The original Black Sabbath will reunite this July for a British heavy metal festival performance hailed as Ozzy Osbourne’s final concert.
The four original members — Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, and drummer Bill Ward, who hadn’t taken part in recent reunions, including their The End Tour in 2016 — will perform together live for the first time since 2005 at what’s being called Back to the Beginning, an all-star, one-night-only charity gig in Birmingham, England on July 5.
Also on the lineup for Osbourne’s farewell party at Back to the Beginning: Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Gojira, Alice in Chains, and more, with Tom Morello serving as musical director. “This will be the greatest heavy metal show ever,” the guitarist told the Guardian.
In recent years, as Osbourne battled Parkinson’s disease and underwent several spinal surgeries, the singer remained optimistic about giving fans one final performance; Osbourne was due to return to the stage in 2023 at the Power Trip festival, but that appearance was canceled due to medical issues.
“I’m taking it one day at a time, and if I can perform again, I will,” Osbourne told Rolling Stone UK in November 2023. “But it’s been like saying farewell to the best relationship of my life. At the start of my illness, when I stopped touring, I was really pissed off with myself, the doctors, and the world. But as time has gone on, I’ve just gone, ‘Well, maybe I’ve just got to accept that fact.’”
Osbourne, at that time, also revealed that he and Bill Ward — with whom Ozzy had a long feud — mended their decade-long falling out, but that amid Osbourne’s health problems, bassist Geezer Butler “hasn’t given me one fucking phone call. Not one fucking call.” (Butler later clarified on social media that he had reached out to Ozzy.)
“It’s my time to go back to the beginning… time for me to give back to the place where I was born,” Osbourne, who will play a solo set before rejoining Black Sabbath, said in a statement social media Wednesday. “How blessed am I to do it with the help of people whom I love. Birmingham is the true home of metal. Birmingham for ever.”
Also appearing at Birmingham’s Villa Park on July 5 are Lamb of God, Anthrax, Halestorm, Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan, Disturbed singer David Draiman, Wolfgang Van Halen, Duff McKagan, and Slash of Guns ‘N Roses, Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst, Korn’s Jonathan Davis, and more.
Proceeds from Back to the Beginning will benefit Cure Parkinson’s, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, and the Birmingham-based Acorns Children’s Hospice. The gig will take place at Osbourne’s Villa Park, the home stadium of his beloved Aston Villa soccer team.
