lollapalooza 1995 poster<\/span><\/p> Osbourne reflected on the festival’s reaction in his\u00a02010 memoir,\u00a0I Am Ozzy<\/em>. “She called the organizers of Lollapalooza. And they told her to fuck off,” he wrote. “‘Ozzy Osbourne? He’s a fucking dinosaur,’ they said, in not so many words.”<\/p>\n After the initial sting of rejection wore off, Sharon decided she and Ozzy would simply beat the Lollapalooza organizers at their own game. “I just thought, ‘Fuck them,'” she said at the time (via\u00a0Metal Hammer<\/a><\/em>).\u00a0“If Lollapalooza wasn’t able to see what Ozzy could give them, then we’d come up with our own metal version, only better.”<\/p>\n READ MORE: The Osbournes Name the ‘Naughtiest’ Bands at Ozzfest<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The inaugural Ozzfest\u00a0took place in 1996, with just two dates \u2014 Oct. 25 in Phoenix and Oct. 26 in Los Angeles \u2014 tacked onto Osbourne’s Retirement Sucks Tour. The lineup was spread across two stages and featured\u00a0Osbourne, Slayer<\/a>, Danzig<\/a>, Biohazard<\/a>, Sepultura<\/a>, Fear Factory<\/a>, Neurosis<\/a>, Narcotic Gypsy<\/a>, Earth Crisis<\/a>, Powerman 5000<\/a>, Coal Chamber<\/a>, Cellophane<\/a> and King Norris<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ozzfest\u00a0was a success right off the bat, drawing thousands of fans to both dates. And even\u00a0in its primitive state, the event\u00a0served as an act of rebellion against the music industry and provided a haven for metal bands that would have otherwise been ignored.<\/p>\n “Our strategy was to take all the undesirables, all the bands that couldn’t find an outlet anywhere else, and put them together, give them an audience,” Osbourne wrote in I Am Ozzy<\/em>.<\/p>\n “It worked better than we ever could have expected, ‘cos nothing existed for those bands at the time,” he continued. “It had got to the point in the music business where if you wanted to play a gig, the venues made you buy all the tickets in advance, so you had to give them away for free or sell them on your own, which is bullshit. Black Sabbath never had to deal with that kind of bollocks in the early days. We’d never have left Aston, if that had been the case. Where would we have found the dough?”<\/p>\n READ MORE:<\/strong>\u00a0Whatever Happened to the Acts From Ozzfest’s Inaugural Lineup?<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n After\u00a0its successful first year, Ozzfest expanded into a full-fledged nationwide festival in 1997, headlined by a reunited Black Sabbath (minus drummer Bill Ward<\/a>), shock-metal iconoclast Marilyn Manson<\/a> and\u00a0extreme groove-metallers\u00a0Pantera<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ozzfest’s early success didn’t just prove that Osbourne was still commercially and culturally relevant more than 25 years after his career began. (After all, he was still riding high off the success of 1995’s\u00a0double-platinum\u00a0Ozzmosis<\/a><\/em>.)\u00a0It\u00a0also turned him into an elder statesman who could shepherd young metal bands and give them a massive platform to grow their audience.<\/p>\n “That was such a huge breakthrough for us,” Coal Chamber vocalist Dez Fafara<\/a>\u00a0said of the inaugural Ozzfest\u00a0(via\u00a0Metal Hammer<\/em>). “You don’t get many chances to be make history. So we were privileged to be part of the very first Ozzfest.”<\/p>\n Perhaps most importantly,\u00a0from its humble beginnings to its thunderous close in 2018, Ozzfest stuck to its guns as a metal-exclusive festival. “We liked the idea of staying true to metal,” promoter liaison Jane Holman told Billboard<\/a><\/em>. “At that time Lollapalooza was kind of all over the board as far as genres go. But we said, ‘We are metal.’ We stuck to that theme and the lifestyle around it.”<\/p>\n In other words: Thanks to Perry Farrell for Ozzfest!<\/p>\n Ozzfest had some amazing lineups, but only one can be the best.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Gallery Credit: Bryan Rolli<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe Insult<\/h3>\n
Ozzfest’s Humble (but Successful) Beginnings<\/h3>\n
As Ozzfest Expands,\u00a0Ozzy’s Impact Grows<\/h3>\n
Every Ozzfest Lineup, Ranked<\/h2>\n