Die Gesellschaft des schwarzen Etiketts

…that’d be a German translation of “Black Label Society”, the opening band for Ozzy Osbourne yesterday. And also this hard of hearing guy – “I can’t fucking hear you!” – in his late fifties can do a great concert! It was just relatively short – he seemed to have had a comparatively bad day, an “Ozzy expert” next to me said. Others, however, have a different opinion about his mood… Which doesn’t change anything about how good it was!

Apropos opening band: There’s something strange about the starting time. At Meat Loaf Sunday before last, the official start was at 20:00 (8 p.m.), but at 19:30 entered Marion Raven as “opening duo” (i.e. with one other musician) with guitars and keyboard for about 25 minutes, and since there was no reconstruction necessary, everyone thought Meat would start punctually at 8 – wrong, he waited until 20:30 (and stayed until 23:02).

Yesterday, however – official start was also 20:00 – the openers came at 19:50 and rocked until 20:40, and after reconstruction and sound check, Ozzy entered the stage after a lament of Beuern intro at exactly 21:00. (And, as indicated, just until ca. 22:35.)

Now what does that tell us about the meaning of starting times…?