A Mostly Lean,
Mean Ozzfest July 12,
2004 By STEPHEN HAAG, Special to The Courant
After phasing out some
of the nu-metal acts that have graced the Ozzfest stage in
recent years, the 2004 version of the venerable metal fest
that kicked off in Hartford Saturday at the ctnow.com Meadows
Music Theatre was the leanest and meanest in
years.
Whether it was incendiary guitar work of Zakk
Wylde (touring with the Black Label Society) or the guttural
howl of Superjoint Ritual (led by Pantera frontman Phil
Anselmo), the main stage acts, with one exception, were all
committed to delivering punishing, straightforward hard rock
and heavy metal to a sun-baked Meadows crowd. The exception
was Norwegian death metallers Dimmu Borgir, whose overly
theatrical and prog-rocky take on metal didn't fit well with
the rest of the stripped-down bill.
I don't know how
it's done in Norway but here in America, bands don't just
amble off the stage after their sets. They thank the crowd for
coming out to see them. Dimmu Borgir is going to have a long,
hard slog on the Ozzfest tour this summer.
But nothing
could get in the way of the crowd's enthusiasm for the
evening's co-headliners, Judas Priest and Black
Sabbath.
Priest, with original lead singer Rob Halford
back in the fold, were the stars of the evening. During their
75-minute set, they tore through their catalog, from the smoky
"Victim of Changes," to "A Touch of Evil" to the
motorcycle-accompanied "Hellbent for Leather," to the
pop-metal confections "Living After Midnight" and "You've Got
Another Thing Coming." The band's songs have aged remarkably
well, and the band truly helped cast the blueprint for heavy
metal.
Halford himself hasn't aged as well - he flagged
on "You've Got Another Thing Coming," and his vocals were flat
throughout the night, though when he let loose one of his
patented yowls, all was forgiven.
After Priest's strong
set, Black Sabbath was almost an afterthought. Doddering Ozzy
Osbourne's crowd banter has been reduced to "... I can't
[expletive] hear you! I love you!"
Chestnuts such as
"War Pigs," "N.I.B.," "Black Sabbath" and "Paranoid" still
hold sway over a metal-loving crowd (and reminds one of
guitarist Tony Iommi's mastery), and the Ozzman knows how to
entertain - confetti cannons! - but it's nearing time for Ozzy
to hang up the mike.
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