Roth and Ozbourne allegedly snorted enough blow to make Tony Montana say, “Woah, woah, guys, that’s too much cocaine.” Renoff wrote that the two singers “snorted enough cocaine to stop the hearts of a half-dozen men.” The snort-off lasted all through the night and until 9 a.m. The two rock frontmen engaged in a competition to see who could snort the most cocaine without dying. But these are two titans of rock music and first-ballot Hall of Fame partiers so they didn’t just snort some coke. Van Halen opened for Sabbath in Birmingham, Alabama, and after the show, Ozzy and DLR indulged in some cocaine. RELATED: 10 Times Ozzy Osbourne Almost Died But Lived To Tell The Tale Of Being The Prince Of Darkness Last tour with Ozzy Osbourne until Ozzfest 1997. The energetic and flamboyant singer was ready to challenge anyone, even Ozzy Osbourne.īlack Sabbath with Van Halen at Municipal Auditorium, Nashville, TN, Nov. This was Van Halen’s first world tour and they were savoring every minute, especially frontman David Lee Roth. Some say Black Sabbath was in the throes of their drug-induced downfall and the entire band was struggling to keep it together. Van Halen was opening for Black Sabbath in 1978 and by most accounts, David Lee Roth’s band put on a far superior show. In his 2015 book Van Halen Rising: How a Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal, author Greg Renoff details how Roth out-partied Ozzy and damn near almost killed him.
Roth was such a drug enthusiast that he challenged The Prince of Darkness to a snort-off. Black Sabbath fired Ozzy from the band because he was partying too hard with drugs and alcohol.ĭavid Lee Roth was a legendary hard partier in his own right. Ozzy was on his last tour with Black Sabbath and the iconic band would officially drop Osbourne on April 27, 1979. In the midst of Black Sabbath’s Never Say Die tour, Ozzy Osbourne and David Lee Roth hooked up in what would be one of the epic benders of all-time. But the epic concert didn’t happen because the lead singers of the two iconic bands engaged in a one-of-a-kind cocaine duel that almost ended in death. Two of the biggest rock bands on the entire planet collided in mid-November of 1978 when Van Halen opened for Black Sabbath in Nashville.
The hard-partying rockers at the time had rock star DNA that compelled them to engage in risky behaviors because they were expected to do rock star things.
We’re going to do a movie of Ozzy’s life story and he’s got to do the soundtrack to that… so I’ll keep him busy, let’s put it that way.The year was 1978 and rock stars did rock star activities, not for social media, but rather because they were rock stars and that is what they were supposed to do. He’s in the studio right now doing a new album.
We’ve been doing loads of TV shows here and you’ve got to just keep going until Ozzy can go back live. I think it will be a very exciting time when bands do go back and it’ll be joyous. “Everybody’s booking their tours again for like 2022, and to find availabilities right now, it’s crazy! Agents and facilities are going nuts, trying to get everybody back. Speaking to Planet Rock Radio, Sharon said: But he’s been swearing to get back out on the road once it’s safe to do so in spite of all that, and now his wife and manager, Sharon, says those dates have been rebooked for 2022.
Ozzy Osbourne’s farewell tour as a solo artist, initially scheduled for 20 (following the same for Black Sabbath in 2017), suffered a series of setbacks due to the Ozzman’s medical issues and the pandemic.