I’ve been keen on going to more concerts now, because despite the fact that I live close to New York City, I never made it to many. Vinayak, Capen, his brother, and I all went to Ozzfest yesterday. Vinayak and I took the commuter rail over to Mansfield where, after getting lost for a little while, we met up with Capen and his brother, Aiden. The Tweeter Center in “Boston” (aka 37 miles out of Boston, but whatever) was even larger than I expected. The vendors on the sides of the seating seemed a lot like those you would find at an amusement park or equivalent. The prices were around the same there, too. It was 7 bucks for fried dough. What the heck.

We arrived at Ozzfest around 5:10pm, just in time to see Black Tide start performing. The singer seemed really young, so I looked up the band members on the internet, and lo and behold:

Gabriel Garcia (age 14) – Vocals/Guitar
Alex Nunez (age 17) - Guitar
Zachary Sandler (age 18) - Bass
Steven Spence (age 19) - Drums

Google also mentioned that the sponsor of the second stage didn’t even want to let them play because they weren’t old enough to drink alcohol. I liked Black Tide a reasonable amount, although there were not many people there until the last three bands, so it wasn’t as fun as it could have been.

Lordi was very hit or miss. Capen, for example, knew all the lyrics to their songs, but Static X fans didn’t even want to hear the band play at all. They also had a lot of trouble getting the crowd into it. I personally felt underwhelmed by the band, and kinda liked Black Tide a bit better. Static X was pretty solid, and the crowd really started getting into the music after this point. Their songs are a lot of the same though, as is the case with a lot of bands, so I was getting kind of bored towards the end. Lamb of God was really awesome, and although I couldn’t see it, they incited what Capen referred to as a “maelstrom” circle pit on the lawn. Of all the groups, they are probably the most blasphemous, so I really love their choice of a name.

We stayed around for the first two of Ozzy’s songs. While he was setting up, they played a video of Ozzy taking the place of various characters in movies (Jack Sparrow and so forth). This movie alone was probably worth going. He had a throat infection, so he sounded even more croaky than usual. Everyone was so pumped up that they hardly seemed to notice, though. I concede that Bark at the Moon was awesome, but I didn’t mind leaving.

Overall, I’d mark it as a fun experience, even though I didn’t know any of the bands well (if at all) before attending.