Gig Review: Ozzy Osbourne at The Roundhouse. July 3rd 2010.

My recent spate of good luck with gigs that began with snagging a pair of tickets for Rage Against The Machine's historic Finsbury Park last month continued with managing to win another pair of this tickets - this time for Day 3 of the itunes Festival, taking place at the Roundhouse in Camden.

Stepping inside the Roundhouse, the main space where the bands play that is rather than the lush and rather nice looking exterior built around it is like stepping into the past.

In the late sixties and early seventies a 'who's who' of bands played there - David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, The Clash and the only UK appearance of The Doors. The venue closed it doors in 1983 until 1996 where it re-opened as an arts venue. Then it closed again in 2004 for the refit and expansion we see today. It is truly dripping with history. But strangely as Ozzy himself later pointed out - neither he or Black Sabbath ever played there!

Promoting his new album 'Scream', Ozzy seemed a weird choice for the generally 'scene' lineup of the rest of the days (which promises the likes of many 'here today, forgotten next month' acts like Foals, Ellie Goulding, Mumford And Sons etc. - the only exception to that rule being Foreigner and Europe) but here he was in all his glory!

First though was a band who had won a competition on Ozzy's MySpace (yes, MySpace still exists) Black Spiders who I have actually seen before, supporting The Wildhearts last year at The Waterfront. And they helped in assisting getting us backstage that night, so I will always have a lot of time for them.

The sound system in The Roundhouse is fantastic, probably the best I have heard in a small venue, and the Spider's sounded great. Hopefully this will lead to bigger gigs for them in the next couple of years.

Next up were The Sword who were a odd lot. Sort of sounding like Clutch with the big riffing but with more fantasy - based lyrics. I really don't think they went down to well. Musically they were tight and the riffs sounded spectacular but the vocalist couldn't be made out at all when singing which was pretty bad considering how good the sound was in the venue.

But all that was kind of superfluous to what was next. The Prince of Darkness himself - Ozzy Osbourne. I last saw Ozzy back in 2005 at Download when he was playing with Black Sabbath. While liking Sabbath, I have always preferred Ozzy's solo material so was busting with excitement. And with fresh new guitarist Gus G with him, the band should be sounding good. Just as long as Ozzy was on form!

Was he ever! Granted he doesn't move around the stage as much as did when I saw him running from one end of the stage to another with Sabbath at Download 2005, but for a guy who has been through what he has it's a miracle he is here at all! Of course that may have been because the stage was a lot smaller. Taking to the stage and kicking straight into 'Bark At The Moon' was a hell of a good start.

After that he played the only new song of the evening 'Let Me Hear You Scream', but after that it was a trawl through the greatest hits of his solo career - mainly focusing on the Blizzard Of Ozz and No More Tears albums (arguably the best albums of his solo career) - and some Sabbath songs thrown in for good measure.

Ozzy seemed to be getting a lot of pleasure chucking buckets of water at everyone (and he got us a good one too, we were soaked through!) which he did throughout the show, and at one point actually threw one of the recently emptied buckets into the crowd for good measure. Security did try and reclaim the bucket but to no avail.

A great thing was that after all these years the voice remains the same, pretty much. No one ever accused Ozzy of being a great singer (a great frontman yes) but his inimitable voice still sounded the same.

At various points during the evening it kept on occurring me as to how damn lucky we were to be seeing a legend (and yes, I know that word is thrown about way too much but in this case it's true) like Ozzy in such an intimate venue. The place wasn't even full. After the ticket winners had been admitted (and given a wristband and lanyard) others were let in to sit in the seating area upstairs - but that wasn't even full.

So if you wanted to see Ozzy Osbourne for free...you totally missed out!

The band, which also included former Rob Zombie bassist Blasko, were on top form too and did a great, extended version of Sabbath instrumental number 'Rat Salad'.

Coming back on stage for an encore, we were teased with each song being the last before Ozzy got a "one more song!" chanted and launched into another. Obviously all set up but great fun nonetheless.

Business finally wrapped up with the obvious 'Paranoid' which ended a great show. One that proved that for now at least Ozzy has still got it. But for how much longer? You to have to question that anytime an artist in their 60's are still performing.

Here is 'Shot In The Dark' from last night...

Ozzy played...

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. Shot In The Dark
9. Rat Salad
10. Iron Man
11. Crazy Train
12. Mama, I'm Coming Home
13. I Don't Want To Change The World
14. War Pigs
15. Paranoid