Ozzy Osbourne, the world-renowned heavy music and cultural icon who died Tuesday a couple of weeks following his closing stay efficiency, led myriad lives: The lovable if bumbling patriarch of hit actuality present The Osbournes; metallic progenitor as Black Sabbath’s frontman; and a Rock & Roll Corridor of Famer who launched 13 solo albums to multi-platinum success with radio staples like “Crazy Train,” “No More Tears” and “Changes.”
However certainly one of his most lasting legacies got here because of Ozzfest, the annual multi-band touring juggernaut spearheaded by supervisor/spouse Sharon Osbourne. It started in 1996 and ran till 2018, with top-tier bands together with Slayer, Software, Motorhead and System of a Down typically returning for a number of years.
And now we have the Perry Farrell-founded Lollapalooza Competition to thank for Ozzfest.
“In 1996 I said to my agents for Ozzy, ’Ozzy should be on Lollapalooza.’ They went and asked, and the response was, ‘Ozzy’s not relevant,’” Sharon Osbourne advised author Richard Bienstock in Billboard.
”Sharon received pissed off about that. … ‘You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna do the Ozzfest.’ I assumed she’d f—king gone nuts,” Ozzy advised Bienstock, co-author of “Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival.”
Sharon, a powerhouse who discovered music enterprise techniques from father Don Arden, a heavyweight and feared music supervisor and agent, was on fireplace, livid on the disrespect leveled at her husband.
The primary Ozzfest was a mere two dates — one in Arizona, one in California — however like subsequent touring Ozzfest’s, it featured the crème de la crème of metallic, each chart-toppers and newcomers divided between two levels. Ozzy headlined the primary fest and Black Sabbath the second, together with Marilyn Manson, Pantera, Sort O Adverse, Worry Manufacturing unit and Machine Head.
Ozzy Osbourne and Sharon Osbourne arrive on the Spike TV “Guy’s Choice” at Sony Photos Studios on June 5, 2010 in Culver Metropolis, Calif.
(Jordan Strauss / Invision / AP)
In a Halloween 2023 episode of the Osbournes Podcast, Ozzy requested Sharon about bringing again the tour, which led to 2018 with a single present in Los Angeles. Previous to that, in 2016, for 2 years, it had turn out to be Ozzfest Meets Knotfest when the second fest, created by Slipknot supervisor Cory Brennan in 2012, teamed up with Ozzfest.
On the podcast episode, Ozzy requested Sharon: “Not just one [at] the f—ing [Kia] Forum, but a whole Ozzfest?”
His spouse replied within the affirmative however gave context to the Ozzfest dynamic that in the end halted the competition. “It was a very weird beast, because all the bands were our mates, but the managers were greedy, and for some reason, they thought that we were making billions on it, and we weren’t,” Sharon stated. “We made a profit, but it was not like we could retire on it. Managers and agents wanted more and more and more, and it just wasn’t cost-effective anymore.”
With Ozzy’s declining well being and the voluminous work and hoopla main as much as the “Back to the Beginning” present on July 5, 2025, dialogue about future Ozzfests or Ozzfest Meets Knotfest have been quiet.
However with more and more few high-profile shops for brand spanking new heavy music, Sharon’s aim of “breaking new bands” by way of Ozzfest’s second stage could be welcome. She’s nonetheless serving to careers; by placing British singer Yungblud on the “Back to the Beginning” present singing Ozzy’s “Changes,” the younger singer reached a large worldwide viewers — particularly in America, the place he has but to interrupt by means of in a notable method.
Twenty-five years in the past, Disturbed have been a younger Chicago lineup when provided a spot on the celebrated touring fest in 2000. “They gave us this platform to really help catapult our career,” Disturbed guitarist Dan Donegan stated in 2024. “It seemed like every time we would play these major markets on Ozzfest, we would [then] see SoundScan numbers and big spikes in album sales, so that told us that we were at least connecting live, because people were running out to buy the album, and it was a significant amount of albums being sold at that time.”
“The album came out in March of 2000 and by the end of the summer, we finished Ozzfest, and the album had gone Gold,” Donegan recollects. “We sold over 500,000 records in that short period of time. A lot of credit goes to the exposure that we got on Ozzfest, because we were playing amphitheaters five days a week, and it was the size [of] crowds we needed to be in front of.”
DevilDriver performs at Ozzfest 2016 at San Manuel Amphitheater on Sept. 24, 2016 in San Bernardino, Calif.
(Amy Harris / Invision / Related Press)
Sharon has a deserved popularity as a savvy and fierce businesswoman, however practically each band who performed Ozzfest has nothing however reward for his or her tenure on the competition. As Donegan recollects, “Sharon and Ozzy and the whole family were just very accommodating to us. She’s one of the toughest women in the business. She won’t take s— from anyone, and she makes that very clear, and, to us, as a band, she was very loving and motherly and accepting. It was amazing.”
Tom Beaujour, who labored with Sharon and Ozzfest throughout his tenure as editor of metallic journal Revolver, recollects, “She was always incredibly straightforward and fair to deal with. You didn’t get the run-around. When she said that something would be done, it got done.”
Bands and businesspeople alike revered Mrs. O’s standing. “You also knew never to mess with Sharon,” continues Beaujour, who can also be co-author of “Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival.” “And you didn’t tell Sharon you were going to do something and not do it, because you would get blacklisted. You just knew not to mess with Sharon, ever. I always thought that that was a great thing, because it’s really nice to actually know where you stand with people. And know that if you get out of line, the hammer is going to drop.”
Sharon illustrated that time on the Osbournes Podcast, recounting the story of an early Ozzfest when one band refused to go on stage till she agreed to offer them an extra $10,000. Exhibiting the mettle that took her personal and Ozzy’s profession to nice heights, Sharon recollects, “They were holding everything up. And I said, ‘Of course, of course, I’ll give it to you!” They went on, performed and [afterwards] I went, ‘F— you. You signed a contract. Your agent agreed to it, and now you’re simply gouging.’”
Her dedication to nurturing expertise prolonged to a label she began, Divine Recordings, which in 2000 signed a promising (very) younger band, Pure Garbage. As singer Derek Dunivan recalled, “My first show ever singing lead was a showcase for Sharon Osbourne in Houston. She called Ozzy on the phone, and thinking about that tripped us out! We went to Ozzfest that week, and they eventually decided to sign us a month or so later. All the majors were after us at the time.” Pure Garbage performed the second stage on the U.Ok. run of Ozzfest in 2001.
Ozzy Osbourne, left, joins his spouse Sharon onstage through the Ozzfest Meets Knotfest information convention on the Hollywood Palladium on Thursday, Might 12, 2016, in Los Angeles. The multi-stage tenting competition was introduced on the information convention.
(Chris Pizzello / Invision / Related Press)
Dez Fafara of Coal Chamber advised author Bienstock in Billboard that “Sharon knew it was a smart idea to put on a heavy metal, that’s-all-that-we’re-playing-today festival. And that if she made sure that that genre had its comeuppance and had its day in court, everybody would come. And surely everybody did.”
The band Kittie, who launched their debut album “Spit” in 2000, turned the primary feminine band booked within the tour’s historical past with their time on Ozzfest the identical yr. Drummer Mercedes Lander says, “I can’t believe the impact that we had,” with singer Morgan Lander concurring, “It’s really difficult to admit to myself that yes, what we did really mattered. But people are coming out and saying, ‘When I was in high school, you changed my life.’ ‘You influenced me as an artist.’ And a lot of them are women.”
Drawing a parallel to the early days of Lollapalooza, Beaujour notes that each fests drew “curious kids who were looking for a subculture and operating outside of what was maybe on the radio. I think for all of its existence, in a weird way, Ozzfest had that. The bands on there were huge, but metal has always been a subculture and somewhat reviled and outside of what the mainstream press covers. I think that Ozzfest always catered to a subculture, and to a kid who feels a little bit like an outsider doesn’t fit in. In a way,” Beaujour stated, “Ozzfest had a much more lasting relationship the outer reaches of popular culture than Lollapalooza, which very quickly had incredibly popular bands on it.”
From the Datsuns to the Dwarves to Dimmu Borgir, many underground bands have been represented on Ozzfest, whereas cool collabs abounded amongst greater names: Late Linkin Park vocalist Chester Bennington joined Disturbed in 2001 to carry out a canopy of Pantera’s “Walk,” and relationships amongst various bands developed, resulting in on- and off-stage collaborations … and shenanigans.
A well-organized Ozzfest tour could be a welcome addition to the present competition panorama. Nonetheless, as Beaujour notes, “the first year of Lollapalooza, which was basically started as a Jane’s Addiction farewell tour,” didn’t have Jane’s Dependancy on subsequent Lollapaloozas. “But Sharon always had Ozzy, and people never get tired of Ozzy,” Beaujour says.
With the passing of the Prince of Darkness, and with out his highly effective presence to anchor an Ozzfest, any future configurations of the tour would must be reimagined. Many musicians have been excited and honored to be a part of Ozzfest largely as a result of they have been large followers of Ozzy and Sabbath, their very own music vastly influenced by them. And, as The Occasions famous in a 1997 assessment of Ozzfest, “Since Black Sabbath’s ‘70s heyday, its progeny have upped the ante considerably when it comes to rock’s shock value. But in the end Black Sabbath still packed the most potent musical charge.”
