Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
The return of “Ozzfest” in 2027 has now been formally announced by Sharon Osbourne, as per theprp. Following her remarks earlier this year in which she mentioned that she had been working with promoter Live Nation to revive the once-annual heavy metal festival, news of its revival has surfaced. In a recent interview with MIDEM in Cannes, France, Sharon affirmed that the festival’s comeback is now official.
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, we’re gonna do it. The last one we did was 2018. It was just a month before Ozzy got sick, and that was at the Forum in L.A. And there was no plans to stop it. We were still gonna do it, but Ozzy couldn’t. And Ozzy and I would talk about it, and he’d say, ‘Do you think Ozzfest would work without me?’ And I’m, like, ‘Yeah, it’s a brand. It will work without you.’ And he said, ‘We should do it.’
Sharon and her late husband, heavy metal legend Ozzy Osbourne, started “Ozzfest” in 1996. After Ozzy was rejected by “Lollapalooza,” the festival was conceived. Numerous heavy acts, such as System of A Down, Slipknot, and others, were introduced by the traveling metal and rock festival in the years that followed.
The Ozzfest tour included bands from various styles within heavy metal and hard rock, such as alternative metal, thrash metal, industrial metal, metalcore, hardcore punk, deathcore, nu metal, death metal, post-hardcore, gothic metal, and black metal. Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath were featured in the tour multiple times throughout the years.
The inaugural Ozzfest was not framed as a nationwide tour; instead, it took the form of a two-day festival occurring in Phoenix, Arizona, and Devore, California, on October 25 and 26, 1996, respectively. A collection titled Ozzfest Live, consisting of ten live recordings made during this festival, was made available on April 29, 1997. In the year 1997, significant demonstrations took place outside the festival advocating for the cancellation of Marilyn Manson’s set. Despite this, all scheduled performances went ahead as planned. Similar protests happened in 2001 after the Columbine High School shooting, with some groups attributing blame to Marilyn Manson.
