OZZFEST 2004 – BLACK SABBATH, JUDAS PRIEST, SLAYER

SECOND STAGE

EVERY TIME I DIE: loud, heavy, sceamcore, tons of energy at 9:30am in the morning.

LACUNA COIL: great entrance to the stage, band was 100% solid, Cristina Scabbia was not only beautiful, but simply flawless on vocals. Male vocalist (who cares what his name is) was the only downfall.Tried way to hard to impress, sounded like shit!

BLEDDING THROUGH: kind of muddy sounding at the beginning, everything seem to run together. Once they got their bearing straight, they punished everyone with heavy riff, spine-crushing screams, and hypmotizing keyboard work.

DARKEST HOUR: very heavy, more scream type vocals. Kind of a swedish death metal sound. Just all out brutal.

THROWDOWN: downright amazing hardcore. By far one of the most intense when it can to slow-heavy riffs. Just made you want to punch the person in the face standing right beside you.
Throwdown just simply threwdown an awesome set.

MAGNA FI: ok after Throwdown it was time to get some fluids, so you make the call on this band. Was still in la-la land after the last band, all surroundings was one huge blur.

DEVILDRIVER: a lot of headbanger metal going on here. If you had long hair it was time to fling it everywhere. Kind of remind me of a late 80’s early 90’s thrash metal band. Real intense metal happeninng here.

OTEP: once Otep herself stopped her little speeches in between songs, everything sounded really good. Another heavy intense set. Otep pulls you in with her soft moans only to scare your underwear right up the crack of your ass with her screams and barks. Just need’s to stop the speeches.

GOD FORBID: wow is the first thing that pops into my head when descibing their set. Simply amazing guitars from start to finish. Heavy riffs, lots of moshing and crowd surfing. Though i was rather new to this band, i will definatly be adding their disc to my collection.

UNEARTH: another heavy band another great show. A surprise for this set was the appearance of Randall Blythe of Lamb of God going vocal during the first song. Crowd simply went nuts. I watch the drummer a lot during their set because he just plain beat the hell out of the kit. If your not a Unearth fan, you have to see them live. It changed my brother tune after seing them in person.

LAMB OF GOD: the home town band just destroyed everything in its path. Huge pits from beginning to end. I’m sure L.o.g. was smiling after walking off the stage because the crowd was definalty there to see them.
I had a crowd surfing female fall on me, knocking me to the ground, i survived the wall of death and protected a man in a wheel chair in the process. The only thing that sucked was the dust in my mouth from all the chaos.

HATEBREED: this would be my 4th time seeing Hatebreed and they never seem to disapoint. No cutting corners, just straight in your face hardcore from beginning to end. In my mind they deserve headlining status on the 2nd stage before the main stage starts. They fed off the crowd and the crowd fed from them, which is what its all about.

SLIPKNOT: though my friends and i were going to get some food when slipknot came on, for some reason we waited until their last song to leave. I think we were looking for them to do something special being the headliners, only to say to each other “what a waste of time”
I’m not sure what it was but they didn’t amaze me with their set.

MAIN STAGE

BLACK LABEL SOCIETY: having seen Zakk Wilde many times either with his solo project or with the Ozzman himself, I knew I would not be disapointed. Zakk is by far one of the top guitarist out there. He again was simply amazing. Loud and heavy and a very clear sound.

SUPERJOINT RITUAL: s.j. had to be the biggest letdown of the day.
Though the music was good, Mr. Phil tried everything to win the crowd over, with little speeches and “thank you all, you’re fuckin bad-ass” over and over again. It simply drove me nuts. The highlight was during the 2nd song he jumped up and lost his footing, sending him falling backward against the drum riser. The only thing is it didn’t shut him up. Without the shit in between songs, they easily could have done 7, but only managed 5.

DIMMU BORGIR: probably the one band that needed the sunset to get their message across. White corpse paint, spiked boots and eerie keyboards did what it could to the masses who wondered what the hell was going on. I noticed a lot of blank stare towards the stage during their set. In my mind they we’re the black sheep of Ozzfest. Sounded great, and got a good reaction. Definalty should be seen in the darkness when the lighting is used. Huge difference than at 6:00 pm

SLAYER: all around great showing from the Angels of death.
Punishing, brutal and full speed ahead set. A little muffled soundwise, but other than that, it was great to see them at Ozzfest again. Only disapointment was they didn’t the song “Angel of death”

JUDAS PRIEST: just couldn’t wait to see them reunited together again. Holy shit was it worth it! Downright amazing from start to finish. Rob Halford was flawless. It was like he never left. Great intro’s to the song’s. Great job at working the crowd. Just one amazing surprise after another. I took a walk before they came on and could not believe the people leaving; they have no clue what they missed. Sorry about their luck!

BLACK SABBATH: at last years Ozzfest I left half way though Ozzy’s set cause he sounded bad. (really bad) i wondered all day if he would let me down again and guess what? That didn’t happen! He was great! I have seen Black Sabbath 3 times before this and this by far has the best they ever sounded. They were so powerful that it gave me chills during every song. The song Black Sabbath was fucking awesome. There is no other way to put. What a way to end a great day of metal music than listening to War Pigs, Children of the Grave, Into the Void, by the masters of doom metal.

Ozzfest 2004 was by far the best ever handsdown. If anyone walked away unhappy that is their own fault. I am looking forward to seeing who is on next years line-up.