the Alamo, everything’s going to happen.’ And it’s a fucking riot when we get there.”

Throughout the episode, Ozzy becomes more and more tense leading up to the visit. In one driving scene, he yells at Jack, who is behind the wheel, to stop checking his phone and then he puts headphones on and listens to Chicago. (“He’s been on, like, a heavy Chicago kick,” Jack says.) Despite the singer’s racked nerves, Jack says his father thought going back to the Alamo would be funny.

Black Sabbath's Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler Talk 'Bittersweet' Finale

“When it came out in the press and the news story blew up, he was like, ‘Ah, fuck this,'” the younger Osbourne says. “Thirty years ago, people legitimately wanted to kill my dad. So when he saw all those people, he was really freaked out like they were going to beat the shit out of him.”

“The crowd started going nuts,” Ozzy says. “It was scary.”

“I’m like, ‘No. People like you,'” Jack says.

After they made it through the crowd, the visit went off without incident. Once inside, they took a breather and Ozzy marveled at Davy Crockett artifacts and about how they made the interior into a museum and had “done it up a little bit.” The crew at the Alamo even helped them sneak out the back.

To lighten things up while in Texas, the Osbournes also visited NASA, where they tried driving a moon rover (it got stuck), scouted out a mission control room (“On TV it looks huge, but it’s not very big at all,” Ozzy says) and donned astronaut suits.

“It’s not a very comfortable outfit at all, to say the least,” Ozzy says. “I don’t get the way them astronauts walk around wearing them. They got these underpants … They’re like big bloomers .”

“It’s kind of like a wetsuit,” Jack says. “And the thing you always see astronauts carrying around is a cooling unit; it makes it feel like cold water is circulating under the suit to keep you cool, but you’re not wet. The funny thing to me was that the overalls under the suit are made by Patagonia. Like, ‘Oh, yes. Patagonia is making space overalls. They must make, like, four of them a year.'”

“The astronaut suit was all right until I tried to take that fucking helmet off,” he says. “It almost took my head with it.”

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Grand Ole Osbournes

For the first time in World Detour history, Kelly heads the trip. This time it’s to Nashville, Tennessee. Jack and Ozzy are backseat to some very “Kelly” activities including, a drag queen brunch, visiting Manuel, Nashville’s iconic fashion designer, and restyling Ozzy’s Madame Tussauds’ wax figure. Not entirely excluding her father and brother’s interest, the Osbourne trio visit a chocolate and record pressing factory. Kelly plans a musical surprise for Ozzy, and squeezes in a quick trip to the largest ashram in the country where they meet a Guru with some helpful meditation tips before Ozzy’s tour.

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• Episode aired Aug 21, 2016

It's Ozzy's birthday and Jack has a big surprise in store for him. Only problem is, Ozzy hates surprises. So, Jack's pulling a lot of strings to put together a perfect trip for the Prince of... Read all It's Ozzy's birthday and Jack has a big surprise in store for him. Only problem is, Ozzy hates surprises. So, Jack's pulling a lot of strings to put together a perfect trip for the Prince of Darkness. On the agenda: medical oddities, a penitentiary, chocolate making and a voyage ... Read all It's Ozzy's birthday and Jack has a big surprise in store for him. Only problem is, Ozzy hates surprises. So, Jack's pulling a lot of strings to put together a perfect trip for the Prince of Darkness. On the agenda: medical oddities, a penitentiary, chocolate making and a voyage 220 feet underground, where Jack will reveal his biggest surprise - a relic from Ozzy's pa... Read all

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Ozzy Osbourne Announces Farewell World Tour

UPDATE: The Ozzman has shared footage of yesterday's press conference announcing the farewell tour. Joined by his wife and manager Sharon Osbourne, he took questions about his upcoming jaunt, potential new music, and what kinds of shows he'll play once the trek winds up ("Anything but Coachella," replies Sharon). Having worked up quite the appetite from the presser, the rocker proceeded to slice a massive, metal-as-fuck cake plastered with (presumably edible) photos of himself, because why not?

UPDATE: Ozzy Osbourne has announced North American dates for his farewell tour, with Stone Sour manning the opening slot. See the itinerary below.

Nine months after laying his beloved Black Sabbath to rest in their hometown of Birmingham, England, Ozzy Osbourne has announced his own "farewell world tour." The Ozzman's global jaunt will have him on the road from mid-2018 through 2020; the Crazy Train will depart from Mexico next May, before speeding through South America, Russia, western Europe, and eventually, North America. He'll be joined by his current backing band: guitarist Zakk Wylde, bassist Rob "Blasko" Nicholson, drummer Tommy Clufetos and keyboardist Adam Wakeman. Find a preliminary list of dates below.

While Osbourne has framed the upcoming trek as his last, he doesn't rule out the potential of future one-offs. "People keep asking me when I'm retiring," the metal icon said. "This will be my final world tour, but I can't say I won't do some shows here and there." (It's worth noting that this isn't the first time Osbourne's sworn off touring altogether; the rocker's solo trek behind 1992's No More Tears — aptly titled "No More Tours" — was originally planned as his last.)

Ozzy Osbourne tour dates:

Apr. 27 – Jacksonville, FL – Welcome to Rockville Apr. 29 – Fort Lauderdale, FL – FortRock May 05 – Mexico – TBA May 08 – Santiago, Chile – TBA May 11 – Buenos Aires, Argentina – TBA May 13 – São Paulo, Brazil – TBA May 16 – Curitiba, Brazil – TBA May 18 – Belo Horizonte, Brazil – TBA May 20 – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – TBA Jun. 01 – Moscow, Russia – Olympiisky Jun. 03 – St. Petersburg, Russia – Ice Palace (Ledovi Dvorets) Jun. 06 – Finland – TBA Jun. 08 – Solvesborg, Sweden – Sweden Rock Festival Jun. 10 – Donington, England – Download Festival Jun. 13 – Prague, Czech Republic – Airport Letnany Jun. 15 – Paris, France – Download Festival Jun. 17 – Italy – TBA Jun. 20 – Halden, Norway – Tons of Rock Festival Jun. 22 – Copenhagen, Denmark – Copenhell Festival Jun. 24 – Dessel, Belgium – Graspop Metal Meeting Jun. 26 – Krakow, Poland – Impact Festival Jun. 28 – Oberhausen, Germany – König-Pilsnet Arena Jun. 30 – Madrid, Spain – Download Festival Jul. 02 – Lisbon, Portugal – Meo Arena Aug. 30 – Allentown, PA – PPL Center Sept. 01 – Syracuse, NY – Lakeview Amphitheater Sept. 04 – Toronto, ON – Budweiser Stage Sept. 06 – Boston, MA – Xfinity Center Sept. 08 – Wantagh, NY – Jones Beach Amphitheatre Sept. 10 – Holmdel, NJ – PNC Bank Arts Center Sept. 12 – Camden, NJ – BB&T Pavilion Sept. 14 – Bristow, VA – Jiffy Lube Live Sept. 16 – Cuyahoga Falls OH – Blossom Music Center Sept. 19 – Clarkston, MI – DTE Energy Center Sept. 21 – Tinley Park, IL– Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre Sept. 23 – Noblesville, IN Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center Sept. 26 – Dallas, TX – Starplex Pavilion Sept. 28 – Houston, TX – Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion Sept. 30 – Albuquerque, NM – Isleta Amphitheater Oct. 02 – Denver, CO – Pepsi Center Oct. 04 – Salt Lake City, UT – USANA Amphitheatre Oct. 06 – Mountain View, CA – Shoreline Amphitheatre Oct. 09 – Chula Vista, CA – Mattress Firm Amphitheatre Oct. 11 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Bowl Oct. 13 – Las Vegas, NV – MGM Grand Garden Arena

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"When I’m onstage, it’s my world": what happened when we joined Ozzy Osbourne on his final ever tour in 2018

In 2018, Ozzy Osbourne kicked off No More Tours 2. We headed to South America to witness the Prince Of Darkness on form and as determined as ever

Back in 2018, Louder's Paul Brannigan was flown to South America to join Ozzy Osbourne on the early stops of his mammoth final world tour, No More Tours 2. Though today's announcement that Ozzy is officially retired from touring means we'll never see that trek reach its final legs, at the time, we found the Prince Of Darkness in as entertaining and candid form as ever - and a man determined to continue hitting the road as long as his health would let him.

Santiago’s Cementerio General is an extraordinary place, as beautiful as it is haunting. A true city of the dead, it’s a sprawling 210-acre complex of ornate tombs and elegant mausoleums, the final resting place of approximately two million Chilean citizens. All but two of the deceased former Presidents of Chile are interred here. Significantly, there’s no plot for the CIA-sponsored dictator Augusto Pinochet: there is, however, a chilling monument to the thousands of Chileans who were ‘disappeared’ by the military during his brutal regime. Here and there, teddy bears, cuddly toys and cloth dolls are tied to trees and stone crucifixes, heart-wrenching reminders of young children taken from their families too soon. For all its architectural splendor and undoubted historical significance, this is not a location one would wish to explore in the hours of darkness.

“I remember seeing The Exorcist ,” says Ozzy Osbourne , a figure in black shuffling carefully between the ossuaries. “ Black Sabbath were in Philadelphia. The manager, Patrick Meehan, comes in and says, ‘You gotta see this film’. So the four of us, Black Sabbath, go to see this fucking film, and we were so fucking scared, that we had to spend the night together in one room. We‘re supposed to be the Satan band, and we’re all in one bed, scared shitless. We had to go to see The Sting afterwards to get our minds off it!”

The Prince Of Darkness is in an upbeat mood, largely, one suspects, because this afternoon’s photo session affords him a vista other than the interior of a hotel suite, dressing room or airport lounge. So pleased is he, indeed, that later this same evening he’ll send a late night text to photographer Ross Halfin: ‘Come take some photos of me in the bath,’ it reads. “I’ll leave the door on the latch…”

Santiago is just the fourth stop on the singer’s current No More Tours 2 trek, titled with a knowing wink to his 1992 ‘retirement’ tour, but in his 50th year of touring, Ozzy has settled back easily into familiar routines. The private jet which transports the 69-year-old singer between gigs now might represent a serious upgrade on the battered Commer van which once wheezed between Black Sabbath’s engagements in continental Europe when Osbourne was still a wet behind the ears Brummie teenager, but essentially, the job – bringing music to the masses - remains the same.

Sabbath never made it to South America while Ozzy was in the band first time around, but finally played Chile on their farewell The End tour: “It was like Beatlemania in a heavy metal way,” Ozzy recalls. The singer first visited South America in January 1985, for the inaugural staging of the mammoth Rock In Rio festival, a 10-day event which drew some 1.4 million people to a purpose-built City Of Rock, with Queen, AC/DC , Yes and Rod Stewart among the headline ‘turns’. On that occasion, Ozzy recalls, he was booked for a photo session by a river in Rio de Janeiro, along the banks of which locals had laid out candles and plates of fruit. During a lull in proceedings, the singer recalls picking up an apple and taking a bite, to the immediate and very visible consternation of his horrified hosts. 

“Everyone was like, ‘No! No! No!’,” he laughs. “It was a voodoo offering, and so everyone freaked.”

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By his own admission, Ozzy is a very superstitious man. He may no longer wear the silver metal cross his father Jack crafted for each member of Black Sabbath to ward off evil spirits back in the ’70s, but he remains reluctant to meddle with forces he does not understand. And with just three dates of his final world tour ticked off the docket, today he’s taking some convincing that his freshly-launched, long farewell campaign isn’t cursed.

To understand the thinking behind Ozzy’s intuition, we must rewind a few days, to the evening of Friday, May 4. The travelling party’s private jet is descending towards an airstrip outside Mexico City, with just ten minutes remaining of a four-hour flight from Los Angeles, when Sharon Osbourne leans across the seat to her husband and gently says, “Ozzy, I’ve got something to tell you.”

“I go, ‘What’s that darling?’,” says Ozzy, replaying the scene. “She goes, ‘I haven’t brought my passport’. And I go, ‘You’re fucking joking…’”

Upon touching down in Mexico, with promises being made that the absent travel document will be couriered in on the next south-bound flight from LA, it initially appears that immigration officials at the airport will take a common-sense, if law-bending, view of Mrs O’s misfortune, will come to assess that the internationally-famous wife of one of the planet’s most recognisable rock stars is perhaps unlikely to represent a serious threat to the security of the state. But in times of heightened political rhetoric, acts of mercy can be interpreted as signs of weakness, and as negotiations at the airport continue, word is passed down the chain of command to the effect that this particular visitor from North America – citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as she might be – will not be permitted to officially enter the country. Instead, the order decrees, Mrs Osbourne must spend the night aboard the jet on the airstrip, and will be cleared to return to Los Angeles at dawn. 

Ozzy Osbourne is infinitely sharper than you might realise. This being the case, he’s entirely mindful that comments made in anger - let’s say, for the sake of argument, comments pertaining to the current incumbent of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in the District of Columbia and his belligerent, antagonistic, attitude to the United States’ southern neighbour - could inadvertently land him in hot water if taken out of context. So while prefacing his reaction to this irritation with the disclaimer, “I’m not politically motivated: when people ask me about the governments, I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about”, he will quietly add, “It’s anti-North America here… like, ‘Don’t tell us what to do, leave us alone, you fuck your own country up.'” Given that the singer is already recuperating from a dose of bronchitis, his mood is in no way improved by the absence of his beloved spouse: were life a cartoon, the singer’s every move in Mexico City would be shadowed by an ominous black cloud.

Ozzy is here for date three of the No More Tours 2 campaign, which will find him headlining night two of the Heaven and Hell Festival – Mexico’s premier heavy metal weekender – atop a bill featuring Saxon, Megadeth , Judas Priest and more. That the show day falls on Cinco de Mayo, an annual celebration held to commemorate the Mexican Army’s unlikely triumph over the French empire at the Battle of Puebla, on May 5, 1862, promises to lend an extra frisson to the occasion.

We are instructed by Ozzy’s super-efficient German tour manager Thomas Reitz to meet with the touring party at 6:40pm by the elevators on the 12th floor of our luxury hotel. It’s here that we are introduced to Ozzy’s band – long-time guitar foil Zakk Wylde , bassist Rob ‘Blasko’ Nicholson, drummer Tommy Clufetos and keyboard player Adam ‘Son of Rick’ Wakeman – his personal security guard Eddie Mendoza, and the man himself. The festival promoters have arranged that the group will be given a police escort to the event site, Autodrómo Hermanos Rodríguez, and so, within 5 minutes of our rendezvous, this writer and the ‘talent’ are smuggled out of the hotel’s back entrance and ushered into a fleet of black SUVs with tinted windows. We’re soon hurtling through the streets of Mexico City, its notoriously chaotic traffic magically melting away as speeding motorcycle outriders swerve ahead, blocking lanes and opening up hitherto clogged transport arteries. It is, to be honest, fantastically exhilarating and a rare fleeting insight into one aspect of the lifestyles of the (filthy) rich and infamous. 

There are few such luxuries immediately apparent at the festival site. In common with backstage areas at similar events across the globe, a mini-village of marquees and portacabins has been erected for the artists and industry schmoozers and, upon disembarking from the caravan, the musicians disappear into their respective sanctuaries. Ozzy’s dressing room area is an alcohol-free zone, and his backstage rider requirements are unfussy and relatively basic. As the singer maintains a strict sugar-and-gluten-free diet, the emphasis is on organic fruits and nuts, along with, rather charmingly, a stated demand for a box of PG Tips teabags and a box of Yorkshire Tea. 

As is the current etiquette for touring artists, there’s a meet-and-greet with (fully-paid-up) VIP guests to negotiate pre-show – a handshake, a photo, an autograph and off you pop, gracias – and Ozzy also takes the opportunity to exchange pleasantries with his old friends in Judas Priest , just along the corridor. “They’re from Birmingham, they’re just the lads,” he says. “I’ve known them for years. Rob [Halford] is a great singer.” And, as soon as Priest finish their hugely enjoyable set on the festival’s Heaven stage, the adjoining Hell stage is illuminated in light and, at 10:50pm, it’s showtime.

A few observations from gig number three of No More Tours 2. Firstly, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana is still the most recognisable, and thrilling, intro music in heavy metal. Secondly, following a period in exile, during which Ozzy recorded his most recent studio album, 2010’s Scream , with Greek guitarist Gus G , it’s oddly reassuring to see Black Label Society mainman Zakk Wylde back at Ozzy’s side. And thirdly, the 80,000 plus heavy metal fans filling the Autodrómo Hermanos Rodríguez to capacity tonight really, really, really love John Michael Osbourne. Every gap in the set-list is punctuated by deafening chants of “Ozz-ee! Ozz-ee!” and with the revealing of each successive heavy metal standard in the action-packed set-list – Bark At The Moon into Mr. Crowley into I Don’t Know into Sabbath’s Fairies Wears Boots – a sense of communal hysteria escalates. From our on-stage vantage point just behind Adam Wakeman’s keyboards, with laser beams strafing the darkness, it’s quite a sight.

Given such close access to the performers, however, it soon becomes apparent that Ozzy is not entirely happy with how the gig is unfolding. More specifically, it’s clear that he’s not satisfied with his vocals, as a combination of the altitude and his bronchitis are affecting his breathing. Ahead of No More Tears , the title track of the singer’s 1991 album and the sixth song listed in black type on the set-list taped to the stage, Ozzy wanders across to shout in Blasko’s left ear. The bassist then repeats the message to Adam Wakeman as Ozzy heads towards Zakk Wylde. With zero drama, the song is dropped, and the band go seamlessly into Road To Nowhere instead. 

Solo spots for Wylde and Clufetos give the vocalist time to compose himself out of sight of the audience, and a decision is taken to drop Flying High Again also. Ozzy is noticeably happier when he returns to the stage, and the home straight, starting with Shot In the Dark and climaxing with – what else? – Paranoid is joyous heavy metal theatre. There’s no time for self-congratulatory back-slapping, however: the final howls from Wylde’s amps are still resonating as the band pile back into their getaway vehicles, their daredevil police escorts already gunning their engines for a high-speed exit to the airport. Ozzy is still unhappy, but post-mortems can wait, and conversation is muted as the motorway ahead opens up.

If anyone is tempted to think that, for artists of advancing years in particular, live gigs are simply a cynical cash-grab opportunity, mere showbiz routine, they should try spending an hour with Ozzy Osbourne in the wake of a performance he deems below par. Sitting in his hotel room on the 16th floor of Santiago’s Intercontinental Hotel a full 36 hours after the Mexico City gig, the singer is still downcast, still picking apart his own contributions to the night, this despite him also insisting “You have to leave the last gig on the stage.”

“It was not my intention to sing like a fucking asshole!” he says with a sigh. “I’ve been taking this fucking stuff [to aid recovery from bronchitis] and when I went to the doctor I said, Don’t give me anything that’s going to dry me out. It’s all fucked up, very frustrating.”

“People say, ‘Oh, it didn’t sound that bad out there’, but to me, when I’m performing, it’s like putting two E-strings on a guitar: you’ve strung it wrong, and it doesn’t sound how you want it. It’s a personal thing. In my head I want to give them everything, but it don’t work sometimes. If I can’t do it onstage and I’m not having fun with it, I get fucking angry with myself. But I’m only human, you know?”

“So when I get to the gig and sing like an asshole, it’s like, this fucking thing is cursed! Sharon sent me a text saying, ‘Darling, it’s not cursed, it’s just teething problems’. It’s a new day, a new gig. But if it goes again, I’ll be pissed off again.” 

Niggling problems notwithstanding, the singer is in rude health, a testament to his rigorous health and fitness regime. It was not always thus. Recalling his first ever trip to South America in 1985, he recounts boarding the Rio-bound flight directly from an enforced six week stay in the Betty Ford Clinic, then immediately getting “fucking loaded” on the plane. 

“I woke up with my wife stabbing me in the chest with a fucking dinner fork,” he laughs. “I’d never gone six weeks without a drink before. It took me a long while to get that under control. Now I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do dope…” 

Asked how’s he spent his first couple of days in Chile, he points to a clunky-looking exercise bike across the room. “It’s like something out of the fucking Stone Age. I exercise every day, the endorphins are great!”

“You try to find things to occupy your mind. Or it’s… " and here Ozzy attempts to convey the vision of a demon and angel perched on his shoulders, and adopts an evil whispering voice… ‘You’re going to sing like a cunt!’”

The singer is at pains today to stress that this is not his farewell tour, merely his last full-scale world tour. “Sabbath’s was a farewell tour,” he notes, “but I’m not stopping, I’m not retiring. This could go on for the rest of my life.” Pressed on whether the world might also see a new Ozzy record this decade, the singer is less confident, though reveals that he has “10 songs ready to go, really strong ideas, melodies, lyrics, everything…”

“But a new record? There’s no point,” he says bluntly. “You make a record, it costs you this much to make, and then they steal it. Why do I want to spend my money on that?”

Talk returns to his first ever South America trip. Ozzy remembers meeting Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs (“pathetic and sad”), the smell of the City Of Rock being “fucking unbelievable” as 1.4 million people used the site as an outdoor toilet for 10 days, and hours of entertainment sitting on the hotel rooftop watching fearless local kids swiping cameras from jet-lagged foreign paparazzi all day long. 

“I remember getting on this big military helicopter and on one side there was cardboard over the windows. I thought, What the fuck is that all about? So I peeled off the cardboard. And the guy goes, ‘No, leave it alone! It’s a bad representation of Brazil!’ What it was, was that you could see the shanty towns, and they were embarrassed about it. It’s fucking nuts there, you’re either wealthy or you’re dirt poor.”

There’ll be no opportunity for such sight-seeing this time around. In Santiago, Ozzy will only leave his hotel suite when duty calls.

“I’d be walking around like a fucking scrapyard with all this junk on,” he says,” jangling the chunky gold jewellery on his right wrist for added effect. “I’d get killed for a watch!”

The gaggle of hardcore Ozzy fans who sit patiently outside the front doors of the Intercontinental Hotel for the duration of his stay in Santiago, have no obvious designs on the singer’s expensive timepiece, it should be stated. All they want is an autograph on the CD sleeves, albums and posters in their backpacks, or a photo, or a hug. None of this will happen. But despite being informed, regularly, that Mr Osbourne will not be coming out to play, they sit on. Among their number are Santiago residents Valentina Peñaloza and her 17-year-old sister Carolina, who has been gifted tickets for Ozzy’s May 8 show at the Movistar Arena for her 18th birthday, which falls on the same day. “Ozzy changed music forever,” says Carolina, “he invented heavy metal. His music has had such an impact upon my family and I. That’s why I’m here, and that’s why I’ll be in the front row of his concert.”

Ozzy exits for the gig by the hotel back door at precisely 4:45pm. Neither Carolina nor her sister will see him leave.

At 9:15pm, resplendent in purple, Ozzy walks on to the stage of the Movistar Arena and asks the 17,000-strong crowd, “Are you ready to go fucking crazy?” The answer is unanimously affirmative. “Let the madness begin!” Ozzy shrieks. 

This time, the gig goes off without a hitch. No More Tears and Flying High Again are restored to the set-list, for 90 minutes Ozzy holds the arena in the palm of his hand, treating the crowd less like customers in his shop than guests in his home. He’s in constant motion, an impish master of ceremonies, king of the night time world again. Before Shot In The Dark he even asks the crowd to cheer loudly for Sharon – “who’s back in Los Angeles”. The texts between the pair tonight, one fancies, will be rather more upbeat.

Ozzy is still grinning as he scrambles out of his SUV back at the hotel an hour later. “That was good, wasn’t it?” he says. 

This is what you still live for, isn’t it?

“When I’m onstage it’s my world,” he replies, nodding in agreement. “No-one can go, ‘Wear this, do this, say that’, whatever. I can do what I want to do. They can’t be Ozzy, and Ozzy can’t be them.” 

“I’m not the greatest singer,” he admits, “but I know how to get a crowd going. That’s my thing. What was it that Simon Cowell said? I’m not a singer, I’m a showman. If I just stood there going, [ drones ] I’m going off the rails… Somebody please throw a bottle at me!”

For a moment, the years roll back, and Ozzy is transported back to his native Birmingham, as he shares one last anecdote.

“Before I got successful with Sabbath,” he says, “I was in a band called Rare Breed, doing, like, blues or psychedelic stuff. One night [at a gig] the leader of the band came up to me and said, ‘We don’t do that.’ I said, Do what? He said, ‘Do what you do. We don’t move around, it’s not cool.’ I said, I’ll tell you what is cool then. Finding another singer, because I’m fucking off!’”

And with that, The Prince Of Darkness chortles and drags his wheelie bag into the hotel lift. Tomorrow he’ll be flying high again.

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica ( Birth School Metallica Death , co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography ( Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.

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