In 1968, four guys in Birmingham started a band together: Singer Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, and drummer Bill Ward. At first, they called themselves the Polka Tulk Blues Band. They changed their name a couple of times, first to Earth and then to Black Sabbath. Under that final name, they released a string of absolute monster classic records and more or less invented the genre of heavy metal. Osbourne left the band in 1977, and he went on to a great solo career, while the other guys made more great records with their next singer, the late Ronnie James Dio. The four original members of Black Sabbath have reunited a few times over the years, and now they'll do it one more time, for what's billed as Ozzy Osbourne's final performance.
It's not easy to get all four OG Black Sabbath members back together. The classic-lineup Sabbath originally got back together in 1997, and they returned in 2011. But Bill Ward left the band contentiously before they recorded the shockingly strong 2013 reunion album 13 and embarked on their farewell tour. In 2020, Ozzy Osbourne announced that he's been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and he retired from touring three years later. Now, Osbourne and the reunited classic-lineup Black Sabbath will both perform in July, headlining a gigantic metal show at a Birmingham festival called Back To The Beginning.
At Back To The Beginning, Black Sabbath will headline after a short solo performance from Ozzy Osbourne. The absolutely insane bill also features Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Gojira, Halestorm, Alice In Chains, Lamb Of God, Anthrax, and Mastodon. We're also looking at special appearances from Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan, Disturbed's David Draiman, Guns N' Roses' Slash and Duff McKagan, Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst, Korn's Jonathan Davis, Sammy Hagar, Wolfgang Van Halen, and Jake E. Lee, the former Ozzy guitarist who was recently shot multiple times, among others. The poster teases an appearance from Ghost's new frontman Papa V Perpetua. Tom Morello, another guy who's putting in an appearance, tells The Guardian, "This will be the greatest heavy metal show ever." It goes down 7/5 at Birmingham's Villa Park.
UPDATE: Butler shared a video about the announcement on Instagram, and Osbourne gave a health update on his SiriusXM radio show. "I can't walk, but you know what I was thinking over the holidays?" he said. "For all my complaining, I'm still alive. I may be moaning that I can't walk but I look down the road and there's people that didn't do half as much as me and didn't make it."
Check out our We've Got A File On You interview with Ozzy Osbourne here.
