Ozzy Osbourne - Heavy Metal Holocaust (live Port Vale UK 1981)

It was a sweltering hot day in 1981 when North Staffordshire hosted its equivalent of the Castle Donnington Monsters of Rock Festival. Although heavy rock and metal had existed since the beginning of the 1970s it had now become almost fashionable. The charts were regularly peppered with Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Saxon (whose lead singer Biff Bifford had been born in Hanley) and Motorhead (with Burslem-born Lemmy).

But the ‘Heavy Metal Holocaust’ festival, held at Vale Park on August 1st, almost did not take place. After the council granted permission for the event some local residents took out an injunction to have the show stopped. It was only with the intervention of the promoters by providing a free day-trip to Blackpool (on the same day as the event) for those residents concerned that the injunction was dropped.

Originally Ozzy was not billed to appear at the event. The festival was to be co-headlined by Black Sabbath and Motorhead. However, less than a month before the event Sabbath cancelled due to ‘recording commitments’, provoking the promoter to announce that their next UK appearance would be in court! Ozzy stepped in to fill the gap left by his former band which must have brought a few wry smiles to those Sabbath fans who now had an opportunity to see the singer who the band had sacked a couple of years earlier.

Lemmy introduced Ozzy as “a good friend of mine who tells a good joke and sings a good song.” After a set composed of songs from his first two solo albums Ozzy asked the audience “I understand that Black Sabbath promised to make this gig but then ****** you people over by not turning up, is that true? Well I’m going to give you my part of Black Sabbath” before introducing “a little sentimental song I wrote many years ago called ‘Iron Man.’” His set ended with the Sabbath classic ‘Children of The Grave’ before returning for an encore of his trademark ‘Paranoid.’