#318 - Jake Berry - Behind the Scenes of Ozzy Osbourne's Final Show

On this special episode of Geezers of Gear, we have invited the legendary Jake Berry to reflect on his incredible experience managing Ozzy Osbourne’s final show, Back to the Beginning. Held in Birmingham, England, the emotional farewell brought together a massive lineup of rock and metal heavyweights, including Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Tool, and Slayer. Other notable acts included Pantera, Gojira, Halestorm, Alice in Chains, Lamb of God, Anthrax, and Mastodon. The event also featured a supergroup with Billy Corgan, Ronnie Wood, Steven Tyler and the original Black Sabbath lineup in a tribute to a career that shaped the face of rock and metal.

As the world mourns the recent passing of Ozzy Osbourne, this conversation serves as both a behind-the-scenes look at his final bow and a tribute to a true icon. Jake shares what it was like being part of such a historic night, the challenges of putting it all together, and what Ozzy meant to the artists, crew, and fans alike.In this episode, Jake Berry reflects on his experience managing Ozzy Osbourne's final show, a historic event that brought together rock legends and fans alike. He shares insights into the challenges of coordinating such a large-scale production, the emotional moments that defined the night, and the legacy of Ozzy Osbourne in the music industry. The conversation highlights the importance of teamwork, the impact of the event on the music community, and personal reflections on a career filled with memorable experiences.Join us as we honor the Prince of Darkness, celebrate his legacy, and hear firsthand how one of the greatest shows in rock history came to life.

This Episode is brought to you by Elation and Main Light

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
On this special episode of Geez of Gear, we have invited the
legendary Jake Berry to reflect on his incredible experience
managing Ozzie S final show Backto the Beginning.
Held in Birmingham, England, theemotional farewell brought
together a massive lineup of rock and metal heavyweights
including Metallica, Guns and Roses, Tool and Slayer.
Other notable acts included Pantera, Hailstorm, Alice In

(00:22):
Chains, Lamb of God, Anthrax, and Mastodon.
The event also featured a super group with Billy Corgan, Ronnie
Woods, Steven Tyler, which actually I thought was
incredible, and the original Black Sabbath lineup in a
tribute to a career that shaped the face of rock and metal.
As the world mourns the recent passing of Ozzy Osbourne, this
conversation serves as both a behind the scenes look at his

(00:45):
final bow and a tribute to a true icon.
Jake shares what it was like being part of such a historic
night, the challenges of puttingit all together, and what Ozzie
meant to the artists, crew and fans alike.

(01:29):
Hey, welcome and thanks for coming by to listen slash watch
this one. You know, occasionally there is
a podcast that just really gets me going for even a few days
prior. This particular one is obviously
a super special one being that I've been an Ozzy Osbourne and

(01:51):
Black Sabbath fan literally since, I don't know, I was
probably 12 or something when I really got into Black Sabbath a
little bit. And then after that, of course,
Ozzy, as he started his solo career, you know, incredible
artist. I've seen him live countless
times and in all kinds of buildings.

(02:13):
I pretty much it's one of those artists that I remember every
time I saw Ozzy or Black Sabbathor combinations of the two.
Been to a few Oz Fest shows where I was providing some
lighting and you know, I, I was talking yesterday with Rod

(02:34):
Gibson about seeing Ozzy as a solo artist for my first time at
Max Ballerina in, in Calgary, which is sort of like a junior
hockey arena. It's not one of the big arenas.
It was a smaller one and they had Motörhead opening for them
and I remember it so clearly. It was the classic Ozzy band

(02:55):
with, with Randy Rhodes, Rudy Sarzo, Tommy Aldridge.
It was incredible. It was just like mind blowing.
I just remember looking at the band and just going, wow, these
guys are good. Like this is a good band.
And you know, of course, Ozzy being the penultimate front man

(03:16):
and and singer and just an incredible show.
I remember it so well. Thank God I remember it because,
you know, that was the highlightfor me of of Ozzy.
I know he got much bigger than that, but for me, that's the one
that I remember the most. And which is crazy because it's
the furthest 1 back, you know, So, you know, I reached out to

(03:40):
Jake right after the show and I said, Hey, you know, let's let's
just do a podcast about this show and how incredibly
challenging it was, but probablyhow incredibly rewarding it was
for you as well. And he said, you know, Marcel,
if, if, if I were to retire tomorrow, this is the way to go
out. Just an incredible experience.

(04:03):
And so I can't wait to talk withhim about that.
But obviously, since that conversation and since we
decided to schedule this podcast, things have taken a
crazy change and a very sad and inevitable change.
And Ozzy has, of course, passed away sadly.
And so I didn't know if we were still going to record this.

(04:26):
I left that entirely up to Jake.And Jake said, yeah, let's do
it. And so I know that there's going
to be some emotions for him because I know that Jake was
obviously very close with with Ozzy and, and with the band and
with Sharon and putting this alltogether.
And so, you know, it's it's crazy that just a couple of
weeks ago he was he was, you know, telling them to open the

(04:50):
gates for this show. And, and now, two weeks later,
here we're talking about Ozzy's life and, and his, you know,
his, his passing on. So just to read you the little
bio that our lovely producer Sarah has put together for this.
On this special episode of Geeseof Gear, we have invited the

(05:11):
legendary Jake Berry to reflect on his incredible experience
managing Ozzy's final show back to the beginning.
Held in Birmingham, England, theemotional farewell brought
together a massive line up of rock and metal heavyweights
including Metallica, Guns and Roses, Tool and Slayer.
Other notable acts included Pantera, I don't even know how

(05:33):
to say that one. Go Gora, go go.
I don't know, Hailstorm, Alice In Chains, Lamb of God, Anthrax
and Mastodon. The event also featured a super
group with Billy Corgan, Ronnie Wood, Steven Tyler, which
actually I thought was incredible, and the original
Black Sabbath lineup in a tribute to a career that shaped

(05:54):
the face of rock and metal. As the world mourns the recent
passing of Ozzy Osbourne, this conversation serves as both a
behind the scenes look at his final bow and a tribute to a
true icon. Jake shares what it was like
being part of such a historic night, the challenges of putting
it all together, and what Ozzie meant to the artists, crew and

(06:17):
fans alike. And that's true.
Ozzie loved his fans. Ozzie, I believe in his heart
and soul. He did this for his fans.
Join us as we honor the Prince of Darkness, celebrate his
legacy, and hear first hand how one of the greatest shows in
rock history came to life. Jake, Hello.

(06:38):
How are you? Very good.
Thank you very much. Yeah, thanks for jumping on and
doing this. You're in Greece right now,
right? I am, yes.
Yeah, cool. Well, actually not cool.
I heard it's like 40 something degrees Celsius.
I think it's going to be close to the the record day and that's
around 44 I believe. Oh, my goodness.
Yeah, I have. Well, I have Sarah in Greece,

(07:01):
but I also have on the mainland,I have my head of operations in
my company is in Greece as well.And he was telling me yesterday
it got to 43 I think, which was also.
Yeah, I guess it depends where you are and that.
You're. You're in the middle of the city
and. You're in a.
Couple of tall buildings, but there's no way it's going to get

(07:21):
up there, you know? Yeah.
Yes, Sarah was telling me this morning she was on her 4th
shower, you know, because I don't think she has air
conditioning in her house so. I'm in my house, so I'll just
sweat my way through it. There's no way I'm having four
showers a day. No, no kidding.
Do you have AC though? Oh yeah, yeah.
You know, we, Nana, my partner, we, she had a place here, an

(07:46):
apartment that she did up and it's all AC in every room,
individually controlled. We and then I bought the
apartment above and I put AC in every room.
So we have pretty much American style AC in our apartments here,
so. That's nice, you know, comes in
handy. It's, it's just a, a lovely 24°,

(08:09):
you know, so it's nice. Beautiful Perfect Two Days
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(09:40):
you coming and doing this. Like it it it's crazy that when
we scheduled this, Ozzy was alive and well and it made sense
to come on and just talk about how the like.
I really just wanted to talk to you about the challenges of
putting such a show together andthe emotions of that show and
and just how cool it was and allof that stuff.

(10:03):
Not that this was his final goodbye, because, you know, that
happened very quickly, obviously.
Oh yeah. I mean, like as the tour, let's
go back to the beginning and then yeah, of how this came
about. Yeah, please, because I would.
I've been very curious about that, how long it took to put it
together and stuff. My friend Opie Dale Schersef,

(10:24):
who's been, you know, done more Oz Fest than I've had hot
dinners and has done a couple ofblack saboteurs.
Naturally, Sharon and reached out to to him to see what he
could do, if he would be interested in doing it.
And at that time he was committed to ACDC and GNR and
also that he does The Rolling Stones.

(10:46):
So he didn't have enough time. So he called me on one day and
go listen, Sharon's putting thisshow together.
Would you be interested in doingit?
And he he's, you know, explaineda a couple of bit and I go
fucking a I'm ready, you know? No kidding.
Yeah, this was our ear. This was my ear of of being a

(11:06):
production manager on the road with all of these bands.
So and then, you know, Sharon emailed me.
She goes, Jake, I hear you can do it.
And I go, yes, I'm ready. And we had a couple of
conversations and then, you know, Live Nation UK were
involved like Andy, Andy Chopping was booking all the
artists that a lot lined up and Max Burnham was like their their

(11:29):
production guy, you know, from Live Nation.
And he called me up and and I really don't think we knew just
the magnitude of this show and what it was going to be.
This is. A snowball, didn't it?
This was going to be a farewell show in Aston and then you know,
with a couple of people like Greg Price, who is long time

(11:52):
Aussie sound manager, etcetera, etcetera, a sound designer and
everything. We got on the phone and I said
great, you can you can help me put the sound together.
Yeah. And then all of a sudden it but.
One second, Jake, how long ago was it that that Sharon called
you or that Opie called you saying we're putting this thing
together? I I got to believe it's around

(12:14):
the beginning of March. OK, so a few months.
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online today at mainlight.com. So then you know that we got in
the outdoor process and you know, we got these bands and who

(13:44):
started to contact the bands. And also we were playing Villa
Park and we were part of we werethe third of the four show run
with, you know, GNR were playingthere and then Chris Brown
played and then it was back to the beginning and then Kendrick
Lamar and we all played on the same stage.

(14:06):
No time for a custom stage. I mean, every staging company in
the world really wanted to do this show because you know,
maybe somebody had good foresight that it was going to
be what it was putting together.So Patrick Woodruff, Terry Cook
from Woodruff Bassett Designs, long time Aussie collaborators
and of course Patrick, one of the most well respected of.

(14:30):
Course. Lighting designers and we
started to speak about it and, and you go, what do we do?
What are we going to do? And I said, you know what?
It's it's a bit like, you know, when you have heavy metal and
Hard Rock, I always get like, guitar, bass and drums, you
know, because that's what it is most of the time.
And I go, let's do sound, lightsand video, nothing else.

(14:52):
Yeah. So we did.
We did that. We got the show.
Tom Morello. By nothing else you mean like no
pyro, no lasers? Well, we had pyro, yeah, you
know, some, some other bands wanted to bring pyro, but no
pyro from any other band. We just did pyro as a salute to
the end of the show and to the salute to the end of a end of

(15:14):
Black Sabbath. And with a confetti shot.
You know what? I'm saying goodbye from Black
Sabbath as we did on Aussie, saying goodbye from Aussie.
So we had two shots, So and theneverybody was told, you know,
everybody, all the bands came for expenses.

(15:36):
Nobody. Wow, you know I.
Didn't know that. No, it was we agreed that if we
could do expenses and we would review the expenses, you know
that it would all go down as a show cost.
Wow. So you know, we we had a back

(15:56):
line rental company and a riser company and I am going to
mention everybody's name becausethey played please take your
part. And Paul Collis, who runs STS,
which is the backline riser company, was the first guy
through like nation to call me goes anything I own backline or
risers I will give for free. I will only charge labour and if

(16:19):
I have to sub rent. So that started it.
And then we got all all the vendors like Negarth Delights,
screen works, see and creative technology video and Claire sign
and with Britt Rowe, we just asked for a reduction.
We asked them to give something back to the charity, which
everybody did. You know, it wasn't a single

(16:41):
moan or don't give us something back.
Just give us a big that's unbelievable.
And that kind of happened in a way, you know, it happened in a
total way. And so then we had this show we
started put together. And as I went back to Tom-tom
Morano goes, I want to have, we've got 16 or 17 bands and

(17:04):
we're going to start at 11:00 inthe morning and we're going to
finish at 10. So we put 6 not knowing all of
it and, and I goes, I only want a 10 minute set change.
So then we, he goes, you know, he looked at the Taylor Hawkins
thing, which was, oh, we had a turntable.
So I investigated A turntable and you know, sometimes I didn't

(17:29):
know if it's the right thing to do.
In the end, it certainly was, and then so.
That you could set up two sets of of back line, basically 2
bands, yeah. And you know, then, like I say,
Patrick and Terry Cook designed the lights, which was basically
straight trusses, yeah, you know, verticals on the side.

(17:49):
And it was great because we. Just a really great rock'n'roll
lighting show, you know it was. Great.
And you know. Came in and did programming.
Yeah, it wasn't fancy, you know,We could send them files.
It was simple because we did nothave the time for three bits or
everything like that. No, that's brilliant.
Bands like Slayer, Anthrax, Mastomon and And Goes Here to

(18:11):
name a few and Guns all had shows either the night before
the show or like in the case of some had a show on the 3rd where
they come in. We sound checked on the 4th and
played on the 5th and then they left for a show on the 6th.
So we were squeezing some artists in schedule.
Some had conflicts, you know, and then on top of that, we had

(18:33):
a whole bunch of solo artists and some of the solo artists,
you know, Steven Tyler, you know, he he didn't, he Steven
came with a a little Steven Posse, so to speak.
So you spoke to like somebody inproduction or you spoke to
management and you just informedSteven management and things

(18:54):
what was going on. And then, you know, on show day
morning or actually the night ofSanchez.
So we go, oh, Ronnie Wood's coming.
Wow. You know, so all of a sudden we
got to find a room for Ronnie Wood.
We had 41 dressing rooms in Villa Park.
Jesus. Wow.

(19:15):
And they were fantastic because they cleaned out their offices
and we gave us all the spaces. And the best thing was that I
gave Tony and Geezer the Aston Villa home football.
Oh wow, they had to love that. Geezer is a die hard Villa fan.

(19:37):
So everybody comes in, you know,we're going to put pipe and
drapes. I said no, we're going to leave
the Aston Villa lockers up in the colours and he's gonna and
then we gotta, you know, they have all the players names above
their boxes. So we put Geezer Butler 7 in
there, put a shirt in, and just those little things like that
made his old, old day, you know?That is so cool.

(20:01):
So. How hard was it for Sharon to
get that venue? Or was it easy?
Like you said, there were shows on either end or whatever, but
was that a big challenge? It's.
Hard to get the venue because Live Nation already had that
block of three shows and I thinkthere was space in between, you
know, don't forget that we had the show Chris Brown finished

(20:26):
and Chris Brown never had delayed hours in for the sound.
And also we had to, we had to build VIP decks if you saw in
the video left and right of the stage above it and then we had
to insert the turntable. So it was ES ESG Global that did

(20:47):
the stage. So after Chris Brown finished,
then you start 2 days of stage alterations.
So that was like the 27th and the 28th.
We did stage alterations and then we had to clean out some of
the offices and start doing all the dressing rooms and you know,

(21:08):
and then the catering room with they had for the other shows way
too small. So then we had to build a tent
in the background and then we had to build a media tent for
the world media because and thenwe had to build a an Aussie and
A and a place where agents can hang hospitality room, which was

(21:29):
in the villas, the villa fan zone that they use for soccer
games. And like I say, villa gave us
everything. And actually, in fact, the
hospitality room was so good that the people from, you know,
it had pictures of Aussie and all the Sabbath banning in on.
They put mirror pictures over the windows.

(21:54):
Really. They took all the pillars and
made it look like trees with carving out like Black Sabbath.
I love Black Sabbath like peoplehave been carving in trees.
That's cool then. They go, well, we're going to
keep this to the start of the season.
So I think if you go and see an Aston Villa home soccer game,
you may well see a Black Sabbath.

(22:14):
Ozio for hospitality. Really cool, Really cool.
So wow, to turn the dress rooms around and luckily, you know,
our, our, our, our team George and Kim Davenport from eat your
Hearts Out and lovely things didall the dress rooms.
And then all of a sudden we start getting riders in.
And some of the riders were, youknow, if they were playing a

(22:36):
headline show. So we went back to all the bands
and, and George and I, George, she's Kim's daughter, head of
dress rooms. We decided that there would be a
generic dressing room except forG&R, Metallica, Ozzy and
Sabbath. You know, so it was if you had
because they gave us all the boxes.

(22:58):
And so it was a general thing ofeither A2 seater couch, 4
chairs, a coffee table and a table and a fridge.
Yeah, that was it. Yeah.
We put pipe and drape over the window.
So hide the stage. We didn't put any pipe and drape
on the walls, you know, And somepeople, oh, you know, we need
this and not that. And, you know, and I said to one

(23:18):
man, I'll put all your furniturein, but don't come to me asking
for a dresser and put the band because you'll have no room
there. And and sometimes we just, I
wouldn't say ignored, they go, oh, yeah, we want this.
Yeah, great. We'll get it and never put it
in. Yeah.
And nobody said a word. Nobody said a word.
There were no like prima Donna moments.
It was fantastic the. I love that.

(23:41):
If you caught the atmosphere on the TV, you had no idea what the
atmosphere and the vibe was backstage, you know, and, and
for me, I knew a lot of the bands, so it was great seeing
him. I knew a lot of the crews.
It was, it was a celebration forthe bands.
It was a tribute to Ozzy and also was a bit of a homecoming

(24:04):
for for a lot of Rd. crews hanging out, you know, doing
everything. You know, they didn't say, oh,
I'm the Metallica guy. I'll do this and I'm the Guns
and Roses guy will do this. Like ski and and Gino and and
John Mulder, all them people. What can we do to help?
You know, it was accurate. So, you know, all all the way

(24:24):
around and and not one, you know, every star they had to
share a bathroom, which is big for a lot of stars, you know,
because they get a locker room, their own bathroom.
Nobody said a thing. Couple of the management goes,
you know, the the guys don't want to share a bathroom and go
well, don't come then and nobodysaid anything.

(24:46):
Nobody said anything. So.
You know, it's almost like they knew, you know, because I mean,
how would, if you did say something or if you did cancel
because you couldn't get your own bathrooms or something, how
would you feel today? You know what I mean?
Like a couple weeks like an asshole.
Exactly. Exactly.
You were there for one reason. Yeah, they were.

(25:07):
There, that's amazing. They were there to pay tribute
to Black Sabbath and to Ozzy Osbourne for Jane Hetfield.
If there was no Black Sabbath, there'd be no Metallica.
Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty bold statement.
That is a bold statement. They were all there just to and
nobody had a problem. You know, TomTom Morello and his

(25:29):
assistant Francis did an amazingjob of coordinating all the
artists. Francis would get them, we'd get
their schedules. We'd try to fit them in a
rehearsal. You know, some people, my plan
doesn't. My plane doesn't land till
three. You know, I'm coming in from LA
and I'm landing at London and we're two hours away and, you
know, can I? And they would come in off the

(25:51):
plane, off A2 car ride, straightinto rehearsals.
Jesus and. That's wild.
So, you know, and I saw Couch and everybody there and
everybody. Our rehearsals were amazing.
I. I can't even imagine.
I would go and sneak a peek and just before we get, you know,
you would sneak a peek and you would go in there and there's KK

(26:13):
down in Nuno Betancourt, Andy Smith, Billy Corrigan and Tom
Morello and they're doing Park at the Moon and they're all in
the front doing, you know, the, the juice unreal metal guitar
thing. And the smiles were this wide.
Yeah, Unreal. I.
Had the I had the luck or the time we'd expert is I went and

(26:35):
heard first of all the young blood version of changes.
That was amazing. Everybody just stood there in
silence. I just got goosebumps when you
said that because I that was, that was memorable.
That was a moment. I actually think, personally, I
think that young blood is the new Freddie Mercury.

(26:57):
He's incredible. He's he's incredible.
He's a talented dude. The.
First time they played it, the rehearsals, Marcel, I have to
tell you, I thought it was better than rehearsals and it
was live and it was amazing live.
I guess it's the first time we heard it.
And he walked in, grabbed the microphone, went up to, you
know, of cute people, and they go, OK, I've got it, I've been

(27:17):
rehearsing. And he went right in and he
nailed it. Wow, unreal.
Sensational. Yeah, I thought Steven Tyler
sounded amazing too, like him and Nuno, and that was
incredible. Like there were just so many
moments. But so Tom was the musical
director. Was that his title, basically?
And. Musical director, artist,

(27:39):
artist, Wrangler. I think he's, but I think near
the day, you know, it was very mellow.
Then all of a sudden, about two weeks before, you know,
organizing, you know, Villa is avery compact stadium.
Yeah. So we had to, you know, we had a
lot of bands coming in. I had trucks.

(27:59):
We had a lot of bands. I had buses, yeah.
A lot of artists that led a lot of ground transportation.
So yeah, I reached out to my friend Ian Massey at Beat the
Street and then go right, you'rein charge of artist ground
transportation. And even if they're your clients
or not their clients, I want youto take charge.

(28:20):
And he did. And you know, we had like 8080
artist vehicles with their Vianos or, or cars and, and
everything like that. And a couple of them, you know,
like, and I'll mention a kind of, you know, Andy, the drummer
from Sleep Token and he had nobody.
So I was speaking to call, we were emailing direct and what I

(28:42):
said, what a, what a pleasure, what a nice guy.
And he goes, Jake, where can I park?
I'm bringing out my own car. So you made arrangement.
I said, here's Ian's phone number, call him.
He came up, he said, look, I'm going to and Ian goes, how long
would you leave? And he goes, I'm staying for the
whole fucking thing. Not a problem.

(29:03):
He went around and thanked everybody and, you know,
amazing. That's awesome.
That is so cool. No, no entourage joined in, you
know, And a great guy and a super drummer.
We had some drummers there. Yeah, you really did well, Bill
Ward. I mean, just seeing Bill Ward,
you know, after 20 plus. Years.

(29:24):
Yeah. Bill's a bit like a Charlie
Watts type thing. He's jazz influenced a little
bit. In the Super groups, we had some
heavy hitters. I don't know anybody that hits
the drums harder than Mike Borden that used to be at Faith
No More. Yeah, he makes the whole drums
and riser shakes and. Yeah, he was awesome.
Chad Smith can really pan the drums so.
Chad was amazing. Chad was so good.

(29:46):
Like they were a little bit lostin that one song and I forget
which song it was, but he kept looking and going, OK, what part
are we doing now? You know?
And he, he was kind of the conductor and really did a great
job. There was some hitters, yeah.
But look, you know, kudos to TomMorello.
I'm a fantastic job, Fantastic, great guy.

(30:08):
Patience of the Saint sometimes.Yeah.
How'd that come together though?Like, why him?
And does he have a relationship with Sharon somehow?
I. Don't think so.
That was that was before me. Tom was there long before.
Oh, OK, OK. Yeah, that because that was
interesting. I was like, oh, that's neat.
You know, Tom Morello. OK, but So what?

(30:30):
What? How many artists were there?
Like individual artists? Do you know what number of?
I can't give you an honest answer about, you know, there
had to be 30 individuals plus the bands or you know, like 18
plus the bands. I think something like that.
Yeah, I mean. Just for instance on on show day

(30:54):
in catering your heart side fed up 1100 people.
What? That is wild 1100 people.
And don't forget that's going all day, you know, from
breakfast in the morning, because on the morning of the
show we had to sound check Gojira and GNR with the doors

(31:16):
opening at 11. Jesus.
Gojira, you know, all of them, they showed up at 8:00, they
played from 8 like 8:30 to 9:30 and then we did a quick turn
around for guns and they went from, we gave them from 10:50
and 11:00 we opened the door. So I, you know, I asked Slash

(31:38):
afterwards actually, hey, can you finish at quarter 2?
They ran through the set, they go, we're done.
Nice. And I will say, you know, Guns
have a new drummer. Oh, I didn't know that.
Well, boy, did he inflict some energy into that band.
Who is he? I'll get to you at the end of
it, I can't remember. His name.

(31:58):
That's all right, that's all right.
I'm just curious. Guns and Roses was like an
injection of B. 12 interesting fantastic that's one of the
really cool things with a lot ofthese older bands some of them
like Foreigner who are all no original members but but as you
see new members getting insertedinto some of these bands it does

(32:20):
breathe new life into them it does you know extend the life of
the band because. You know, I thought, you know,
everybody had a little down on Axel.
I thought Axel was fantastic. I thought played a great set,
you know? You know, and everybody says
that Axel's difficult. He's not.
He's just a really good guy, youknow?

(32:41):
And I've known GNR since they supported Mötley Crüe.
And that would have been that's a while ago. 30 years ago, maybe
30 years ago. So there's a little bit of he's.
Had some moments that I think have earned him the title, you
know? Really hard to get rid of those
moments. Yeah, Yeah, he has.

(33:01):
He. Was five.
He was 10 minutes early because we were, you know, we were
running ahead of schedule. Yeah.
So, you know, and then, you know, Oz goes, I don't want to
go on stage until my allotted time and I go, OK, fair enough.
Because once we got to Aussie, we know if the turntable broke
down, if the screen didn't lift up, we could do the set change

(33:22):
and still make it was like, I think when we got to Metallica
and G&R, Metallica, the home run, the four band, that's when
we knew we'd nailed it. Yeah, you know.
That is so frigging cool and. And then you go back to the
beginning at the rehearsals and you talked about Aussie at at
rehearsal studio. We, we went to a small studio

(33:45):
called Angelic Studios. And it was a very small room
about maybe a little bit bigger than my bedroom here.
And we put 4 Sabbath in there and, and like, and then Bill,
Bill came in on the set up day because I think Bill was, was
nervous and you know, I just think he wanted to soak off the

(34:06):
atmosphere because he hasn't done it for so long.
And then, you know, Thomas the Torre Manchai, you go, Jake,
what time do you want the band? They go what time they want to
come in. So they're early morning people.
So the band came in 11. Bill would come in at 10 and
tinker. And then on, on the the first

(34:28):
day, it was the, you know, the Tony Geezer and Bill.
And we did two days with them getting used to being with Bill.
And then Oz came in and, and then, you know, they did
rehearsal it also, I must admit that in the control room, they
all sat down and there's four ofthem on a couch and you're

(34:51):
seeing the original Black Sabbath boy, you know, you're
the hairs on the. Armours.
And you know, I, I said hi, I'm all sorry.
Hi, boss, how are you? And then they went in and they
would run through the set and Oz, you know, they, they played
four songs. We would run through the set.

(35:12):
And how do you feel? Also, I'm good.
And then he used to run through it.
They used to talk about old timesitting accounts and they would
leave. I mean, we were never there any
later than 4:00 in the afternoon.
Where were rehearsals? We did Angelic Studios with a
band and then the next step up we went to Fly By Night, which

(35:34):
is Redditch or something like that, which is, you know, 40
minutes from Birmingham. And of course all the guys have
got houses around that area being in the Midlands.
So, and then what I did in in, in there, because it's a fully
fledged rehearsal studio, like, you know, 200 by 130 or
something like that. So we marked out the turntable

(35:59):
and we put a curtain up for the the the separation and we set
Black Sabbath on one side and Ozzy Osbourne on the other side.
Ozzy's fan. So, you know, we never rehearsed
the same day, but also, you know, we put the monitors on the

(36:20):
through like we would have done on the show.
We put the side fills in the right position at the right
width. And they got used to playing on
the space on the stage, which I think was very important.
They got to know everything and they must know.
We never changed anything. Yeah, we did change a couple of

(36:40):
things, but like we moved the monitors further downstage and,
and Miles, the monitor goggles. Well, normally they've had the
monitors here. I said Miles.
That was in 2018. I don't think they'll remember
after seven years. Start with them downstage.
And we did. And nobody said anything.
And then we, we marked out whereOzzie's left would be.

(37:02):
And then we'd get the music, youknow, the, the opening, Carmine
has it. And then we rehearsed and, and
Dave, Ozzy's assistant, we, we'dhave the chair and we'd do 20
seconds and then the lift is coming up.
We time that and another 20 seconds.
Then you know, it's nothing. There was nothing automated.

(37:22):
He pulled the chair back into positions.
We got the mic off. Ozzy sang.
It was, you know, we wanted to create changes that were 1980s
that were none of this shit was around.
So it was see a couple of peopleon stage crouched out of black,
you know, because they all thinknobody will see them.
But you know. I saw them, you know, that
chair. Was that was that an original

(37:44):
thing or did that exist? It came from the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame induction the year before.
Oh, OK. It was built for that, so it
existed. And then, you know, Sharon would
go, Jake, we want the chair. How do we make Aussie here feel?
I said, I'll put a lift in. Great.
And then I said, we'll put a lift in and then we'll take him

(38:05):
down to the end of the set. And then during the set, Aussie
says to me, Jake, I ain't going down.
No fucking lift. OK, So we have to figure out how
to get him off. So I said, how about if we you
wait a bit? So cop the applause and then
we'll turn the turntable. And that's why everybody thought

(38:25):
that the Black Sabbath guys leftOzzy on their own.
They didn't. We were waiting for Sabbath to
get off to get the cables away so we could turn the stage and
take him. Back I wondered about that too.
I was like, what did they just do there?
Yeah, because he seemed like he was sitting on his own and.
And the band abandoned him. The band never left.
No, nobody abandoned him. That that was always planned.

(38:49):
Interesting. But also, you know, the 15
second it takes in rehearsals isis not 15 seconds.
The 15 seconds in the show seemslike an hour.
Yeah, Yeah. So what were some of the biggest
challenges outside all the obvious?
Like, you know, to me, I never thought of the logistics of all

(39:11):
the people, all the artists getting there and parking
vehicles and having vehicles andall that stuff.
I never even thought of that, oreven just dressing rooms for
that many people. I never thought of those things.
But outside of that, what were some of the bigger challenges
for you? Well, I, I, I don't know, you

(39:33):
know, I had more challenges on 360 U2 for sure, right.
You know, it says we had a very basic stage with a very basic
lighting rig and then we had a very basic sound system.
I mean, what wasn't basic about the audio was the number of
inputs, the number of bands bringing in consoles, the number
of consoles we had. I think when we started the

(39:55):
show, it was like 9 monitor consoles and then the patching
of everything, which we got a lot done on the sound check the
day before with a lot of bands, you know, and I had a little
talk to the crew. I got great, amazing job.
You've had an hour to set the bands up now tomorrow you do it
in 10 minutes. Not a problem, Jake.

(40:18):
We'll we've got this. And also I would imagine, you
know, our, our, our and and Paulwho run the Pete, I'm sorry, who
run the sound group. Great job.
They all did amazing job. RF was a big challenge over 200
frequencies we needed. So, you know, and then I mean

(40:38):
lighting and programming, getting all the acts together,
you know, programming and setting up some things in
getting that was all handled by,you know, Terry Cook.
And then, you know, comms and radios and that and the audio
came from Brit Rowe and you know, they did an amazing job
and not only were we doing the show, but don't forget we were

(41:01):
also doing rehearsals at the same time.
We were sound checking bands anddoing rehearsals.
So the the getting of equipment from one side to the other and
we realized that we couldn't geta semi around, so we had to go
and get a small van to keep bringing stuff back and forth.
Did you? Have to run personally back and
forth to rehearsals or were you at the venue the whole time?

(41:22):
One of my state, I had two, I had three stage managers.
OK. Sean Robinson handled the main
turntable because I've known Sean for a long time.
I love work of them. Calm demeanor.
And also he's done a couple of Jingle Ball tours where they use
the turntable. So he was pretty on on song with

(41:42):
that. And then I had Aaron Siegler,
who does a lot of the the K pop stuff.
And then a guy called Joe Hanley, who does a lot of stuff
for me in the electronic world at EDC.
And you know, Joe came up to me,man.
He goes and he's a he's he's a Hard Rock, heavy metal fan.
Man. I would love to see Sabbath,

(42:03):
Aussie and Pantera. I go great.
You want to be a stage manager? You want to come and do the show
go Well, I don't know if I've ever done it.
I go do you want to see the show?
You go, yeah, we'll come and work it then and then good
fortune. When Aussie said I want to get
my phone gun, it was broken. No better guy than Joe Hanley to
fix it. So, you know, and, and when you

(42:24):
put a plan together and your sound lights, video and stage
crew all get on board with it and, and they do what's inside
your head and they carry it out.I, I wouldn't say it was easy.
It's, it's a little stressful and nerve racking.

(42:45):
I mean, the night before I'm going, how the fuck are we going
to do this? Now?
There's a lot, there was a little bit of nerves and I
thought, yeah, you know, we'll do it.
And we went there and you know, as soon as like GR finished and
we opened the doors and we firstwent into right Mastodon to
rival Son or the other way around.
I threw Mastodon and I put the first set change at 7 minutes

(43:06):
because we'd already sound checked both bands.
The object in 10 minutes was 3 minutes to turn it around.
And then you had 7 minutes on the front going tap through the
kit to make doubly sure, even though you were line check
behind the stage. I'm honored, guy.
Quick. Hello, 1212.
Couple of strums on the guitar here.
You go wow, because that's got to be mayhem.

(43:28):
Just all the patching and stuff,making sure you don't, you know,
plug a guitar into a drum channel or something, you know?
We had a company called Ginger Owl, which is in the UK and they
handled all the logistics of getting, you know, we hired 2
vans to get the solo artist because we didn't want them come
in their own cars. You know, someone goes, I'll

(43:51):
take an Uber there, we're going to get them dropped the wrong
end of the stadium. So we organized transportation
and don't forget there was a lotof hotels involved.
You know, so and Jinjao, they kind of did the accreditation
and then they, they supplied forme artist liaison that would be
down there giving them, look, we're 10 minutes early.

(44:13):
Come on, we need to go to the stage now.
Not, not anyone said we're not coming now.
They all came up and you know, what if they waited on the side
of the stage for 5 minutes? So they waited their backstage.
There was always another artist they could talk to or they
hadn't seen in a few years. So where everybody was on, it
was like a welcoming party. No, welcome to the stage

(44:34):
manager. I haven't seen you in years.
Remember the time? There was a lot of that.
The vibe there was incredible. And then after the show,
somebody asked me, Jake, what was the show like?
And I said 2 words. I said it was fucking epic.
Wow, Epic. Well, and for a guy that's done
what you've done, that's that's obviously a big statement.

(44:56):
Look at the smile on my face when I'm.
Talking. Yeah, I know.
I know. You said it to me the other day.
You said if I retired today, youknow, I'd be happy.
I'm happy, you know. Maybe, maybe people might think
about twice about hiring an old man, but I after that show the
old man still got it in him I think.
No kidding. Yeah, well, I mean, you swing a

(45:18):
big stick, but that's for sure. I think when when Jake yells at
you, you know something needs toget done pretty quickly.
I didn't yell at anybody there. Yeah, there was no yelling.
The only yelling you would hear from Sean go turntable moving
and that would be it. Yeah.
And everybody got in and, you know, everybody, you know,
especially the Sabbath guys who were there for a long time and

(45:41):
had to move their equipment a couple of times.
He said well let's bring your cables up through the center.
Well, I've always had him here. Bring him off through the
centre. We can roll.
And they all went robe with the punches.
You know, it was good. Yeah, it sounds like it was a
big love fest. I mean, that's kind of what it
looked like when you when you watched it too.
Yeah, and then, you know, the show went down, you know Oz and

(46:05):
a huge smile on his face. He was exhausted, but he was
happy. And then you know for him his
daughter being proposed to by 6.That was wild.
You know, and then. You told me about that clip the
other day. I hadn't seen it and I went and
looked it up on YouTube and it was hilarious.
You ain't fucking marrying my daughter.
It's. It's pure Ozzy Osbourne.
That was hilarious. Yeah, Look at Sharon.

(46:27):
Look at Ozzy and you know Kelly and Jack and Ozzy and Sharon
especially. You know the the Kardashians owe
millions because they were the creators of reality.
Of course there's nothing like that show.
I mean, that show was the best television ever done.
I think, you know, it was just incredible.

(46:49):
It was incredible. The famous line, Sharon, you
know. Yeah, yeah, Well, I saw a clip
yesterday or something. I've been going down memory lane
with Ozzie this week, of course,but I saw a clip yesterday of
him sitting on the couch. He's got like this fancy new
Crestron system or something in his house and he's trying to
figure out how to turn on the television and he's just

(47:10):
clicking it and cursing like crazy and he's like, Jack, come
turn on the fucking television. Please I.
Mean you can't figure out how todo it.
You know, new Aussie, that was Aussie.
I mean, yeah, look at the look at the tributes, like Elton
John, the funniest guy I ever met.
Yeah, Aussie was natural. And As for the Black Sabbath

(47:32):
guys, I think it's way the way they brought up.
They weren't gifted anything. Yeah, you know, and and it's
they've remained, I'm not going to word humble, but normal
people. I mean, Tony and Geez are the
most wicked sense of humor you'dever want to be.

(47:54):
Around. I mean, they could.
Why Tony Iommi could wind anybody up and keep a straight
face. That's hilarious.
I know I've. Been wound up by him.
You know, one of the things thattells you how special Ozzie was,
like we've lost some incredible artists in the past few years,
you know, and everyone gets a lot of messages and a lot of

(48:17):
posts on social media and stuff.But Ozzy, it's been non-stop for
the past couple of days. non-stop, like from everyone,
every artist out there sending messages and stuff.
And some of them are just unbelievable.
Like the tributes to him and that guy meant a lot.
He really meant a lot to heavy metal, rock'n'roll, you know,

(48:39):
live, touring, whatever it is, you know, he just an incredible
man. Ozzy lived a life like a cat.
He had 9 lives. Yeah, yeah.
You know. What made however famous,
however intoxicated, however high he was, however things he
done, the things that he maintained throughout his life,

(48:59):
was normality. You know, Sharon and Ozzy not
afraid to talk about their relationship and and the trials
and the tribulations and yeah. And if you go back to some of
the, you know, there's a show called Parkinson in the UK,
believe it or not, Unfortunatelythat's the right title.
But and you go back and look at that interview.

(49:19):
I mean, it's hilarious. It's comedy hour and it's and
people are just. Which interview is that, Jake?
It's a. Show called Parkinson, Michael
Parkinson. OK.
And there's some great clips I was watching this morning, you
know, when I was waiting for something for America to wake up
because I was up earlier. And I go back to some of the
Howard Stern stuff. It's fantastic.

(49:41):
Oh my God, that the one that I remember a couple of Ozzy Howard
Stern ones, the one when they went to Japan and Sharon went
back to the Ozzy said let's go out and have a few drinks with
the boys. And Sharon said no, I'm tired.
I'm going to go to the hotel. I'll see you later.
And he goes out, gets all messedup and goes back to the hotel,

(50:04):
brings a couple of nice little Japanese girls with him and
finds his way into the room somehow.
And Sharon goes, Ozzy, what the fuck are you doing?
And he goes, oh, I forgot you were here.
He forgot that he brought Sharonwith him on the trip, right?
And. So yeah, you live on, you know,
man. But you know, and let's, you

(50:26):
know, focus on the most, one of the most important thing is how
much money it raised for what. Was it 190 million right?
You know, I, I don't know the figures I mean.
It raised, that's what she said,A. 100 and 2190 to 140, but you
want to put it in context. The original Live Aid raised 100
million. Wow, really?

(50:49):
Facing 140 to 150 million, you know, on the May they raised
more, but on the impact the first month or something.
This was. This was, this was as big as the
Live Aid shows, not in two places at the same time, I may
add, but you know, the same sortof technology to get it

(51:09):
broadcast, you know, and then you go, what, what's your
biggest challenge? We had to find some of the park
broadcast trucks and, you know, we had our we had our own backup
recording studio from Diablo andwe had everything covered.
We had backups after backups, and you know that once they knew
it was going live, a lot of bands wanted to bring their

(51:31):
record producer to make sure it's good.
So the guy from the truck goes, he goes, You got any problems
with the truck? I go, yeah, you know, how many
producers can you sit in there at one time?
Everybody came out. We took the recording truck to
rehearsal for Sabbath and Aussie, so we got some basic
things down and a lot of people had sound checks, so we got

(51:53):
basic sounds down for the show. Interesting.
So it's just so incredible how it all ended up working out.
I mean, not in a good way. Obviously Ozzy's passed away,
but it couldn't be any more perfect way if you had to die as
an artist. He did it so well, you know what

(52:16):
I mean? Like holy shit, what a legacy.
I don't know if there's a perfect way to die of.
Course not. Of course not.
You know, like, like I always say, I was happy and I did a
testimonial for Ozzy and not a memorial.
I love that. Yeah, that's really cool.
And also when you go down and you go how great it was, how,

(52:38):
how it won, how, how happy it was, how the kids loved it.
I mean, you have to go back and go, hey, look what we've done
for Parkinson's. Look what we raised.
Look what we've done for, for Aston and, and you know, around
there for boys clubs, what they put into it, all the bands, all
the bands just did it for expenses.

(52:58):
You know, I mean, when you put something together that the
expenses are high, you know, like I'm saying you're feeding
1100 people, your catering bill is not going to be low.
I mean, you're dealing with, youknow, hotels, you know, that's
not cheap either. And the ground transportation is
not cheap. So there's a lot of expenses.

(53:19):
But you know, we have, I think, you know, if you saw the footage
live, whatever Sharon and and Black Sabbath do with what we've
recorded, including what we did on IMAG and I, and I'm just
going to say, I thought our armag screens were sensational.
They were great of. The picture was fantastic and

(53:41):
you know, So what we've got in the can, there can only be a
fantastic film or or a fantasticdocumentary, but there's
something so good it's in there.It's like you say, it could be,
would it could be Woodstock all over again, you know, but.

(54:03):
At what moment did you realize how massive this was, how epic
it was? Like at what point did you just
go wow? Like was it before, after or
during the show? I think probably a couple of
weeks out when the ginger, ginger owl people, we, I was

(54:26):
getting copied on, on all the ground transportation and I
would go to bed and wake up and there'd be 70 emails because I
asked to be copied. So it's my own fault and, and
all the late editions. Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot my
brother's second cousin or something like that, you know,

(54:47):
And then as we started to get nearer and, you know, oh, we got
three months, plenty of time, O2months, plenty of time.
We're a month ago, all of a sudden we're, we're loading in
production. I go, you know what?
This is something very special. And it's just got getting more
special everyday, more larger everyday or not, you know, but

(55:09):
you think it is larger. And then the sound checks, you
go wow. And you watch the batch play and
you watch them come on and they're all smiling and nobody's
late. Everybody's on time.
They're very aware of the time they would get off on time.
And you go, you know, this is something unique.
And of course show day when it started when you're 40,000 fans

(55:33):
in there and it's 1:00 and you're, you're giving them a
dose of Mastodon or something like that and they're getting
off on it. I go, you know what, if we can
maintain this is special when itgetting near the end after like
6 hours of, you know, it's hard for me to stay on my feet for
six hours. But I went, I went to, you know,
the bathroom and I went to the office, but I'd only stay there

(55:56):
10 minutes because all the acts were playing 15 or 20 and they'd
come off and they'd be smiling. You'd change over with start on
time and everybody you asked to go on early.
It's not I'm not going on early.It was all, it was all friendly.
It was all. Did you get to watch any of it?
Oh, I, I watched a lot from the side, a lot from the back,

(56:17):
looking up at the screen. I'd go on the side and look at a
couple of bands that I was, you know, interested in, you know,
of course, you know, when Ronniewas added, that was special to
me, being part of the Stones. Yeah, yeah.
All this stuff that Ozzy does with the audience, like his, his
I love yous and all of his gestures towards the audience

(56:39):
and stuff. That's authentic, isn't it?
Oh, 100 percent, 150%, Yeah, yeah.
That's so amazing. He loved playing live, you know
He's a fucking showman. So where's this one rank in your
in terms of like, career highlights?

(57:00):
Oh, right up there for sure. Yeah, I remember many years ago
we put a SARS show together withThe Rolling Stones in Toronto
and or somebody said we're goingto do a SARS show in Toronto in
three weeks. So the Stones agreed to go.
We we had a hard job finding a roof and then, you know, we had

(57:24):
a hard job getting audio and we just made and I think that would
have been Patrick design in the rig again and then like Mark
having Mark Fisher. So that was, you know, probably
one of the greatest line UPS as as well.
You know, The Rolling Stones opening, ACDC second rush, third

(57:48):
guess who, 4th Backman Turner OverDrive, Justin Timberlake
cause 'cause I, I believe that Keith's Keith's children in
love, Justin Timberlake, probably the wrong fit.
And then like Jim Belushi and people introduced, I mean, that
was a classic show. So that was great.
Look, I can't say a career a career highlight without

(58:08):
mentioning 360. Which?
Of course. Yeah, man was breaking in 2010,
you know, and probably a precursor to all the big shows
now that you know that that. Kind of started it, yeah.
Yeah, a little bit. And this one here, if you
probably had to name three big events, you know, that would be
them. And you know, through my time

(58:30):
with all the rest of the bands now, I've been a lot of special
times with ACDC. Certainly a loss with you too.
And, and The Rolling Stones and,and Metallica, I mean, I, I was
with Metallica then I got the Stones offer, right?
And that's the reason that I left Metallica.
So at the end of the show, James, Lars and Kurt were on the

(58:53):
VIP platforms and Sabbath had just finished.
And Lars is shouting at me because he always did from the
side. Oh, you need a fucking job.
And then James looked down and he goes, Jake, it's been 30
years now. You can come back, you know, It
was that kind of vibe, you know?That's awesome.
That is so cool. Yeah, no.
No, you know, I was walking out the dressing room and I and

(59:13):
there's James smoking a cigar and he's talking to some
journalist and he just walked away and we just had a massive
hug. That's nice, you know, so he's
nice. I mean, look at me, I'm nearly
crying now about it. It's insane.
Yeah, well, I mean, special moments, special moments.
Jesus, you've had a career, Sir.I mean, you've had a career and

(59:35):
you ain't done. I mean, I'm making it sound like
you're retiring, but you're not.You're you're one of the busiest
guys out there right now. Well, I, I try to do a balance
now, you know, I'm certainly don't feel I want to get on a
bus. So although my close friend of
York, Philip from Beat the street goes, why are you riding
one of my buses? You know, but that's because you
know, in beat the street. I went to him when he was a sub

(59:58):
hire company and I. I wanted it on YouTube or, or
Rolling Stones, I can't remember.
But in my mind I had Trans am which had black trucks and I
wanted black buses, you know, heavy metals black.
I wanted a black tour. So I I had black trucks and
black buses, which was a great idea until about 5 days before

(01:00:22):
the show when Trans am sent out a white trailer for for video
and York had to stop by a Phoenix bus or something.
It's a different, but that was my.
So plus cleaning them every day,cleaning them every day, keeping
a bunch of black buses and trucks clean had to be a bitch.
You know, and look at the end ofthe day for for me, that show,

(01:00:43):
like I said, to put a plan together and all 150 people it
took to put that go there. Sound, lights, video staging,
special effects, a bit of confetti, a bit of pyro, stage
management, the running of the show, the patch it lighting.
When you put a plan together andpeople execute it 100%, the

(01:01:07):
bands come in, execute 100%. There wasn't a Duff ban on that
bill. I mean, people may not like, you
know what Slayer play, but they play what they do very well.
Yeah, You know what I mean? So.
One, they were all meaningful. They were all meaningful.
It wasn't just pulling out bandsto entertain the audience.
They all had some sort of a connection somehow, you know,

(01:01:30):
obviously. And then you have that fat, you
know, you have those huge surprises, like Youngblood.
Yeah. And then you have the emotional
moments, Ozzy singing. You know, Mama, I'm coming home.
Jesus, yeah. And then?
Nothing like it. Finale with Black Sabbath
playing one of the greatest songs ever written in Paranoid.

(01:01:51):
I mean, you have moments all thetime.
Moments. Yeah, well, and again, then all
the online stuff like, you know,artists who on their shows since
that have done Mom, I'm Coming Home or changes, you know,
they're all putting these songs into their shows every night and
it's incredible. I mean, the guy meant so much

(01:02:12):
and so you know. The four of them, so much.
I mean, God, incredible. Invented heavy metal.
Aussie invented. You know, you look at Showman's
front of houses, You look at Mick Jagger, one of the greatest
front men's, Michael Jackson, one of the greater front, Bono
and Aussie's right up there withhim.

(01:02:33):
Hell yeah, Hell yeah. No, it's, it's really
incredible. I appreciate you sharing all
these stories about this becauseI, I've been dying to hear from
you on this. And, and you know, just some of
the challenges and how it all came together so well.
It, it just looked so flawless. Everything.
And from the sounds of things, it's relatively was pretty

(01:02:55):
flawless, you know, like no massive failures or, or, you
know, and I think part of what you're saying is when you have
incredible people around you whoyou love and, and can count on
and you've had them in many situations before, you just feel
good about it. Like you don't have to yell at
people when you trust those people.
So there had to be some group hugs at the end I'm guessing,

(01:03:18):
right? Well, a lot of hugging.
Pretty quickly because because Kendrick Lamar was staying in
the. States yeah, the next day, yeah.
I mean, we all had a big thank you, thank you, thank you to
everybody. And you know, and after the fact
when you know, cuz Sunday morning after the show, I didn't
fly home. I stayed there and I was in, in,

(01:03:40):
in the hotel in Birmingham. We got there a little late.
We had some, some issues on the loadout, but nothing serious.
And now I, I was, I napped and then I went out to get something
to eat. The nearest thing I could find
was it was a Chinese restaurant.So I had a Chinese lunch which
was good. And then sometimes I was dozing
on the bed and I would get out of bed and I would sit on the

(01:04:03):
edge of the bed and I couldn't move.
I couldn't get out of the bed, sit on the bed and stand up.
I would sit on the edge of the bed contemplating standing on
for 10 minutes and just, you know, I think for the first time
in in three weeks, my mind wasn't turning around with

(01:04:24):
what's going to happen. It was quite kind of a release,
but it was, I remembered weird, though.
Why can't I stand up? I could stand up.
Why don't I want to stand up? Yeah, it was very, I mean, that
Sunday, it was a draining day. And then I can't imagine.
I decided to come home to Athensand I wanted to catch the first
flight. So the first flight out of

(01:04:45):
Heathrow is like 8:00 in the morning.
So I get picked up at 2:30 in the morning at a hotel.
Oh God, Jesus, no, no. Rest for the wicked.
Well, no, That was my own fault.You know, I wanted to be here so
I could rest. I came home here to Athens and,
you know, a couple of days. I mean, I'm normally a early

(01:05:05):
bird here. I would wake up at 7:00, sit
around for a couple, probably look online to see what people
were saying, you know, and then go back to sleep.
And my missus would either be going to work or I would wake up
one day it was 11 AM, which is like the middle of the day for
me. And then it was 1:00 PM one day

(01:05:26):
and. Oh my goodness.
You know, so it it took a lot, but hey.
How? How did you hear about his
passing? I got a call, you know, in the
night, you know, and, and it wasmy friend Ian Massey from Beat
the Street. And he goes, did you hear about
Ozzy? And I go, what?
And he passed away and I'm standing here and I think I'm

(01:05:47):
sitting here and I'm speechless.My mouth is open.
I'm gutted. I'm gutted A because he's he he
was a great person. B you know, we're we're all
here, a lot of us because of Aussie in some way in our
careers or Black Sabbath or both.

(01:06:09):
And just, you know, like so, so soon after the there's very
successful event. We were.
Just with them two weeks ago, you know you.
Know three weeks peak, you know and you know, then of course
people started calling and everybody seems to want to find
out or they everybody seems to be they want to be the first
person to know. You.

(01:06:29):
Know, and it's not bad and you know for 20 minutes it was like
ping, ping, ping, ping, ping yeah, you know, or for an hour,
but then you know, you can only say you know, you can only say
too much before it starts not tobe real or something like that.

(01:06:53):
So you're, you're gutted, you'reyou're grateful that you will be
able to do his and Black Sabbath's the last show and his
especially in because of his passing.
And you're grateful when you were there know how much that
show meant to him. I thought, I'm very happy that I

(01:07:14):
did a tribute show and not a memorial.
Show. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, not that.
Marcus, get that kind of send off alive.
Well, again, I you know, there'sno such thing as a perfect way
to die, but if you had to scriptit, you know that is certainly
it. It almost appeared scripted.

(01:07:36):
Yeah, I mean, like you say, there's no perfect, perfect way
to lose. Anybody you know?
Anybody, whether it be loved or not, but this was just so quick
after the event, you know, because I, I, I had heard from a
couple of people after the show that he was just beaming.
He he was at he was beaming and the show was fantastic for him,

(01:08:02):
Sharon, Tony, Geezer and Bill. It was perfect.
You know, have you seen the video of him playing with his
grandkids? Just like the day before he
passed, I think. Yeah, I'm sure that to me, I
don't know if that's like, just news putting it the day before
because, you know, having been up close, I felt he looked a

(01:08:24):
little different. But, you know, whatever.
Playing for your grandkids is great.
Yeah. Yeah, but.
Yeah, so thank you for going through all of that, Jake.
Like amazing story, unbelievableevent for your life and for all
the fans and and all the people involved, all the crew.
I've talked to a few people who were out there working and just

(01:08:47):
incredible. And I appreciate you so much
that you shared this with us. I did want to take a couple more
minutes of your time to just talk about something you and I
are doing together with LDI called X Live.
And I don't know if I ever even told you this, but when LDI
reached out to me and asked if Iwould get involved in helping

(01:09:09):
them create a bit of a, like an educational day prior to LDI
where we had a lot of sort of star components attached to it
from our industry. But bringing in especially new
young people coming into the industry and just putting them
alongside mentors and coaches and, and educators and whatever

(01:09:33):
you want to call it, to teach them about the industry.
And I said, yeah, I'd love to get involved in that, but only
if you'll allow me to invite Jake to get involved in that.
And they said absolutely, if Jake would be interested in
doing that, we'd love to have him on board.
So I called you and you of course are very gracious when it
comes to things like this, teaching young people especially

(01:09:56):
and bringing new talent into theindustry, which is such an
important topic so. That's how.
It started. I don't know if I ever.
Told you that. And I, I look at it like this,
you know, the, the industry has been very good to me.
I mean, I worked hard to get where I am and I, I worked hard

(01:10:17):
on things. And you know, I've done, if
somebody had asked me 50 years ago what I'd be doing now, I'd
probably be sitting on a bar stool in a Devon pub getting
drunk and you know. And you got time for that still.
Yeah, I don't drink because I had enough.
You know, I'm a bit like Oz. I overdid it.

(01:10:40):
I'm fine. I'm over it now.
Yeah. Go to Betty Ford, meet Betty
Ford like he did, but you know, clean.
So my object now is to to give back to give back to the younger
people. What I've known the mistakes
I've made. How do you get along?
Where do you go? And it's a very difficult thing

(01:11:02):
because I I know we have, you know, courses full sale and
things like that, which are great, but there's to be in our
job. You got to be in the right
place, the right time, with the right temperament, with the
right people, and then you can go and learn.
But you can only learn by missing a bus, missing a call,
packing up a hotel room, if you're assistant, plugging in

(01:11:22):
the wrong thing, if you're guitar tech and a. 100%.
That's that's where you learn onthe road, so.
Well, it's no miracle. One of these sessions is called
Show Wreckers, you know, and, and it's all about situations
like what you're talking about when things go wrong.
Yeah. And it's all about, you know, I
mean, I know we've got some really good people coming up.

(01:11:43):
You know, of course in our industry people confirm subject
to availability. Yeah, we're gonna try to to
cover all things and and I'm really, really supportive of LDI
by bringing in a very low cost ticket for young people.
Yeah, I think. Like 149 for three days, access

(01:12:07):
to everything. Yeah, I.
Think it's fantastic, yeah. And and I really like that.
And sometimes the young people want to hear what the older
people have to say. Yeah.
You know, and then you want to find out, you know, the girl,
how how did you get there? What did you do?
What obstacles you overcome? What do I need to do?

(01:12:29):
That's that's the questions we're hoping that the young
people as answering all the panels on, you know, we're
specializing in, you know, stories, not stories.
Don't think we wanted stories. We'll save that for dining with
dinosaurs later. Yeah, exactly.
Hard facts, like if somebody wants to learn about audio, we

(01:12:50):
can help them. If they want to know where to
start an audio because they don't want to be a production
manager like Jake Berry, we can give them an audio person the
same. Yeah, we have a panel with Josh
Kaufman talking about the the cons and pros and cons of
Coldplay, the video, how they set it up, how they were dealing
with new infrastructures, how they they did things, which is

(01:13:13):
very interested if you're a video engineer.
And then you couldn't give a shit if you're a sound guy.
So how do I get started? How do I get a board?
Where do I learn? You know, do you have
educational courses at your company where I can walk in and
somebody who instruct me the wayaround a digital or or an Avid

(01:13:34):
or something like that? One of the other sessions I love
too, though, is like basically how how I not how I did it, but
I I forget the actual name of the session, but it's it's
successful people. Success.
Yeah, people who have transitioned though, from like,
I was loading trucks and I was, you know, pulling cable and
stuff and, you know, I did 10 years of touring and then I

(01:13:58):
decided to move on to become an account exec and now I run a
massive sound company or whatever it is, right.
And I love those stories. Like I love that, you know,
we're talking about this isn't just a gig to go out and have
fun working for a circus for a year or whatever.
This is a life. This is a this is a career that
not only can you make great money, but you can have

(01:14:20):
unbelievable, unbelievable experiences.
Yes. And what part of the the X
sessions for me was not to overcram it in a day.
You know some some things like this have multiple panels at the
same time and you can't be in two place at the same time and
you have to pick here. You don't have to pick what you

(01:14:41):
do. You come or you're done.
Yeah, Yeah. I think it's 5 or 6 total
sessions, right? You know, they're an hour long
and that's enough for people to get involved.
We can, we can run a bit late ifwe want to.
But, and now after the Aussie show, nothing's ever going to
run late for me. Otherwise it'll be a downer.
But yeah, I was very excited andI, I, I, I needed, I, I needed

(01:15:07):
something like this for, for myself to, to climb back into
the conference. Well, not the conference, but
the the session situation and give back.
Yeah, I'm, I'm not going to be on all the panels.
I'm certainly going to hang out.I'm totally an open book.
As you probably gather. I have no problems with somebody
coming up and talking to me. I don't want anybody go.

(01:15:29):
Oh, there's Shake Berry. I don't he doesn't have time for
me. Come up and ask if I have time.
That's why you're there. I'll.
Tell you I don't have time. I would like the young people to
come up and and ask questions and you know, what do I do and
where do I go and do you know people has got programs and how
can I do this And you know, it's.

(01:15:50):
It's going to be an incredible day, you know, I know there.
It's going to be a long day, butit look, it's going to be great.
We want to start early in the morning.
So you know, we want people to get up early in the morning, you
know, have a free breakfast, getinto it straight away and then
come in and out. You know, if somebody, if
somebody goes to all the panels,that means we've done the right

(01:16:10):
thing. Absolutely no.
And I, I can't say it enough. I appreciate you getting
involved in that. Without you, you know it, it
would just be another, you know,LDI thing, meeting or whatever,
you know. But I think this is really a
special event. We're going to do some cool
things, I hope. You know, I think the hardest
thing we had was picking a name.That is, that was a tough one,

(01:16:35):
picking a name, and then we realized it was sitting right
there the whole time, you know? We all had different opinions,
you know. Yeah.
People who know me at work, we know that.
And, you know, once I have something in my head or a name
or a way to do things, I'll. I'll stick by it.
You. Know I'm not going to get you
off that perch. There was a great soccer manager

(01:16:55):
in England called Brian Clough and you know, they ended in if
You and I always learned this. So I thought it was fantastic.
It it, it goes, you know, Brian,people always say to you that
it's, it's your way or nothing. They always do it your way.
He goes, no, that's not true. If somebody has opinion, we'll
sit down, they'll talk it through, we'll listen to and

(01:17:17):
then we do it my way. So, you know, so that that's
that's the way. So I've mellowed out a bit and
you know, there's a lot of people have great ideas and we
we as older states are going to have to be prepared to listen to
the young ones. But what we want to install is,
you know, we want to people thatcome into the production have to

(01:17:38):
have a work ethic. You can't, you can't sit behind
a computer and answer emails. You've got to go out there and
see how it's put together, how your crew works.
You know, you have to be a leader from the front.
You know that I. Completely agree.
One of the most battles had the commander on a horse in front of
them. The ones that lost them out

(01:17:58):
center. Commander sitting three miles
back, looking through binoculars.
So true. Well said.
Well, again, Jake, thank you so much.
I appreciate all your time today.
The the Aussie stuff is incredible.
The event was incredible. Congratulations.
I mean, what a, what a cool thing to put into your memory
bank, you know, having done all of that.

(01:18:20):
And, and we'll probably talk about it some more at X Live
too. I'm sure you're going to put
parts of it into your, you're going to do a keynote at the
beginning of X Live and hopefully you'll talk a little
bit. About this to me, Marcel, you're
going to make me talk in front. No problem.
And then and then when do this? When does this podcast air
tomorrow? OK.

(01:18:41):
Friday, yeah, yeah. So we'll we'll send you a link.
All right. Thank you so much, Jake.
Don't hang up just yet. Thanks again for joining me on
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