In late 1984, a 15-year-old metalhead named Stephen Rea was living in Northern Ireland, hunting down concert bootlegs by mail and reading every music magazine he could find. His god was Ozzy Osbourne. So when he saw that a massive festival called Rock in Rio was happening that January in Brazil with Ozzy, Queen, and AC/DC all on the bill, it might as well have been on the moon, until his father stunned him by offering to take him.

To shave the cost, Rea’s mother wrote a letter to Osbourne’s fan club, the Ozzy Osbourne Information Centre, asking whether there were any ticket packages for a paid-up young member. As recounted in Rea’s 2025 memoir, the letter laid it on with maternal pride: her son was member number 00090, one of Ozzy’s biggest fans who bought every LP, single, and scrap of merchandise........

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