This morning’s (November 05th) official announcement of the 2027 return of the ‘Ozzfest‘ left a vocal contingent of metal and hard rock fans underwhelmed. After all, given that the Osbourne family had confirmed in August that a main headliner had been locked in and would be announced “soon”, a number of metalheads had expected at least some form of a lineup announcement to be made this morning.
Instead, following the conclusion of a countdown timer, organizers for the event announced three dates and the impending onsales for the return of the influential metal and rock touring festival. A newly published interview with ‘Ozzfest‘ head honcho Sharon Osbourne, widow and former manager of the festival’s late namesake Ozzy Osbourne, seems to shed some light on why the festival are remaining guarded with who will be playing.
Speaking with Hits Daily Double, Sharon confirmed that roughly 50% of the lineup has been “nailed down” so far, leaving a lot of work yet to be done with roster. When asked if the same lineup is expected to be playing each date, she replied, “I hope so. For me, it’d be a lot less work.”
As for why she chose to revisit the festival now, in the wake of Ozzy‘s passing and years removed from the last physical ‘Ozzfest‘ (it was most recently held back in 2018,) Sharon replied:
“I want to do it for my grandchildren. I want to do it for everyone who loves Ozzy. It’s his legacy, and I want it to go on and on. He’s dead, but he’s not forgotten, and he left a great body of work. There are so few real characters left in this industry—genuine ones, not made up for the cameras. Nothing about Ozzy was contrived. He was never one of those rock stars sitting front row at a fashion show trying to be the coolest guy in the room.”
Per this morning’s reveal, the ‘Ozzfest‘ will hit the following cities in the new year:
07/10 Milton Keynes, UK – The National Bowl
09/11 San Bernardino, CA – Glen Helen Amphitheater
09/18 Mexico City, MEX – Estadio GNP Seguros
‘Early bat’ presales will be launching tomorrow, November 06th at 10:00am local time. Meanwhile, in this same conversation mentioned above, Sharon was asked about any unreleased material, and referenced a pair of songs which Osbourne worked on with producer Andrew Watt over the past few years.
Watt himself recently made note of those songs too, stating that he and Ozzy were going over them prior to the ‘Back To The Beginning‘ concert. Sharon went on to confirm they are earmarked for the upcoming movie based around Ozzy and her:
“There are two songs Ozzy did for his movie project with Andrew Watt, and there are Sabbath tapes that went missing years ago—studio tapes, live tapes, unreleased tapes. We now know exactly who has them: the same man who’s been stealing our money. He said he never had them, but we’ve found people with sworn statements they went to his office. He’s a hoarder of memorabilia—two warehouses full of albums. We’re right in the middle of that nightmare.”
According to Sharon, development on that Ozzy biopic continues to face developmental challenges, as she stated:
“There’s Ozzy’s movie with Sony Pictures. We’re on the fourth script now. [laughs] It’s hard for writers to get Ozzy’s voice—it’s perception versus reality. It’s been tough, but making movies is tough—hopefully the longer it takes, the better it’ll be.”
She went on to that the film will cover a specific chapter of his and Sharon‘s life together, specifically, “’78 to ’96—the end of his time in Black Sabbath, going solo, Ozzfest. Everybody knows what happened after that, but nobody knows what Ozzy and I went through with my father to stay together.”
