It’s now been nearly a month since perhaps the most iconic and historically meaningful moment in heavy metal history took place in Birmingham, U.K. called the ‘Back To The Beginning”. It was a massive farewell show for Ozzy Osbourne’s solo career, as well as the insanely influential career of Black Sabbath. And while plenty of people have shared their thoughts on that day — especially in the wake of Ozzy’s death just a couple weeks later — few perspectives hit quite as hard as that of those surviving members of Black Sabbath.

In a recent interview with Mike Stark of the LA Radio Sessions show, drummer Bill Ward looked back on that day on July 5 with deep reverence. To him, it was a chance to thank everyone that made his storied career possible.

“My feeling, at that point, was really to get off the drum [riser]. Really, that’s what I was thinking about, and to see if Ozzy was okay. That’s what I was thinking about. And making sure Geezer [Butler, SABBATH bassist] and Tony [Iommi, SABBATH guitarist] are heads up. And then I wanted to see the audience, so I went out and I applauded the audience. So that’s what was on my mind. And I looked behind me, and my family was there, and I applauded my family and people that were around me on the stage. I had a lot of staff members there, and I applauded them. So it was about just basically honoring all the people that had been listening. That’s exactly what I was doing. It wasn’t really anything that was deeper or mature or anything. I just wanted to say thanks to everybody. There was a lot of musicians there that I know, and I was applauding them as well. I love them very much. As you know, we’ve had our radio show for many, many years, so we’ve met a lot of artists.”