O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Ozzy’s Fans Are Served Ham on Wry

Putting Ozzy Osbourne in front of an amphitheater full of teen-agers is like putting Quasimodo in charge of Romper Room. Far from recoiling in horror, the tots go delirious with glee.

Over his 20-year career as a heavy-metal gnome, Osbourne has been attacked in some quarters for allegedly promoting Satan, instigating teen-suicide and willfully chomping the heads off small, furry things with wings. But at Irvine Meadows on Thursday night, it was obvious that Osbourne is no threat, just a consummate ham.

The show was both engaging and pathetic. Engaging because of the energy and single-mindedness with which Osbourne set about giving 10,000 or more heavy-metal kids a good time. Pathetic because of the British singer’s obvious need to have that approval--a need that sidetracked his

90-minute set and deprived it of meaning and focus as he carried on constantly as cheerleader and rabble-rouser.

Driving a mob of teen-agers wild (there appeared to be very few older fans in the crowd dating back to Osbourne’s early days with the seminal metal band, Black Sabbath) is no small accomplishment for an unhandsome, ungainly middle-aged man with stringy hair and a paunch. Metal, after all, is typically the domain of young Conans and Thors. Yet Quasimodo pulled it off--hunching around the stage in his awkward, almost prissy way, dripping sweat all the while; dousing himself and the front rows with bucket after bucket of water; and continually and profanely exhorting the crowd to cheer more, to clap more, to “go (expletive) crazy.” Osbourne, shouting “louder, louder,” bore some resemblance to Charles Laughton howling “sanctuary, sanctuary” in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

At his best, Osbourne also has cried out memorably for sanctuary, in songs that have expressed horror at the threat of nuclear war, or confessed Osbourne’s own sense of inner confusion, reflected in a long-term struggle with alcoholism that he hasn’t shied away from tackling in songs. Osbourne played some of those songs during his set, including “Iron Man,” “Paranoid” and “War Pigs,” three enduring grunge-rock songs from his Black Sabbath days.

The problem was that none of them meant a thing--at least not as Osbourne presented them Thursday night. Shouting out “I love you all, God bless you” (one of Ozzy’s favorite, oft-repeated Valentine lines to his audience) may be just a loverly thing to do, but not during “Iron Man,” when the object should be to summon up all the baleful fury possible to enhance the song’s tale of injustice and awful revenge.

Taking off shoes and socks and tossing them into the crowd may be endearing, but what did it have to do with “War Pigs,” the song Osbourne ostensibly was trying to put over when he decided it was time to go barefootin’? That was the pattern throughout the show: ham it up, be Ozzy. Don’t worry if the story that Ozzy has to tell (and it could be an interesting one) gets lost or ignored.

The music had force, with former Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Randy Castillo providing a driving foundation and guitarist Zakk Wylde doing a Ted Nugent gonzo-rock imitation full of raw chording, whining lead fills and perpetual prancing. And Osbourne, never a virtuoso singer, still manages to approximate his distinctive, flat-toned bleat of old.

The show suffered from the usual pointless metal macho solos: 13 noisy minutes from Wylde’s guitar and eight minutes from Castillo’s drums. Maybe Ozzy needed the time off for a breather.

Maybe Wylde needs some time off to get it through his scraggly head that bigotry isn’t funny. When Osbourne’s band last played Southern California last December, Wylde blathered gay-bashing remarks into the microphone at the Long Beach Arena, prompting an apology from Osbourne’s camp and a promise of a donation to an AIDS-related charity. Thursday night, in an apparent oblique reference to that incident, Wylde griped about “when you’re having a good time and somebody can’t take a joke,” then--without specifically saying anything about homosexuals--led the crowd in an obscene cheer directed at those who don’t see the humor in his antics.

White Lion’s set could have used a lot more roar from singer Mike Tramp, an extremely limited vocalist whose husky but bodiless voice seemed incapable of sustaining a note. Tramp’s attempts at David Lee Roth-style stage acrobatics also fell flat. Vito Bratta, a flashy, talented guitarist, gave the 50-minute set its bite, although his overly prolific solos would have benefited from a less-is-more approach.

Vixen, an all-female band, turned in an opening set that was energetic, unpretentious and well-played, although it stuck firmly to unimaginative pop-metal formulas.