On July 5, 1986, Ozzy Osbourne was in Sacramento, California, during a long tour in support of his latest album The Ultimate Sin. This was a few weeks before he headlined the biggest UK event of the year for heavy metal fans – the Monsters Of Rock festival at Donington Park. As a writer for weekly music paper Sounds, I travelled to Sacramento with photographer Peter Anderson to write a cover story on Ozzy. Things did not go exactly to plan.
The show that Ozzy performed in Sacramento began with a joke. Before his big entrance, a roadie stood centre stage holding up a placard with the letter R on one side and the letter Z on the other. The letters were flashed in sequence and eventually the audience was shouting in unison: “Ar! Zee! Ar! Zee!”
