Written By Braddon S. Williams
On this date in history, 9/23/2018, Ozzy Osbourne brought his No More Tours 2 show to Deer Creek in Noblesville, IN. Reunited with the formidable Viking/Biker/Shredder Zakk Wylde on guitar (and wearing a kilt), Ozzy came out with a vengeance like a man on a mission.
I noticed right away that the instruments were tuned super low to facilitate Ozzy’s diminished vocal range. This had a two-fold effect; making the music crushingly heavy and foreboding (think Black Sabbath) and managed to keep Ozzy more or less on pitch and able to sing quite strongly for the entire set.
The opening song was the explosive Bark At The Moon, and other highlights included Shot In The Dark, No More Tears, Mama I’m Coming Home, I Don’t Know, and a handful of Sabbath classics (Fairies Wear Boots, Paranoid, and a ballistic 15 minute War Pigs, featuring a long guitar solo where Wylde walked out into the crowd and shredded various audience members’ faces off).
The rhythm section consisted of 2 former Rob Zombie band members, Blasko on bass, and Tommy Clufetos on drums. Clufetos was the touring drummer for Black Sabbath on their final couple of tours, so his style was perfection on the songs by the venerable British godfathers of metal.
Osbourne’s energy was pretty outstanding for a man pushing 70 years old (and surviving all the hard living he has endured).
He wasted no time in letting the capacity crowd in on the news that the “No More Tours 2” title was indeed, bullshit!
We roared our approval as Ozzy added that he intends to continue his career in a more stripped down form of performing shows.
What it amounted to was that he won’t be doing any more long world tours. A staple of every Ozzy show I have ever seen (13 and counting) was a superior light show, and this one was no exception.
Corey Taylor’s “other” band, Stone Sour, opened the show with a solid, energetic, and rocking set.
Taylor was suffering from allergies, and appeared to be losing his speaking voice, but his singing was roaring and soaring, prime Corey Taylor.
They were much improved over the previous time I had seen them a year earlier, but I will likely prefer Slipknot over Stone Sour forever.
All in all, Ozzy exceeded all my expectations, and delivered a fantastic concert experience.
VinylLair.com 
Leave a Reply