Matt Freed, Post-Gazette Zakk Wylde of Black Label Society performs on the second stage at Ozzfest today.

3:31 P.M. -- THE ANTICIPATION BUILDS

	Matt Freed, Post-Gazette Atreyu performs on the second stage at Ozzfest this afternoon. Click photo for larger image. Related coverage Online audio: Cindy Bogner, 42, and her friend Alexandra Anastis, 35, talk about the Ozzfest crowd. The women are chaperoning Alexandra's 17-year-old son.

If you haven't left for Ozzfest yet, you're going to regret it.

The crowd at the Pavilion is swelling, and moving en masse toward the second stage parking lot, as if led by some unseen force -- the crowds of black-clad guys pouring over the hill looks like the setup to a "Lord of the Rings" battle scene. A few other dudes have started to pass out on the hillside from too much beer -- or maybe it's just a lack of sleep, who knows -- marking this as a true metal show. Black Label Society, the last band to play before Ozzy, is already well into its set and Oz himself is scheduled to go on a half-hour before his 4:10 p.m. start time. The thing everybody's been waiting for is about to happen.

I'm packing up my computer, punching out and trying to catch a bit of Ozzy's parking lot set, which Scott Mervis plans to review in Thursday's paper. Thanks for reading this, and remember: There's nothing like the smell of blood in the morning.

3:18 P.M. -- PROPS FOR THE FANS
The Ozzfest crowd may get a bad reputation, perhaps from the devilish subject matter of the songs. Workers here at the Pavilion know, instead, that the bad stuff really accompanies songs about cheeseburgers and fins, or whatever.

		Audio: Food vendor Michele Kopperman says that Ozzfest fans haven't been very hungry ... yet.

Michele Kopperman and Jan Gallaway, both 49, have worked their grill stand this concert season to raise money for two synchronized skating programs at RMU Island Sports Center called Steel City Blades and Free Spirits.

"This is pretty quiet for how busy it is. ... Jimmy Buffet [fans], they were crazy," Kopperman said. "They can sure drink."

"They didn't eat or drink because they partied so much in the parking lot," Gallaway said. "I drove in at 5. ... I said to myself, 'these guys are nuts. They're nuts.' "

Nicest fans were for Brooks & Dunn. "It was all 'Thank you , m'am.' You know what I mean? It was totally different."

2:20 P.M. -- HOW MUCH OZZY CAN YOU TAKE?
You're every year man! Every year!"

People do this a couple times while I'm talking to Frank Gordon, 49, near the Harley stand. Frank, who plays bass and keys for Martin's Ferry, Ohio, band Angelrust, has come to Ozzfest for eight years, he says, and spends most of his time shaking hands and posing for pictures.

	Matt Freed, Post-Gazette An Unearth member has a good hair day at Ozzfest. Click photo for larger image. Ozzfest preview Ozzy returns to namesake festival to rock among the people Online audio Mike Currant, 19, of Amsterdam, Ohio: Attending his third Ozzfest His band The scene at Ozzfest   Zac Stacey of East Springfield, Ohio: An introduction The Ozzfest crowd   Mary Campbell of Canonsburg: Her Ozzfest outfit

He's the spitting image of Ozzy himself. Long black hair parted in the middle, round sunglasses (which he picked up after the first Ozzfest, to cement the look), black sleeveless T-shirt.

Frank's "picture is on many a refrigerator," his friend Nikki Coffland, of St. Clairsville, Ohio, says.

Just like everywhere else around the Pittsburgh area today, the talk here at Ozzfest is about the weather. A couple hundred fans are huddled under tiny pine trees on the hillside overlooking the second stage, lots of the guys are shirtless, male and female fans are running under hoses, and Pavilion staff are giving out free water and sunscreen.

Still, there are more people wearing black here than at an undertakers convention. If you looked at this place with a satellite picture, there'd be a big black dot.

When I dressed for the day, I rocked some khaki shorts, a long-sleeved fishing shirt and a bright blue CamelBak canteen, branding me as the biggest yuppie square in all of Burgettstown from miles away (also viewable via satellite, I bet). The kids apparently didn't go over their wardrobe choices the same way, choosing breathable, light-colored fabrics -- because, in the case of metalheads, there often are no choices.

Mary Campbell, 25, of Canonsburg, was wearing a black T-shirt, long black baggy pants and a black leather bondage belt.

"Actually, every outfit I went through was black," Campbell said.

1:45 P.M. -- A T-SHIRT STARING CONTEST

Matt Freed, Post-Gazette Ken Susi of Unearth gives the crowd a taste of his beer during his band's performance today at Ozzfest. Click photo for larger image.

The most popular merchandise stand in the entire Post-Gazette Pavilion this Ozzfest 2006 is a small, square T-shirt stand selling $35 Ozzy T-shirts that can also be found just about anywhere you look in the pavilion. Still, entire herds of young men are standing by the nondescript stand, looking at it with dull, heat-desensitized stares.

That's because the stand right behind it has three young women, posing for $5 snapshots on top of a Harley. Oh, and without shirts on. Their breasts concealed - if that's the word - with spray paint.

Mostly only grizzled biker-looking dudes and reporters were approaching the young ladies, who would seem to have dispatched with any last bits of shame long ago. Two policemen were also idling next door -- not watching the women, but checking out a Marine Corps pull-up competition.

Aren't they going to get in trouble with the cops? Don't they arrest people for indecent exposure around here, or is there some kind of Ozzy rule that keeps you out of any trouble? (Not that it works for smoking weed or anything else illicit: The bathroom stalls are patrolled by pulling-the-shortest-straw rest-room monitors.)

Rachelle Melynsky, 18, told me to look closer at her paint job and pointed at a barely-noticable, painted-over square. "As long we've got tape on our nipples, we're good to go," the Las Vegas resident said. "Once the tape goes off, it's against the law."

NOON -- OZZFEST MARKETING TRICK
Breaking news update from Burgettstown, Pa. -- Ozzfest appears to be deploying an ingenious marketing strategy that targets ... young white males.

Panning across the tents in the back of the second-stage parking lot is like watching live commercials during Headbangers Ball: there's the Sony Playstation tent, the Trojan condom tent (get a free condom and spin the condom wheel for free merchandise -- big cheers go up for anybody who lands on Trojan Magnums, the brand's XXXL model), the Jagermeister Lounge and the Camel Lounge.

Matt Freed, Post-Gazette Norma Jean performs on the second stage at Ozzfest. Click photo for larger image.

Up in front of the stage, the marketing pitch goes to the same crowd: young males (who make up about 90 percent of the crowd) are easy to whip up, and the bands are exhorting them, repeatedly, to run around and bash into each other. We're not talking regular old moshing and crowd-surfing -- here, the bands ask the crowd to split down the middle, form two mini armies, and then run right at each other.

"Are you sick [metal fans]* ready for some death metal? Are you ready to [metalishly] mosh?," screams the lead singer for The Red Chord, after hitting the stage at 11:25. "I want to see a mosh pit over here and over on the other side ... KILL EACH OTHER!"

The singer from A Life Once Lost gets impatient when the crowd doesn't split in two fast enough. "This isn't preschool"!

It should be said that none were killed, or even injured, during the set. The Hanover VFW was spraying the mosh pit repeatedly with their 1,800 gallon pumper, and if any kids got too moshed up, they were escorted kindly off to a water tent at the side of the stage.

"Gotta keep 'em calmed down. Keep 'em away from heat exhaustion," one firefighter said.

* Language at Ozzfest does not comply with Pittsburgh Post-Gazette standards. Please use your imagination for any place in which the word "metal" is deployed.

10:15 A.M. -- I LOVE THE SMELL OF BLOOD IN THE MORNNNNINGGGGG!!!!!!!
The lead singer for Full Blown Chaos exhorted the crowd here at Ozzfest with that line just a few minutes ago. How he has the energy, I don't know -- I haven't seen any coffee here, only beer. Maybe there's a concession actually selling blood, next to the tour T-shirts. I honestly wouldn't be surprised.

I got here at Ozzfest at what I considered an ungodly (and therefore perfect for Ozzfest) time of 8:30 a.m., thinking there'd be just one or two lonely kids here, thirsting for metal. Instead there were hundreds already standing in line waiting for the doors to open at 9. Bleary-eyed and rather dazed -- it's already really hot -- I stopped the first guy I saw drinking a beer, in order to ask him what was wrong with him.

"This is gonna be a walk in the park, as long as we get to see Ozzy," Doug Fenton said. He and his buddy, Victor Bukky, came from Cleveland to see the show, renting a limo and hitting the road at 6 a.m.

It turned out the beers he and Victor were drinking were not, as I thought, their first of the day. Though it was their first show in a while -- Victor, 41, hasn't been to a show since the 1980s and Doug, 40, since seeing Cinderella, Poison and some other hair metal bands at a reunion show a while back.

"Ozzy's great. I can't understand a thing he says, but he sings great," said Victor, who works as a garbageman for a private hauler in Ohio.

I can already tell everything today will be a buildup to Ozzy, who's playing the tiny second stage in a parking lot around 4 p.m., over a hill from the main pavilion stage. And to think I was cranky about getting up so early. But Ozzy probably knows a few tricks -- something having to do with blood, I'd imagine.

Matt Freed, Post-Gazette The bassist for Norma Jean leads the band at Ozzfest today.