{"id":8475,"date":"2025-07-23T22:22:51","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T14:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artgardenhub.com\/?p=8475"},"modified":"2025-07-23T22:22:53","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T14:22:53","slug":"just-two-weeks-ago-i-was-still-immersed-in-the-back-to-the-beginning-concert-experience-goosebumps-covered-my-skin-as-the-intro-to-war-pigs-echoed-through-the-arena-and-ozzy-osbour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artgardenhub.com\/?p=8475","title":{"rendered":"Just two weeks ago, I was still immersed in the Back to the Beginning concert experience. Goosebumps covered my skin as the intro to \u201cWar Pigs\u201d echoed through the arena and Ozzy Osbourne emerged slowly on stage, seated upon a grand throne."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Just two weeks ago, I was still immersed in the Back to the Beginning concert experience. Goosebumps covered my skin as the intro to \u201cWar Pigs\u201d echoed through the arena and Ozzy Osbourne emerged slowly on stage, seated upon a grand throne. That moment was nothing short of iconic \u2014 Ozzy Osbourne will forever remain a towering figure in music history. He brought his final concert to a close with the majesty of a true king. It was a fitting farewell \u2014 complete, powerful, and without a single regret. Rest in peace, Ozzy Osbourne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The night Ozzy Osbourne went to dinner with the US president nearly turned into the biggest disaster of his career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet somehow, thanks to the mix of goofy charm and outrageous good luck that had protected him throughout his career, he turned it into a triumph. As always Ozzy, who has died aged 76 after a long battle with Parkinson\u2019s disease, was reckless, self-destructive\u2026 and got away with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His invitation to attend the annual White House Correspondents\u2019 Association dinner in 2002 was predictably improbable. The heavy metal superstar was being honoured for his animal welfare work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ozzy couldn\u2019t quite believe it himself. True, he and wife Sharon were famous for their menagerie of pets, seen on their pioneering reality TV show The Osbournes. And he\u2019d recently joined animal activists Peta to campaign against the fur trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if the former Black Sabbath frontman was famous for one thing above all, it was for biting the head off a bat during a concert in Iowa, in 1982. He always insisted it was a drunken mistake \u2013 a fan threw the bat at him and, thinking it was a rubber toy, he ripped it apart with his teeth. When he realised what he\u2019d done, he cut short the gig to get a rabies jab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Whatever else I do,\u2019 he used to lament, \u2018my epitaph will be, \u201cBorn December 3, 1948. Died, whenever. And he bit the head off a bat\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So his presence at the dinner as a guest of President George W. Bush and wife Laura was unlikely to say the least. And although American news reports of the night described Ozzy as a \u2018recovering alcoholic\u2019, there wasn\u2019t much recovery going on: as he sat down with Fox News journalists, he grabbed a bottle of red and downed it in three long draughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time the compere announced his presence, Ozzy was in party mood. He leapt up and greeted the 1,800 guests with a scream of \u2018Yeeehaaa!\u2019 \u2013 then climbed on the table and did it again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ozzy Osbourne during The Bloomberg after-party immediately following The White House Correspondents Dinner at Trade Ministry of the Russian Federation in Washington, DC, United States<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Black Sabbath lead singer and MTV star British Ozzy Osbourne (C) parties at the 2002 annual White House Correspondents Dinner, 04 May 2002, in Washington, DC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From left, married English couple, music manager Sharon Osbourne & Rock musician Ozzie Osbourne (1948 \u2013 2025), and married American couple, lawyer John P Coale & journalist Greta Van Susteren as they arrive, for the White House Correspondent\u2019s Dinner, at the Washington Hilton Hotel<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(L-R) Greta Van Sustren watches as Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne kiss at the White House Correspondents dinner May 4, 2002 in Washington<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Footage of the night picks up Bush\u2019s response: \u2018OK Ozzy.\u2019 And then the president muttered: \u2018This might have been a mistake.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the boozed-up star collapsed back into his seat, the president began to pay tribute. \u2018The thing about Ozzy is, he\u2019s made a lot of big hit recordings \u2013 Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Face In Hell, Black Skies and Bloodbath In Paradise,\u2019 Bush said. And then came the punchline: \u2018Ozzy, Mom loves your stuff.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The room erupted. The night was saved. Ozzy, who nearly got himself thrown out by security moments earlier, emerged the hero of the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few months later, he was one of the opening acts at the Queen\u2019s Golden Jubilee celebrations. That was the night Brian May played a solo on the roof of Buckingham Palace. Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys were headliners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the biggest surprise of the night was hearing Black Sabbath\u2019s Paranoid booming down the Mall, and a bellow like an injured bullock: \u2018Finished with my woman cos she couldn\u2019t help me with my mind! People think I\u2019m insane because I am frowning all the time!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was Ozzy. He was the wildest man of rock, a working-class Brummie boozehound and ex-jailbird, whose speech was so slurred and foul-mouthed that half of what he said on TV got bleeped out and the rest needed subtitles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And he remained a showman to the very end, performing his final gig less than three weeks ago from a black throne carved with giant bats\u2019 wings to a delirious audience of hard-rock faithful at his beloved Villa Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born in Aston, Birmingham, he was one of six children in a house with no inside toilet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ozzy Osbourne at his Black Sabbath farewell gig at Villa Park stadium in July 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ozzy Osbourne, who has died aged 76, had a career that was defined by his antics both on and off-stage. Pictured: The star leaving hospital (left) on June 16, 2022, after a major back operation; Osbourne performing with Black Sabbath in 1978<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Osbourne at the Moscow Music Peace Festival in 1989 at Luzhniki Stadium<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At school, unable to read (he was later diagnosed with severe dyslexia), he was regularly beaten by teachers with shoes or lengths of wood. He responded by causing mayhem: in a metalwork class, he once heated a copper penny with a blowtorch and placed it with tongs on the teacher\u2019s desk, waiting to see him pick it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 15, he left with no qualifications, only to be sacked from a series of dead-end jobs for stealing, skiving or doing drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only one he enjoyed was working a dawn shift in an abattoir, because that meant he could get to the pub in time for lunchtime opening. Always a practical joker, he liked to fill his pockets with cows\u2019 eyeballs and drop them into people\u2019s pints. An afternoon\u2019s drinking was followed by a night in a club, dancing to soul music till 5am, and then \u2013 fuelled by amphetamines \u2013 heading back to the slaughterhouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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