Prior to last week’s death of BLACK SABBATH singer Ozzy Osbourne, SABBATH drummer Bill Ward reflected on the band’s final concert in an interview with Mike Stark of the LA Radio Sessions show, which airs Sundays at 10 a.m. (Pacific Time) on 99.1 KLBP-FM in Long Beach, California. Asked what determined SABBATH‘s setlist for the “Back To The Beginning” concert on July 5 at Villa Park in Birmingham, United Kingdom, Bill said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Good question. I think it was a common denominator of what we thought we might be able to play. There was a couple of other songs that we tried. [It] didn’t quite work out. I can think it was [about] finding the most popular songs — actually, popular is not a very good word, ’cause there’s probably a lot of songs that are popular. Definitive — yeah, let’s go with definitive, as being the most definitive songs that work for all of us, all of us being the bandmembers.”
Asked what his feelings were once the final note was played in Birmingham, Bill said: “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.”
Ozzy played a five-song set with his solo band — consisting of guitarist Zakk Wylde, bassist Mike Inez, keyboardist Adam Wakeman and drummer Tommy Clufetos — before being joined by fellow original BLACK SABBATH members Iommi, Butler and Ward for four classic SABBATH songs: “War Pigs”, “Iron Man”, “N.I.B.” and “Paranoid”.
Ozzy‘s solo set consisted of four songs from Osbourne‘s 1980 solo debut album “Blizzard Of Ozz” — “I Don’t Know”, “Mr. Crowley”, “Suicide Solution” and “Crazy Train” — along with his 1991 “No More Tears” ballad “Mama, I’m Coming Home”.
The singer, who was battling Parkinson’s disease, sang while seated on a black throne and appeared overcome with emotion at times. “You have no idea how I feel. Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” he told the crowd.
At the end of SABBATH‘s set, Ozzy said: “It’s the last song ever. Your support has enabled us to live an amazing lifestyle, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.” Osbourne was then presented with a cake, while fireworks lit up the stadium from overhead.
A message on screen then read, “Thank you for everything, you guys are fucking amazing. Birmingham Forever,” before the sky lit up with fireworks.
More than 40,000 fans attended the event in the stadium and 5.8 million more on a livestream. Profits from the show, which also saw performances from METALLICA, SLAYER, PANTERA, LAMB OF GOD and ANTHRAX, among others, will be shared equally between the charities Cure Parkinson’s, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Acorn Children’s Hospice.
There was also an online auction benefiting those charities. Items up for bid included two Gibson guitars signed by performers, a GUNS N’ ROSES pinball machine, several gold record and CD displays, including BLACK SABBATH‘s “Paranoid”, LED ZEPPELIN‘s “Physical Graffiti” and METALLICA‘s “Master Of Puppets”, plus more than a dozen travel packages.
A livestream of the daylong event was announced in June. While it was called a livestream, the video was delayed two hours from the in-arena start time.
Earlier in the month, Iommi told SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” about the songs that SABBATH chose to perform on July 5: “We worked out what we were gonna play, what songs we were gonna play. And it was really a case of how long Ozzy could do it, really, because we didn’t know — with him doing his own set [right before], which I said to him I didn’t think he should do, because I didn’t want him to get burnt out by the time he’d come with us. But he didn’t, and he did his own set. We ended up doing four songs where we put aside sort of six or seven. But it worked out that we did four. So that was fine.”
After host Eddie Trunk noted that he was surprised to see Ozzy come back on stage so soon after performing with his solo band to sing the final four songs with SABBATH, Iommi said: “Yeah, that was my concern and that was all our concern, actually — Geezer, myself and Bill. We thought that he should have a longer break. And we didn’t really know how we were gonna do it, because the original plan was we’d get a curtain and the curtain was gonna be raised and we’d all be there. But of course, on the day — well, the day before, when went down for a soundcheck to the stadium — the curtain didn’t work and they thought best not to use it ’cause it was windy. So then we had to figure out how we were gonna get on stage, which was a revolving stage, by the way. It was mainly getting Ozz on, because he’s in his throne. And then Geezer and I walk on. And Bill was already on. So it was making it up as we went on, really.”
Iommi added that SABBATH was ready to play more songs but that he and the other musicians had run out of time. “Well, we had seven songs that we’d gone through, and then it went down to six,” he said. “And then, of course, there is a strong curfew at the Villa. You know what, Eddie?! I’m surprised they managed to get all the bands in anyway — I really am — because the organization… How [RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE guitarist and event’s music curator] Tom Morello had organized that was just incredible. He had really done a great job. But they were working to the minute, and it was touch and go. You couldn’t go over your time span; otherwise I don’t know what would’ve happened because they do work to a serious cut-off.”
On the topic of which other songs BLACK SABBATH had rehearsed, Tony said: “Well, we started with ‘Fairies Wear Boots’, and then we’d done ‘Black Sabbath’. And it was a little difficult for Bill ’cause he hadn’t played them for so long. And Geezer and I, of course, we played them on the last tour. And, of course, Bill hasn’t toured, don’t forget, for a long time. So we could have done six [songs], but we ended up doing four.”
