WINNIPEG -- Ozzy Osbourne once sang you can't kill rock and roll.

Well, as long as Ozzy is performing, the art of a good rock and roll show sure won't die.

The Ozzy that showed up at the Winnipeg Arena last night acted more like a little kid than someone who recorded his first album before many of the crowd of about 9,000 were even born. The patriarch of heavy metal was full of energy, jumping up and down in place like a frog, clapping his hands and banging his head.

He even mooned the crowd before launching into the Black Sabbath classic War Pigs, the second song of the night.

Dressed all in black with two red crosses on his shirt, Ozzy and his crack band delivered a brilliant rock show, which served as a career retrospective for the 53-year-old.

Opening the show with I Don't Know from his first solo album Blizzard of Ozz, the audience was instantly under the spell of the masterful entertainer.

Ozzy has been around long enough to know how to pace a concert. Older songs like Believe and Mr. Crowley made early appearances in the set, alongside new songs like That I Never Had and Gets Me Through.

"We're going to have some good fun tonight," he promised during one of his sometimes unintelligible between-song chats.

The fun started before the band hit the stage, with a video montage of Ozzy inserted into music videos by artists such as Jennifer Lopez, Afroman and Madonna, while playing the psychic Miss Cleo.

While Ozzy was the focus of the crowd's admiration, his band -- guitar wiz Zakk Wylde, former Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin and Suicidal Tendencies bassist Robert Trujillo -- were given plenty of chances to show off during songs like Suicide Solution, No More Tears and Crazy Train.

There wasn't any stage show to speak of other than some images projected onto a curtain behind the band, but just watching Ozzy shuffle back and forth across the stage with his arms in the air (when he wasn't standing in front of a teleprompter to read the lyrics) was all the crowd needed.

Opening acts The Tea Party and Project Wyze offered up two sets of vastly different music.

The Tea Party delivered a set of their heavier, harder edged tunes, such as Sister Awake and Temptation.

Toronto act Project Wyze delivered a short solid set of heard-it-all-before rap metal, highlighted by the spastic dancing of lead vocalists Yas and Bobby. (More on: Ozzy Osbourne).

JAM@ Rating: 4 out of 5