Watch This Rare Ozzfest 1999 Documentary

UPDATE: The documentary has now been taken down from YouTube. :(

The Decline Of Western Civilization documentaries of the late ’80s and ’90s have become part of the alternative music lexicon. Three movies focusing on the Los Angeles music scene at various points, through gutter punk to glam metal. But in 1999, Decline director Penelope Spheeris was hired to make a documentary about Ozzfest.

The film, We Sold Our Souls For Rock N’ Roll, was released in 2001 and won Most Popular Documentary at the Melbourne International Film Festival in the same year. The 90-minute doc includes interviews and chaotic live footage with Slipknot, Static-X and System Of A Down, along with a ton of candid backstage action.

As expected, there’s a lot of focus on Black Sabbath as Ozzfest 1999 was billed as their final ever performance in the United States. Which, of course, turned out not to be the case.

Check out the whole documentary below to relive the heights of heavy metal in the late-’90s when nu-metal was king and a festival poster could promote ‘exotic nipple piercing’ as a selling point.

Despite Sabbath now calling it a day, Ozzfest is still going strong. Having teamed up with Slipknot's Knotfest in the past, the most recent event took place on December 31, 2018 at The Forum in Los Angeles.

Ozzy Osbourne returns to the UK in January and February 2020. Get your tickets now.

Ozzy Osbourne UK and European tour 2020

January

31 Nottingham, UK Motorpoint Arena

February

02 Dublin, IE 3Arena
05 Manchester, UK Manchester Arena
07 Newcastle, UK Utilita Arena
10 London, UK The O2
12 Glasgow, UK SSE Hyrdo
14 Birmingham, UK Resorts World Arena
17 Dortmund, DE Westfalenhalle
20 Helsinki, FI Hartwell Arena
22 Stockholm, SE Friends Arena
24 Berlin, DE Mercedes-Benz Arena
26 Vienna, AT Stadhalle
29 Prague, CZ O2 Arena

March

03 Hamburg, DE Barclaycard Arena
05 Munich, DE Olympianhalle
07 Mannheim, DE SAP Arena
10 Bologna, ITL Unipol Arena
13 Madrid, ES Wizink Arena
16 Zurich, CH Hallenstadion

Read this next:

• Ozzy Osbourne: "It's like a heavyweight fight every night for me, I want to go out and knock the crowd out"
• How Black Sabbath redefined heavy music
• The 50 best albums from 1999