Ozzy Osbourne isn’t the first rock star Hoodlums Music has met.
If you shopped at our ASU store, or have looked at our Facebook albums, you know that we’ve done some fairly big events: Autograph signings with Weezer, Jimmy Eat World, and the Donnas; Hayden Lawn concerts with Blackalicious, Ataris, Thrice/Thursday and Pepper that all drew over a thousand fans; and a ton of sweet inside shows including G. Love and Special Sauce, Michael Franti, Tegan and Sara, The Format, and many others.
But Ozzy is by far the biggest star we’ve ever had the pleasure to have met (and co-presented… more on that in a bit).
This Ozzy thing was like all of the other events combined. Almost 2,000 books sold, the most on the book tour so far (you know we love that Indie-ass-kickin’ stuff); Lines that stretched around over half of the entire strip center (Tempe Square) and lasted almost five solid hours; Mid-signing venue changes, special requests from fans and handlers… the whole spectrum of rock and roll mayhem.
And of course, there were lots of Ozzy fans. We estimate that 4,000 Ozzy fans of all ages, shapes, and sanity levels invaded Tempe Square to show their love to the Prince of Darkness himself. You want to talk about characters? This place was personality-central on Saturday.
Besides being very involved in the planning and marketing of the event, I was able to spend a good bit of time on Saturday observing and taking pictures, and it was a great time. Hell, it’s Monday morning as I write this… and I’m still a little amped up.
Do you want to help with Ozzy?
It all started a couple weeks ago.
We try to meet with our friends at Changing Hands on a regular basis. We work with them (and with our other neighbors too) to come up with events (like our Community Movie Night) that will help keep the center cool. Being a former manager, I keep meeting notes for the upcoming meeting. I had just written down “more co-promotion” early that day, and in walks Brandon, Changing Hands’ marketing wonder boy. He says to Kristian and I, “I think we are going to get Ozzy Osbourne to come and sign books in a couple of weeks. Since it’s right up your alley, and in our center, we were wondering if you’d want to co-sponsor it?”.
Now that’s some cool neighborin’, eh? They didn’t have to do it. It was a book thing. We’ll surely never forget the gesture.
Kristian and I thought about it for exactly zero milliseconds before responding. “Whatever you want us to do – we are in”. In less than a day, the event was confirmed and we were on a whirlwind promotional blitz. Website, emails, Facebook, Twitter… and a whole lot of sign-making.
Brandon did a phenomenal job with the publicity, and seemingly every media outlet got on it. Arizona Republic, New Times, and every radio station that has ever played a rock and roll song (Beth and Bill and Ozzy… together again) let the people know that the Ozzman Cometh.
We knew it was going to be big.
Let the Mayhem Begin
The day of the show was upon us. The signs were up. The books were almost all sold. Our parking spots were taped off.
The store was, as expected, very busy all day. All week, in fact. People coming in and out to sign up for the Ozzy drawings… discovering our little joint for the first time. Loads of fired-up Ozfans, mainly dressed in black, found their way to Wildflower, or some tasty grub (OK, many didn’t make it past the bar) at Mac’s, or one of three radio station vans in the parking lot.
The lines started forming at around 2:00, and they got longer very quickly. Due to the crazy amount of people expected, Ozzy had been moved to an open storefront at the end of the center, so the line ran right past Hoodlums. It was beautiful.
Being a co-presenter, I was allowed to more or less hang around “backstage”, so I rambled around and checked things out all afternoon. I went in with the press corps and snapped a few pictures in the initial “posing” session, took a few pictures of the lines, and headed back to the store.
Around a half hour later, the line in front of the store started to break. I went to check it out and discovered that Ozzy was being moved back to Changing Hands due to the drywall dust in the empty unit. I joined the mad scramble of black-shirted CH employees and began to truck cart after cart of Ozzy books back to the original venue.
Cindy and her gang of book hoods did a great job on the fly, and the next thing you know the line was moving smoothly. Unbelievably smoothly. Ozzy ain’t no spring chicken, but that didn’t stop him from signing roughly 400 books per hour. My hand gets sore just thinking about it.
The Oz handlers (both his staff and the CH gang) did a great job moving the line along. Which, at a rock star meet-and-greet, is basically deflecting one “special request” from fans after the other… without making the star look like an asshole. It’s hard to blame people entirely, because they truly are fans (which, remember, is short for fanatic) and this is their one shot to get a minute with one of their idols. Still, I’d say that in spite of about forty-two signs that said not to do so, one in four people had something for Ozzy to sign other than the book (I love you Ozzy… could you sign my baby?). Almost every fan wanted to exchange conversation. It’s just the way it is. People want to say, “And then I told Ozzy…” Look at me doing the exact same thing via this blog. Anyway, the people who were on “Move along, Ozzy’s not gonna sign that” duty performed it admirably.
When Do We Get to Meet Ozzy?
Just because we’ve been in this insane industry forever doesn’t mean we still don’t like meeting rock stars. We started bugging Changing Hands about the Hoodlums-meet-Ozzy angle right away.
But of course, it really isn’t up to our indie comrades… it’s up to Ozzy’s managers (and Ozzy, I suppose), so they couldn’t tell us when until the day of the show.
Finally it was confirmed that we were to go ahead and meet Ozzy, as well as get a picture with our staff, at 2:30 PM, before the signing. Sweet.
But this is rock and roll. And if you’ve read this far, you know that things sorta change on the fly. And change they did. 2:30 came… and Ozzy wasn’t here yet. We were told that we were going to do it after the show.
That’s where being rock and roll veterans pays off. Kristian said, “You think they are going to be hanging around, so they can take pictures with us, after signing 2,000 books?” I shook my head. That’s not anyone’s fault or anything, that’s just the way it is. We both knew it.
So we put Joe in charge (Joe, being the true rebel he is, doesn’t ever meet the rock stars) drank beer on Mac’s porch, and watched the line. When the last customer came, the hoodlums pounced. We grabbed our event poster, and our interested hoodlums, and jumped in the line.
Sure enough, it worked. Ozzy’s manager said “I thought this was the last guy?” We said, “We’re with Hoodlums, and we were hoping for a shot with Ozzy”. How could they resist? Actually, I just told you how well they had resisted all day… but they didn’t resist.
Ozzy came over to pose for a pic with Hoodlums and Changing Hands. He was right in front of Kristian and I, so we stuck out our hands and shook his multi-ringed hand, and said thanks. Ozzy joined the group, and we quickly got ready. The photographers said “Say ‘Ozzy’”. We all said “Ozzy”, and Ozzy said “Me”.
We were almost entirely satisfied, but we still needed to get that event poster signed. I grabbed Tenesha (who ran the event like a champ) and begged. She grabbed my poster and said that Ozzy would sign it on the bus. A few minutes later, it was in my hands… complete with ‘Ozzy Osbourne’ on it.
Hoodlum content.
We all went back to Mac’s and celebrated. It was a great day.
We couldn’t have done it without all of you. Your support for these kinds of cool events are what makes even more cool events possible. THANKS!!!
that’s an awesome write up, congrats!
loved reading this, my friend went but I missed it. I love your store and Changing hands as well. Keep up the good work building a fun community.