Doppler, A Roadies View

Maiden upsets the Queen of Darkness

I have not toured with a metal band in some years; well the band COLD is sort of classified in that. I mean they tour with “metal” bands.

Anyway, a couple days ago during the Ozzfest tour there was an incident you may or may not have heard about. Each year this festival tour spends several months on the road with a dozen bands or more. Ozzy or Black Sabbath is the headliner and they have two stages. This year Iron Maiden was in the spot right before Sabbath. The tour still has several shows left on the tour. However the other night in Devore, California was last show of the tour for Maiden. They already had commitments in Europe before Ozzfest was booked. There is nothing unusual here.

What gets interesting is that at this final performance, some folks decided to throw eggs, lighters and bottle caps at Maiden during their performance. The sound system was also shut down as much as six times during the set. It’s been reported that this was orchestrated by Sharon Osborne (Ozzy’s wife/manager) herself and carried out by crew members and friends of hers. She was supposedly upset that Maiden lead singer Bruce Dickenson had made some remarks on stage during the tour about things he was not happy with. Some of these being corporate selling out and references to the Osborne’s TV show.

Bruce has always been a very up front and doesn’t sugar coat things. The man speaks his mind.

I don’t know Sharon and have never worked for any of her acts. I do know that she has a very short temper and a big ego. If you cross her or piss her off she will retaliate. Now what happened her was not the way to handle things. She is suppose to be a professional. She turned this into a school yard spat.

Now I feel that she did the audience wrong. People paid a lot of money to see this show. Money that she and her husband will be profiting from. I guarantee a majority of these people went to this show because of Maiden being on the bill. She may have bit the hand that feeds her and her family.

The tour is in its tenth year and Ozzy has already said he will not be performing on any future Ozzfest tours. In today’s market there are not a lot of metal bands that can headline an event like this and hope to draw crowds of 15-20,000. Maiden, Judas Priest (who were on the tour in 2004) are only a handful that can.

Don’t count on this tour continuing next year especially with this bad press. The metal community is very close knit and they don’t forget easily.

posted by Doppler at 12:03 PM