Tag: concerts

My Dedication to Ozzy Osbourne

Today is a sad day for the metal world and for me as a metal fan. I was hit with four messages on Facebook “Ozzy died.” It wasn’t surprising. What’s surprising is that he lived this long, but still it’s left a hole. There are three bands/musicians that turned me onto metal and those are Metallica, Pantera, and Ozzy Osbourne. Their music and Ozzy himself made me feel less like a misfit. I felt that I belonged somewhere.

My first concert ever was Ozzfest 2002. I begged and begged my mom to let me go with friend, my girlfriend at the time, and my girlfriend’s dad. We finally compromised when she said, “You can go, but you have to go to church first.”

Southern Baptist upbringing, remember?

I was blown away. All the bands, the entire metal community. I felt welcome. I felt like I had a place in the world. I felt at home. I got in the mosh pit without even thinking about it. I just felt the urge to truly experience my first ever concert by doing everything concerts have to offer … except the booze and the drugs because I was still a 15-year-old Southern Baptist boy.

When Ozzy finally took the stage that night, I was in awe. One of my metal heroes, the godfather of heavy metal. We connected that night. I didn’t want the night to end. Nothing else mattered in that moment. I felt like I was at peace with all the other people there. I had found my place in the world. As someone who was always “the weird kid” in school I felt like I finally belonged. No one was judging me. No one was making fun of me. We were all outcasts and misfits, but we were outcasts and misfits together and Ozzy had brought us together. I felt a community.

I’m sad that I never got to see Black Sabbath live, but I can say that I at least got to see Ozzy live which is sad for future metalheads because they don’t know what it’ll be like to not have the godfather of metal to be there for them when they feel the world is against them, but they’ll find their own place with another band at some point in time. I’m just happy I got to experience the original and nothing can take that away from me.

Rest in power, Ozzy. You’ll be missed.

36 Chambers and a Molotov Cocktail

I’ve been to a lot of rock and metal shows. I’ve seen every one from Elton John to the Eagles, to Primus, to Tool, to Metallica, to Pantera, to Breaking Benjamin, to Alice In Chains, to Korn, to Ozzy. Never got to see Black Sabbath though and that still bums me out.

Tonight though I witnessed my first rap/hip-hop concert. The audience felt less like an audience and more like a movement. It wasn’t just a concert, it was a rite of passage — my first rap show — and I didn’t ease into it. I dove headfirst into the deep end with Wu-Tang Clan and Run the Jewels: two of the most politically charged, lyrically lethal acts in hip-hop, sharing one stage. I went in a fan and I came out changed.

Run the Jewels opened with a set that hit like a riot in real time. Killer Mike’s voice boomed like a preacher with nothing left to lose, and El-P brought the anarchic genius that turns every line into a Molotov. They didn’t warm the crowd up — the lit the fuse. Songs like “Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck)” didn’t just make people jump, they made people feel. Rage, solidarity, defiance. Their set felt like a call to arms disguised as a beat drop.

And then came Wu-Tang. The entire clan minus ODB took the stage like gods descending from Olympus, if Olympus was built from turntables and graffiti. Although ODB wasn’t there, his spirit was in the form of his son, Young Dirty Bastard, who tore through “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” with his dad’s chaotic energy and then some. The crowd went berserk.

They performed the hits: “C.R.E.A.M.,” Protect Ya Neck,” “Triumph,” but it was more than nostalgia. These songs still hit, still reflect the system’s cracks, still speak for the voiceless. You don’t watch Wu-Tang, you join Wu-Tang, even if just for a night. Every shout of, “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nothin to Fuck Wit!” felt like a rejection of everything fake, shallow, and manufactured in the world we’re stuck in.

This wasn’t just music. It was a resistance. It was survival. It was Black art as both celebration and protest, and I felt lucky just to be in the room.

And now? I’m wired. I’m sore, but wired. I want to do something with the fire they handed me. Whether it’s writing, organizing, protesting, or just refusing to shut up … something.

Music can do that. The right music, anyway. Not the algorithm-filled garbage designed to numb us, but the raw stuff that tells the truth, names the enemy, and makes you want to burn something down.

Tonight reminded me: art matters. Culture matters. Resistance has rhythm. And sometimes the most radical thing you can do is turn the volume up until the walls start shaking.

Wu-Tang is for the children. RTJ is for the revolution. And I’m just getting started.