48 Hours With OZZY OSBOURNE

Two weeks before the launch of the first leg of his North American arena tour November 12 in Victoria, B.C, Ozzy Osbourne jumped aboard the "crazy plane" for a Halloween weekend that was, well, classic Ozzy.

It all started Friday (October 29) in San Diego at the TedMed convention, where the recently reported results of his recent genome testing were further analyzed. Ozzy then moved onto Washington D.C Saturday afternoon for the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert "Rally to Restore Sanity And/Or Fear" on the Washington Mall where he and Yusuf "Cat Stevens" Islam performed a surprise "Peace Train" vs. "Crazy Train" skit in front of an estimated crowd of 150,000. Not missing a beat, Ozzy jetted to New Orleans to "Bark At The Moon" on Halloween Eve at Voodoo Experience, headlining the Saturday night main stage slot of the three-day festival in City Park with a ferocious set.

At the TedMed convention at Hotel del Coronado, Ozzy was asked what inspired him to have his genome sequenced, a process that unravels the mysteries of his DNA and traces one’s roots back thousands of years. "I wanted to find where I was going to die so I could avoid going there," said Ozzy. The findings of Ozzy's genome were originally revealed October 24 in a piece he penned with Chris Ayers for the Sunday Times magazine (U.K.).

"It was the last thing that Dr. Nathan told me that really stuck in my mind," wrote Ozzy. "’You have two versions of a gene known as COMT,’" he said. The first is often called the 'warrior variant,' and the second is known as the 'worrier variant.' A lot of people have one or the other — but not both."

Ozzy — who will kick off his fall North American arena tour November 12 in Victoria, B.C — has now announced a second leg of U.S. dates which will get underway January 16, 2011 in Omaha, Nebraska. The six-week 2011 trek, part of the multi-platinum Rock And Roll Hall of Fame inductee's in-progress 18-month world tour, will include a pair of intimate shows: January 26 at the Dodge Theater in Phoenix and February 1 at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Los Angeles. Ozzy's longtime friend and musical collaborator Slash will open all the concerts on the second leg. Tickets for the Live Nation-produced tour go on sale beginning Friday, October 15.

Osbourne recently completed a run of overseas festival appearances and headlining overseas performances including his first-ever concert in Israel: a September 28 Ozzfest show at Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv.

Ozzy's fall dates coincide with the October 5 release of an expanded two-CD version of the "Scream" album. This "Tour Edition" package features seven bonus songs: a mix of previously unreleased tracks and live recordings. Epic also issued a four-sided vinyl edition that includes five bonus tracks: the three aforementioned songs from the "Scream" sessions and the live version of "Let Me Hear You Scream", along with the single version of "Life Won't Wait".