“There was nobody quite like him,” Zelisko says. “Ozzy just did whatever came into his mind, whether it was throwing buckets of water on people, swearing at ’em to get them going crazy and all that. I mean, he was just as crazy as them. He loved being at shows and loved the bedlam.”
Zelisko was a firsthand witness to Osbourne going off the rails on the crazy train, having booked most of the rocker’s Phoenix and Tucson shows from the early ’80s into the 2000s. Over the years, he saw Ozzy in all his chaotic glory both onstage and off.
Osbourne died on Tuesday at his home in England. He was 76. His death came weeks after his final concert on July 5 with Black Sabbath, where he performed while sitting on a black throne due to his battle with Parkinson’s disease.
Like many in the rock world, Zelisko is mourning Ozzy’s death and remembering his influence and unforgettable presence, both as a performer and a larger-than-life personality and metal god who redefined what it meant to be a rock star.
‘An unmatched showman and cultural icon’
Tributes to Osbourne flooded social media on Tuesday and Wednesday following news of his death, including comments and memories shared by fellow rock and metal icons.In a statement to the media, Valley resident and shock-rock icon Alice Cooper said Osbourne “earned immense respect among his peers and from fans around the world as an unmatched showman and cultural icon” during his 58-year reign in metal.
“I always saw Ozzy as a cross between the prince of darkness, which is the persona his fans saw, and the court jester. That was the side that his family and friends saw,” Cooper stated. “He was and will continue to be a rock ‘n’ roll legend. Rock’ n’ roll is a family and a fraternity. When we lose one of our own it bleeds.”
Cooper also expressed condolences to Ozzy’s wife, Sharon Osbourne, and his children, including Jack and Kelly Osbourne, as did Arizona resident and Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan in a post to social media on Tuesday.
“We lost a Legend. Godspeed, @ozzyosbourne,” Keenan posted. “Thoughts now turn to those left behind.”
The adventures of Ozzy and others
Members of Phoenix’s rock scene—past and present—also took to social media to share memories of Ozzy. Longtime Arizona radio personality Dave Pratt posted a 1982 photo with Osbourne inside the former studios of KUPD in Guadalupe, where the deejay was working at the time.Pratt told Phoenix New Times by email they became fast friends after the encounter.
“He thought it was funny that I was broadcasting from a trailer in a Guadalupe dirt lot. He asked if he could autograph it with spray paint and the friendship began,” Pratt told New Times. “I hosted his show on stage that night at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.”
Pratt also recalls Ozzy taking part in a wild on-air stunt years later.
“One morning, Ozzy arrived for my show with Sharon. He was hungry. So — on the air — I took Ozzy through the Ahwatukee McDonald’s drive-thru,” Pratt told New Times. “He ordered through the speaker, and they couldn’t understand a damn thing he was saying.”
Zelisko has his own memories of Ozzy’s antics, including one incident prior to a Coliseum concert in the early ’80s.
“I had to go pick him up off of a plane and when I got to the gate, he didn’t come off the plane. I asked the woman at the counter and she points out the window and Ozzy’s being taken in a wheelchair with a forklift,” Zelisko says. “Apparently, he’d stayed up and gone crazy the night before. We went back to the Coliseum, got Ozzy ready, and I wheeled him up to the stage. Then the lights went out, the music starts and he gives me this stupid smile, winks and pushes everybody aside and runs through the curtains. It was this elaborate hoax to make me think he couldn’t do a show. It was hilarious.”
