Looking at the empty upper deck seats at last night's Ozzy Osbourne show at the Corel Centre, one couldn't help but think about that line Spinal Tap's manager comes up with to explain away the fictional band's diminishing audience.
Tap's audience isn't shrinking, he explains. It's becoming "more selective."
That euphemism may have been meant as a joke, but when it comes to metal's recent reduced fortunes, it rings true.
The charts may be shunning classic hard rock and the crowds may be smaller than they were in the glory days, but that certainly doesn't mean the diehard fans enjoy the music any less. If anything, waning commercial fortunes for the whole metal genre have separated the hard-core fans from the rabble.
Greeted like a messiah
As Osbourne and company chugged into his signature song, Black Sabbath's Paranoid, the 7,000 very hard core fans that did make it out greeted him like a messiah.
"We don't got no f---in' rules! Just go f---in' crazy," His Ozness advised. And by the end of the show, they took him a little too literally, when he promised to bestow a backstage pass on the craziest audience member. That's a bit like the Pope promising a seat in heaven to the first person to storm the Vatican. The resulting surge stageward was predictably nuts and momentarily frightening, as security staff were bowled over by the wave of invading fans. Not Ozzy's smartest move.
On Sabbath's evergreen War Pigs, they squealed as Ozzy fired a watercannon into the front rows. On the power-ballad Goodbye To Romance, the mob obediently took over the singing. It continued this way all night, with Osbourne capably supported by a no-frills four-piece that ably aped the pneumatic riffery of prime Sabbath like Iron Man and Sweet Leaf.
He's an odd presence onstage, gripping the microphone in both hands and hopping up and down on the spot like he's in dire need of the bathroom (did I mention photographers weren't permitted to shoot his performance?). Still, he has no trouble inspiring adoration from the audience.
Strangely, the most entertaining part of the evening came before he arrived onstage. Osbourne was preceded by a hilarious video amalgam of computer enhanced movie samples that allowed the singer to appear to interview Princess Di, frolic in Alanis' Ironic video, shoot it out in Pulp Fiction, jam with the Beatles, dance in Saturday Night Fever and join Elvis Presley onstage.
If you're looking for an underlying message, perhaps Ozzy summed it up best when he sang "I don't want to change the world/I don't want the world to change me." Ozzy isn't planning on changing his game at this point, and for the fans who still turn out to see him, that's apparently reason enough to cheer.
Beefcake singer Glenn Danzig has always had a leg up on the competition because he seems to understand that metal's demonic underpinnings can be more than chiller-thriller campiness.
When Danzig, his eponymous four piece band, takes a walk on the dark side, it's as serious as delta bluesman Robert Johnson's crossroads encounter with Satan. From the moment Danzig and company blasted into a clenched-teeth version of Mother last night, it was clear these imposing fellows take it all very seriously.
Leather-lunged vocals
None of this rock-n-roll-all-night nonsense for Danzig. The message might have been a little easier to swallow if sound problems hadn't reduced Danzig's leather-lunged vocals into an unintelligible mush. Still, Danzig's energy and commitment did muster some enthusiasm from the few thousand that did bother to show up for their set.
If headbanging ever becomes an Olympic sport, count on speed-metal quartet Sepultura to bring home the gold for Brazil.
Mercifully unburdened with the pomp and theatricality that hampers so many metal acts, Sepultura directs every ounce of effort into pumping out a Herculean noise.
The lyrics are almost completely unintelligible, but their performance is made compelling by their sophisticated sense of rhythm.
New York City's Narcotic Gypsy took the stage while most Ozzy fans were apparently still having dinner with mom and dad. The hall was almost completely empty, which didn't stop the group from striking cliched metal-hero poses that would have befitted a headlining act at a sold-out show, but only added to the indignity last night.
REVIEW
WHO: Ozzy Osbourne, Danzig, Sepultura, Narcotic Gypsy
WHERE: Corel Centre, last night
SUN RATING: 3 OUT OF 5
