Wolfgang Van Halen has announced his withdrawal from the upcoming Black Sabbath farewell concert over tour commitments – find out more below.
- READ MORE: Sharon Osbourne and Tony Iommi tell us about Black Sabbath’s finale: “Usually this thing is done when you’re dead”
Sabbath’s huge farewell concert, dubbed ‘Back To The Beginning’, will be held at Villa Park in Birmingham on July 5. It’ll see frontman Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward perform onstage together for the first time in two decades.
The concert was first announced in early February – among the first wave of artists confirmed to perform was guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Wolfgang Van Halen. Now, however, the rocker has shared that he will no longer be able to perform at the Black Sabbath finale next week as his band Mammoth soon be embarking on a tour with Creed across North America.
Speaking to WRIF Detroit recently, Wolfgang Van Halen explained of the situation: “I, unfortunately, had to back out because the Creed tour starts the day after, and I wouldn’t be able to pull it off — unfortunately. I’m very excited to watch it, but I unfortunately had to back out.”
Van Halen’s withdrawal from the show comes shortly after Tool reassured fans that they’re still on the bill following rumours that Sharon Osbourne removed them from the line-up. Ozzy’s wife and manager Sharon recently revealed that she had kicked an act off the line-up. She also claimed that their manager had since been “going around making up bullshit lies”.
Fans subsequently speculated that Tool might have been booted off due to their name being removed on the official ‘Back To The Beginning’ website, though their name has since been re-added.
More recently, Sabbath themselves have shared with fans a behind-the-scenes picture of their rehearsals – which includes Ozzy and Bill Ward sitting and smiling together.
Black Sabbath’s stacked, star-studded bill boasts an array of heavyweights from the worlds of metal and rock. These include Tool, Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Alice In Chains, Gojira, Anthrax, Smashing Pumpkins‘ Billy Corgan, Guns N’ Roses, KoRn, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and the surviving members of Soundgarden.
A pay-per-view livestream will begin at 3pm BST on July 5, and those who have bought livestream tickets will continue to have access to the concert footage in its entirety for another 48 hours afterwards.
