‘It was crazy’: Iowa woman recalls Ozzy Osbourne’s infamous Des Moines concert

By KCCI Staff

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    DES MOINES, Iowa (KCCI) — Ozzy Osbourne, the legendary heavy metal singer and former lead vocalist of Black Sabbath, has died at the age of 76, as confirmed by his family in a social media post this morning.

His death comes just weeks after his farewell concert, where he reunited with members of Black Sabbath.

Part of Osbourne’s legacy was cemented in Iowa on January 20, 1982, during a concert at Veterans Memorial Auditorium. The Iowa Events Center shared a picture of the flyer from that concert, where a dead bat was thrown on stage. Osbourne, who later said he thought the bat was made of rubber, picked it up and bit its head off. This stunt has followed him for more than 40 years.

There were 5,000 people in the crowd at Veterans Memorial Auditorium that night, including Gloria Trueblood. She shared her experience with KCCI over the phone, saying she didn’t know exactly what had happened until the next day.

“I do remember seeing him pick something up off of the floor, and I’m like, why? What is he picking up? And then, of course, after the concert and the next day, all you heard about was, he bit a bat. He bit a bat,” Trueblood said.

“Everybody was screaming. It was crazy. I mean, as if an Ozzy concert isn’t crazy enough the way it is. And then you have the crowd going wild and everybody else going, yeah. It was pretty cool,” she added.

Following the incident, Osbourne had to get a rabies shot at Broadlawns Medical Center.

His Iowa connections run even deeper, as his daughter Kelly is engaged to and has a son with Slipknot turntablist and Iowa native Sid Wilson. They own a home in the Indianola area.

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