On January 3, 1982, I saw Ozzy Osbourne on the Diary Of A Madman Tour in Fresno, CA. This was the second live show I had ever seen and, just like Van Halen seven months earlier, everything was bigger than life. I was immersed in the Diary Of A Madman record and also had the first solo record, Blizzard Of Ozz, while being all-in on Ozzy. I wasn’t very familiar with Ozzy’s Black Sabbath records yet, but his solo stuff was already legendary for me.
The opening band, The Starfighters, didn’t play because somebody in the band was too wasted to play. This led to a long delay before the one and only act of the night played.
The castle facade was incredible to see live and the band was a great visual with Rudy Sarzo on one side and Randy Rhoads on the other in their designated spots, while Ozzy was the ringmaster. They did the intro to “Diary Of A Madman” and then went into “Over The Mountain”, which was my favorite song from the record at that point.
It was a great night for 16-year old me as Ozzy was a superhero in my mind and I was devouring his two records leading up to the show. We tried to stand up in the jam-packed floor area in front of the stage but with the long delay trying to get the opening band going, we ended up finding seats on Rudy Sarzo’s side of the stage. I don’t remember whose idea that was, but it was hot down there and we’d been standing up for the whole time so without knowing how long it would actually take for the show to start we headed up to the seats and it turned out ok.