Slash & Ozzy Osbourne @ Gibson Amphitheatre

My night started off backstage amongst quite an eclectic crowd that would prove, oddly, to be much more mature and well-behaved than what inhabited the rest of the Gibson that night. You know it's off to a good start when the paramedics rush backstage before the show has even begun...only to find out later it's because of this.

I didn't go in with high expectations for the Slash & Myles Kennedy performance... I'm one of those rare individuals that isn't infatuated with the concept of Slash, but I found that I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, mainly due to the charisma and energy of Myles Kennedy. My only real problem with the set was when they started playing the Guns & Roses and Velvet Revolver songs - Myles sings Myles great, Myles does poor imitations of Axl & Weiland. He was just trying to hard to sound just like them and I would have rather had him sing just like Myles - that sounded great on it's own.

Ok, the following statements may be polarizing but this is just my opinion...and I'm entitled to it, dammit.

Ozzy was disappointing. I expected it to be bad, but it was honestly just sad to watch. Ozzy really does give 110% out there on stage, but he just seems like he's struggling to do so. He is really fun to watch still, he's having a blast out there, but it's like watching your Grandpa get out and try to do what he used to do 30 years ago. The band sounded insanely good - Ozzy has got a talented group of musicians supporting him and that definitely helps. I oddly found that the further I got away from the stage the better it sounded; apparently he has a really good sound mixer as well. ;)

I know people have given Robert Plant a lot of shit about not jumping on board for a Led Zeppelin reunion, but he claims that he just isn't the same person he was back then and he doesn't want to pretend to be. I always respected him for saying that (even though I would be at that reunion show in a heartbeat...) and this show made that concept even clearer. Just because you can, doesn't always mean you should.

Photos:



Video of Slash & Myles Kennedy performing "Nightrain":



Video of Ozzy performing "Iron Man":



Video of Ozzy performing "Suicide Solution":



Setlist:

"Bark At The Moon"

"Let Me Hear You Scream"

"Mr. Crowley"

"I Don't Know"

"Fairies Wear Boots"

"Suicide Solution"

"Road To Nowhere"

"War Pigs"

"Fire In The Sky"

"Into The Void"

"Shot In the Dark"

"Rat Salad"

"Iron Man"

"I Don't Wanna Change The World"

"Crazy Train"

Encore
"Mama, I'm Coming Home"

"Paranoid"