Ultimate Rhoads

Over the years I have read several interviews with Ozzy where he says during the Diary of a Madman Tour they had a huge catapult on stage which they used to through all sorts of shit into the audience, and having custard pie fights but with meat. I think it was supposed to be early in the tour so Randy would have been in the band. But after reading loads of concert revues, checking out tons of photo's and watching the limited footage of that era I have never read or seen any confirmed reports of this. Is it just Ozzy's imagination.

Even Randy said that they had a catapult hurling meat into the crowd and he even said that Ronnie (The Dwarf) would throw liver at the crowd. And I heard that...they used to have a Hand reaching out to the audiance and that had a catapult and I think it was Randy that said that it was another magic trick thing that they did....That Ozzy would step into the giant pair of hands that reached from the drumrisers and starks would fly from the fringer tips hiding ozzy and ozzy would step on a pedal hurling meat...as if Ozzy was blown to bits

The March 06 Guitar World even has a picture of Ozzy standing on the hand...

Great question! this is something I have wanted to ask for ages, and Thanks Rocky for telling me where I can find a picture of the catapult. I heard loads of stories about it years ago and imagined that I had mis-understood things as the years past and I saw no pictures of it.

The flying meat story is true. I heard that on one occasion the catapult was left on all day and when the show started it was completely out of juice. Instead of catapulting the meat into the audience it simply landed on the stage. Randy and Rudy would be playing and the flying meat would barely miss them. Now that's funny...

Very true! It's in Rudy's book. If you don't already.....GET IT!!

Here is the photo I scanned for yall



You mean this one?

RR-ElectricAngel wrote:The flying meat story is true. I heard that on one occasion the catapult was left on all day and when the show started it was completely out of juice. Instead of catapulting the meat into the audience it simply landed on the stage. Randy and Rudy would be playing and the flying meat would barely miss them. Now that's funny...

That would be hilarious!

Many years ago I heard from the catapult. And also that the audience brought meat/animals/bats etc. to throw them back to the stage! Also one fan was stopped at the entry because he had a complete head of some kind of animal (goat or something) with him! That was a little too much I guess!
However till this day I never seen a pic of that catapult.

I found a couple of excerpts in Rudy's book which mentioned meat and dead animals.One funny story about the dwarf Little John Allen he would drag a bucketful of prime cow's offal including liver tripe etc onto the stage.He would throw this out into the crowd and it would end up turning into a food fight one night a large cut of meat which was still frozen came back at John and knocked him clean out K.O'd.He was dragged from the stage by one of the crew and he was taking to hospital were he was treated for concussion and received 12 stitches.
Rudy mentions the sold out show at the Sports Arena Toledo Ohio were one of the crew had taken a photo of a freshly slaughtered cows head which was outside the gig lying in the snow covered ground.I think this guy would of had trouble smuggling this into the gig and was asked nicely to leave the offending article outside.Its just a good job Little john didn't get that hurled at him.LOL!

At the Chicago show 1-24-82 I remember the Giant hand with the Sparks flying.. They didnt need that with Master Rhoads onstage..

I only just noticed the picture of the hand! it's the first time I have ever seen a photo of it, thanks for posting it Rob200 I should have thanked you sooner (I should have seen it sooner )

T

Yep no problem Trigger

I wonder if the "Hand" still catapulted the raw meat when it was used for the Speak of the Devil tour ?? The picture below is from the 1982 Wembley gig.

Dig the photo, never seen that before. He definately never came out in a hand at the Leeds concert on that tour.

Am I right in thinking that they didn't use it in all the shows? I never saw it on the 'Speak' video. I always thought that it was only used on a few shows in very early 1982.