Ozzy Osbourne concerts postponed, including in San Diego Tuesday, after surgery for hand infection

San Diego Union-Tribune

Oct. 8, 2018 2:45 PM PT

Legendary heavy-metal singer Ozzy Osbourne, who underwent hand surgery over the weekend, has postponed his Tuesday San Diego concert at Mattress Firm Amphitheatre in Chula Vista and his Thursday concert at the Hollywood Bowl. Both are part of the soon-to-conclude North American leg of his “No More Tours 2” tour.

His Chula Vista show has been rescheduled for Oct. 18, while his Hollywood Bowl show will now take place on Oct. 15. Tickets for the postponed concerts will be honored at the new dates or can be refunded at point of purchase.

Osbourne was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 as a member of the band Black Sabbath, which he co-founded. He underwent surgery on his right hand at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, after being diagnosed with an infection. The exact nature of the infection, and its cause, have not been disclosed.

The two new concert postponements came after Osbourne’s doctors recommended he take more time to recover from his surgery and infection.

On Saturday afternoon, a photo was posted on his Facebook page of Osbourne, in his hospital bed, with his right hand bandaged and an ice cream cone in his left hand. Both his thumb and — fittingly, perhaps — middle finger appear heavily bandaged in the Facebook photo.

On Saturday, Osbourne postponed his concert that night at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View until Oct. 20. For now, at least, his Oct. 13 show at the MGM Grand Garden Theater in Las Vegas is set to proceed as scheduled.

Stone Sour will open Osbourne’s Las Vegas concert. New opening acts are being arranged for his postponed Chula Vista, Los Angeles and Mountain View shows.

“I’m slowing down, but I’m not retiring. I’m (expletive) 70!” said Osbourne — who, in fact, is 69 — in an interview in Sunday’s Arts and Culture section of the Union-Tribune. The 2019 leg of his “No More Tours 2” tour is scheduled to begin Jan. 30 in Dublin, Ireland.

george.varga@sduniontribune.com

Twitter @georgevarga

Music

George Varga

San Diego Union-Tribune music critic George Varga began drumming in rock bands at 12 and writing professionally about music at 15. A Louisiana native who grew up mostly in Germany, Varga has earned three Pulitzer Prize nominations for his writing at the U-T and is a voting member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to providing live coverage of the Grammy Awards and festivals from Coachella and KAABOO to the 1994 edition of Woodstock, he has interviewed everyone from Miles Davis, Britney Spears and (over a game of chess) Ray Charles to Willie Nelson, Kanye West and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis. A triple first prize-winner for criticism and arts writing at the 2022 San Diego Press Club awards and a first prize-winner at the 2022 San Diego Society of Professional Journalists awards, Varga is also a contributing writer for Jazz Times magazine and has written for Billboard, Spin and other publications. After attending San Diego City College and San Diego State University, he created and taught the 2002 UC San Diego Extension course, “Jazz in a Post-Ken-Burns World.” Varga has written liner notes for more than a dozen albums, including by jazz sax greats James Moody and Michael Brecker, and contributed two chapters to the book, “Dylan: Disc By Disc.”