PHILADELPHIA — It was Oct. 30, 1970.

Black Sabbath was scheduled to make its first ever U.S. appearance at Glassboro State College’s Esbjornson Gymnasium in South Jersey.

And Ozzy Osbourne was running late.

The singer and reality TV star known as the “Prince of Darkness” died Tuesday at age 76. He was the leader of the band, which was starting a tour for its new album "Paranoid." Openers on the bill included Haystacks Balboa and Alexander Rabbit.

“Tickets were $1.50 in advance, $2.50 the day of the show,” recalled Rick Green, then a New York University undergrad and nascent music promoter — “a Bill Graham wannabe,” he said.

He had paid $750 to bring the heavy metal-inventing band to Gloucester County for a show advertised on a poster drawn by his sister, Andrea. Green would go on to co-found Midnight Sun Concerts, bringing David Bowie, Gram Parsons, the Police and many more to the Tower Theater in the 1970s and early 1980s.

After both openers had played, Osbourne and his Black Sabbath bandmates strutted into the venue, known to students as the Esby Gym, at around 9:45 p.m., said Green. Other accounts have the band showing up as late as 1 a.m.

Green, who lives in Newtown Square, said that’s a tall tale that only adds to the mythology of a gig that’s legendary enough in its own terms.

The cause for the band’s tardiness was that they had arrived at JFK Airport that afternoon. It was the U.K-born Osbourne’s first day in the U.S. and things had not gone according to plan.

“Ozzy had filled out his customs form saying his religion was ‘Satan,” Green said, “He was [messing] with them. Or, he was serious.”

In any case, officials decided to thoroughly inspect the equipment of the hirsute British rock band, causing them to arrive on campus of what is now Rowan University six hours after their scheduled sound check.

The band then plugged-in and began to play for a not-sold-out crowd of 300 with “N.I.B.,” a "Paranoid" song with lyrics by Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler, that Osbourne sang from the perspective of the Devil himself.

They played for “about a minute, and they blew out the power in the gym,” said Green. The band came off, trying to figure out what was wrong. Then they plugged in once more and started again.

“This time,” says Green, “they blew out the power on campus, and the entire city of Glassboro.” (On Tuesday, Rowan University posted about the concert on Facebook and said the outage wasn’t quite so widespread. It was limited to “across campus and throughout the neighborhood.”)

The outage was not due to the extremely loudness of Black Sabbath — though they were ear shattering — but because of the equipment they used. “They had British equipment that didn’t work in America,” Green said. “It’s something all the British bands know, but Black Sabbath had no idea.

Osbourne was not happy.

“He kicked the cymbals. He was bashing the drum kit, and saying “F— America, I want to go home! I don’t want to do this tour.”

And that was it for Black Sabbath in Glassboro.

Green said the full show didn’t happen, though setlist.fm lists a seven-song set and one guitar solo performance for that date.

“That didn’t happen. They didn’t [play] those songs,” Green said with certitude. That’s just a misremembered set list that matches the songs the band played on the rest of their tour dates, he suspects.

There was no outcry of outraged fans who felt they were cheated. “Half of them had left by then,” Green said. “They were just students who were going to a concert that was like a school dance.”

Black Sabbath was not that well known in the U.S. in the fall of 1970, but that would soon change. In exchange for being paid their full fee, the band agreed to do a make-up date with Green, though not at Glassboro, where Sabbath had been understandably banned.

Instead, Green booked them at Montclair College, selling out a 1,200 capacity gym in March 1971. And by the next month, the Sabbath and Osbourne were exploding in popularity and playing the 20,000 capacity Spectrum in South Philadelphia on a bill with Mountain and Humble Pie.

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