2006 POP ARTIST OF THE YEAR – SHAKIRA

OzzFest is our decision for tour festival of the year, and beats out several worthy choices from Warped to the reincarnated Family Values.

***WARNING: PLEASE EDIT PROFANITY OUT FROM THE OZZY OSBOURNE BITE***rn
rn
rnOur choice for touring festival of 2006 is OzzFest, in large part due to the tour founder Ozzy Osbourne’s willingness to get down and dirty on the second stage. This year’s tour also featured the last performances by System Of A Down, and sets by Disturbed, Hatebreed, Atreyu, Avenged Sevenfold, Lacuna Coil and Dragonforce. The second stage also featured Black Label Society, Atreyu, Unearth, All That Remains and others.

Osbourne talked about his decision to play the second stage.

“Sharon suggested, ‘Would you like to do the second stage? I thought about it, and, ‘Yeah, I’ll do a few shows on the second stage,’ and then I was having so much fun being so close to the audience I asked if there was any chance of doing the rest of the tour on the second stage. Because by the time I was going on on the mainstage, the last band on, all the kids had been there since nine o’clock in the morning, and I’d say to Sharon, ‘I don’t think they like me anymore.’ She goes, ‘Work the math out. From nine until f**king nine at night it’s a long day to be drinking Budweiser. I’m one of these artists that likes to be hands on with the audience, and I like to see my audience. It’s just been a blast.”

Osbourne seemed reinvigorated by playing the second stage and Disturbed’s David Draiman and Dan Donnegan talked about seeing their tour mate on the smaller stage.

[Draiman] “Several times, and he seems like a kid. There’s new invigoration and new strength. He seems to have a great time up there when he’s playing the second stage.” [Donnegan] “He’s changed a few dates on the tour that he was supposed to do mainstage and last minute decided to do the second stage just because he was enjoying it so much over there.”

Norma Jean, one of the second stage bands, talked about the plus and minuses about Ozzy playing the second stage.

“It’s cool, I mean to me it would make more sense if he was on the mainstage because just from my experience of seeing fans a lot of them get bummed because they can’t see him as good and there’s not as much room. On one hand there’s that, but on the other hand it’s cool that he’s bringing a ton of people over to the side stage that would maybe just hang out at the mainstage and not care to see any sidestage bands. So, in one it’s like, ‘Well he’s bringing over a lot of new fans and introducing them to these second stage bands. It’s pretty cool. To me it’s good. He’s so stoked in between every song he’s stoked, so it’s pretty cool.”

2006 also marked the ten year anniversary of the festival. The first one, in 1996, featured Ozzy, Slayer, Danzig, Sepultura, Fear Factory, and Powerman 5000. Ozzy has reduced his role in the festival and will probably continue to do so in 2007. Meanwhile, he’s in wrapping up production on his next studio album, which should be out sometime in 2007.