This summer, Black Sabbath are going back to where it all began, with their original line-up reuniting for one last time for a hometown show at Villa Park in Birmingham, with an all-star cast in tow. But is it really the end for the heavy metal legends? To find out, and to get the lowdown on how they put together what promises to be a historic show, Music Week meets guitarist Tony Iommi and manager Sharon Osbourne…
WORDS: James Hickie
What frightens Tony Iommi? Given that Black Sabbath’s only constant member conjured the demonic sonics that spawned heavy metal, the guitarist seems far more accustomed to instilling dread than experiencing it. The dark sounds he has summoned on his guitar have unnerved mainstream sensibilities for six decades and counting. It’s somewhat odd, then, that one of his own sources of fear comes from such an unlikely place.
If you’ve seen ABBA Voyage of late, and spotted someone who looked suspiciously like Iommi, then your eyes weren’t deceiving you. He recently visited the ABBA Arena in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, describing the experience as “scary”.
“It’s fantastic and surreal to see [ABBA] there and yet they’re not,” the warm and personable 77-year-old explains, having identified the show as a prime example of how technological advances have rendered the music industry “unrecognisable” to the one Sabbath rose up in.
“It left a strange feeling in me,” he reflects further. “Whether that’s the direction people are going, I don’t know, but I’ve always been into the thing of having the live element. I don’t play the exact same stuff every night, so if I had to mime to what we did, I’d be all over the place!”
Iommi and his Black Sabbath bandmates – singer Ozzy Osbourne, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward – will reaffirm the importance of live performance at Birmingham’s Villa Park on July 5. The show, billed as ‘Back To The Beginning’, will be nothing short of an extravaganza, celebrating Sabbath, Ozzy, heavy metal in general, and the sense of community the genre has engendered for over half a century.
As well as featuring a headline appearance from Black Sabbath, with their classic line-up together for the first time in 20 years, Ozzy will play his own short set. Not only that, the star-studded show will also feature performances from Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Tool, Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins, Slayer, Pantera, Gojira, Halestorm, Mastodon and Alice In Chains. And that’s just for starters.
“I’m amazed and honoured they’re all doing it,” says Iommi. “It’s gone out of all proportion, with so many [bands] coming on board. I will be interested to see what some of the bands are going to do with Sabbath’s stuff, but then again I don’t think I’m going to be there all day – I’ll probably collapse. I think it starts quite early and goes on until I-don’t-know-what-time.”
According to the guitarist, the calibre of the bill is evidence of Sabbath’s seismic effect on music.
“You can see how we’ve impacted their lives,” Iommi says proudly. “And each [band], in turn, has taken what they’ve learned from us and done their own things. They may never have existed if it wasn’t for the original Sabbath.”
Sharon Osbourne agrees, as much on the grounds of Sabbath’s stubbornness and endurance as their role as musical pioneers.
“You’ve got to remember, this is a band that started in the ’60s – and they’re still here,” marvels the manager. “A lot of the bands who started in the ’60s are no longer alive, or operating as they used to.”
She recalls the reviews of the band’s 1970 self-titled debut, particularly that of Rolling Stone, written by cult music journalist Lester Bangs, who dismissed the record as ‘a shuck’.
“And that was just the first album!” she laughs. “[Sabbath] stood up to everything that was thrown at them for being different. They just kept their mouths shut and just toured and toured and toured, and never gave up.”
Osbourne suggests little has changed with regards to the snootiness with which heavy music is viewed these days, despite the overwhelming evidence of its popularity, both then and now. Ozzy Osbourne has, after all, sold more than 100 million albums across his work in Black Sabbath and as a solo artist, won multiple Grammy Awards (the most recent in 2023), while he and the band scooped an Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2015. Meanwhile, Back To The Beginning includes members of some of metal’s more recent success stories, including Sleep Token (who boast 9.2 million monthly Spotify listeners, and a simultaneous UK and US No.1 album in 2025) and Ghost (9.5 million monthly listeners and a US No.1 and UK No.2 album this year.)
“As far as the media goes, heavy music isn’t popular,” suggests Osbourne. “It’s never been that popular with the media, though I think the 1980s was the closest it ever got. The media doesn’t write that there’s an absolute resurgence for this music right now, with bands headlining stadiums all over the world. They never get written about because it’s not in vogue right now. They focus on all the girls [pop stars] out there. I’m not taking anything away from them, as they’re there for a totally different audience and great at what they do, but it’s just like a box of dolls, very cookie cutter. Meanwhile, these bands – heavy bands – have always been the bastards of the music industry.”
‘Bastards’ they may be, but that didn’t stop fans flooding online when, after several presales, the general sale arrived on Valentine’s Day. According to Live Nation, tickets sold out in less than 16 minutes, with more than 150,000 people reportedly in the virtual queue. Despite this, and with on sales under the microscope after the frenzied coverage around Oasis’ Live ’25 Tour, additional Back To The Beginning dates were never on the table.
“It’s impossible,” reasons Osbourne. “Putting this show on in the summer, the busiest time with everybody everywhere in Europe doing festivals. The number of artists we were able to get for that one day was incredible, but you just don’t get that for two days.”
For Osbourne, the success of the on sale is the culmination of the hard work to date from a variety of passionate people in their field – from Andy Copping at Live Nation, to Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello as musical director, and all of the staff at Villa Park.
“Not only are [Aston Villa] a great team, but everybody who works at Villa Park is great,” praises Osbourne. “From the people who let you into the ground to those working the bars, you really feel that. Whatever we’ve needed, they’ve accommodated, and it’s not because of who we are – it’s because they’re happy to be there. And that’s the atmosphere you want.”
She may be speaking to Music Week from her home in LA, but the 72-year-old Osbourne remains “a Brixton girl at heart”. Her early female role models included a school teacher, Miss Mayhew, “a tough arse old bitch” who’d survived the sinking of the Titanic and delivered slaps across the faces of any pupils not paying attention.
The daughter of the late manager and agent Don Arden – a controversial figure in the music industry who worked with the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Gene Vincent, Small Faces and Black Sabbath – she learned from her father’s missteps that managers should only do that one job.
“You never want to go with someone who says, ‘I can be your manager and your agent, a one-stop shop,’” she explains. “There are certain artists today where you’re not allowed to be a manager and an agent, but people still do it and get away with it by calling it a different company and all that bullshit. You cannot put your career in the hands of someone that does it all. It never, ever, ever works out.”
After Ozzy was sacked from Black Sabbath in 1979, Osbourne famously became his manager, enraging Arden, who’d intended to oversee both quarries, leading to father and daughter being estranged for 20 years (the two would later reconnect in the years before Arden’s death in 2007). These days, with the band’s four members each having different teams, she navigates the many tendrils of the management machine, keeping everyone connected.
“They had something worked out,” says Iommi of the arrangement. “I don’t know what they had worked out, but they did, and it worked. Most of the time, Sharon will call me, personally, if there’s a problem. You can’t have four managers all moaning about stuff – you have to give in and say, ‘OK, you look after that, then.’ And it seems to run well.”
“I think we have a good relationship,” Iommi – who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2012 – adds of his dynamic with Osbourne. “It’s like a family. You have arguments, but at the end of the day, if something happens, they’re always there. Certainly, when I was taken ill, everybody was there for me. And when Sharon was ill [she was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2002], everybody was there for her. It’s just been that way. You might have disagreements over the years, and slag each other, but it’s a unit and you always come back to that.”
Despite this cordiality and mutual respect, or perhaps because of it, Iommi politely declines a request for his ‘favourite’ Sharon Osbourne story.
“I don’t want to go into all that,” he says. “Sharon is Sharon, and most people know what Sharon is like. She could be really sweet and then [she could be] the other way. But she deals with whatever she needs to deal with.”
“You don’t want to fuck with me,” says Osbourne. “If I’d been a really sweet woman, I’d never have gotten to where I am today.”
While Iommi is sure the emotions attached to the upcoming show will trump even the reunion with Ozzy in 1997, when the original line-up reconvened for a run of dates, areas of uncertainty remain.
“This would be a big, monumental thing if it all comes good,” admits Iommi. “The worrying thing for me is the unknown. We don’t know what’s going to happen. Normally, when we’d tour, we’d rehearse and run through the thing for a while, and it’s just us. But with this event there are so many other moving parts.”
Chief among the uncertainties is Ozzy’s health and how it will affect his onstage capabilities. A month of rehearsals in Birmingham is scheduled for June, and Iommi and Ozzy have exchanged setlist wishlists, which will be consolidated in due course.
“They’ll do it when they get in the room,” assures Sharon.
Yet the spectre of how their iconic frontman will fare looms large.
The last six years have seen the 76-year-old deal with a series of health conditions, from bouts of pneumonia, to a fall that aggravated damage sustained in a 2003 quad bike accident, necessitating spinal surgery, to being diagnosed with a form of Parkinson’s disease. These challenges are chronicled in a new feature-length documentary, Ozzy Osbourne: No Escape From Now, which will be shown on Paramount+ later this year.
The film, produced by Echo Velvet, the BAFTA Award-winning production house featuring former Mojo, Q and Kerrang! editor-in-chief Phil Alexander as its creative director, is directed by his wife, Tania, the co-creator of Gogglebox. It makes for incredibly powerful, if difficult, viewing, according to Sharon Osbourne.
“It’s horribly painful,” she says of seeing the realities of Ozzy’s life now on screen. “Ozzy saw a bit of it and couldn’t keep watching. There’s still humour with Ozzy – he’s still funny – but there were a lot of tears.”
Ozzy recently gave a more hopeful update to The Guardian, revealing he’s got a trainer living with him and has regular visits from a vocal coach, which his wife corroborates.
“[Ozzy’s] working with his therapist every single day,” she says. “He’s doing really well, actually. Ozzy’s number one thing in life is his fans, so he’s working hard to be ready for them, to make this show the perfect way to end things.”
Ozzy’s in argumentative form too, apparently. The night before we talk, in fact, a row erupted about the logistics of Ozzy’s multiple appearances during Back To The Beginning.
“He shouted across the kitchen that he wanted to know how he’ll enter for his own set compared to Sabbath’s set,” reveals the manager. “I’m like, ‘We haven’t got there yet – give me time!”
“You’re used to Ozzy running around, but he certainly won’t be doing that for this show,” says Iommi. “I don’t know if he’s going to be standing or sitting on a throne or what…”
For Tony Iommi, a superstar guitarist who has weathered personal and professional problems over the years – from losing the tips of two fingers in an industrial accident as a teenager, to illness, to in-fighting and line-up changes – the sense of the “unknown” holds real excitement.
“Excitement mixed with fear,” he clarifies with a laugh, echoing the sentiments of Geezer Butler, who recently admitted that the anxiety associated with the show, and the desire to bow out on a high note, has given him “nightmares” and “palpitations”.
“Once we start playing, then we’ll know we’re doing it,” says Iommi. “It’s always a worry, even when we did tours before, there’s always that build-up, and then it gets to the point that we do it and it’s OK.”
Thankfully, it’s not Iommi or Butler’s job to corral the many moving parts for this forthcoming extravaganza. That job has instead fallen to Tom Morello, who as well as performing as part of a supporting bill that includes members of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Disturbed, Faith No More and Living Colour, is also the musical director.
“It’s a big role,” says Iommi. “I certainly wouldn’t want to take it on! I’ve spoken to him on the phone, to sort out what we’re going to play, so the other bands don’t play the same songs, because each one will be doing a Sabbath song or an Ozzy song.”
Osbourne is also full of admiration for Morello.
“He’s been working on this for months and months,” she says. “To pull it together and have his personality on board is fantastic. He’s not like me, someone who goes crazy – he’s very calming and controlled, which you need to be as there are 14 bands and about 30 or 40 other individuals doing supergroups together – and he’s in charge of all of that.”
Another of his responsibilities, it would appear, has been to galvanise the members of Black Sabbath by reminding them of the esteem they’re held in.
“Tom has said that these bands grew up with us and love us and they want to pay their respects, which is really fantastic,” reveals Iommi. “I just can’t believe they’ve all come forward – and even still more artists are coming, like Steven Tyler and [members of] Soundgarden.”
As it turns out, a degree of flattery and cajoling had been necessary. Despite drummer Bill Ward having not performed with Black Sabbath since Ozzfest in 2005, it was Iommi, in fact, who took the most convincing – initially unsure he wanted to join the trend of bands reuniting having called time on live performances.
Happily, his doubts were assuaged by the fact that all profits are going to Cure Parkinson’s, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Acorn Children’s Hospice.
“[The show] being for charity drew me into it,” says Iommi. “It’s not just to get out and play again with the band, because we would never be able to do a full show because of everybody’s condition now.”
Iommi was sure Black Sabbath’s The End Tour, which culminated in a show at Birmingham’s Genting Arena on February 4, 2017 and was captured in the documentary Black Sabbath: The End Of The End, was exactly that – the end. He admits now, however, that there was a caveat.
“I did say that if one show came up, we’d think about it,” he says.
Iommi and Ozzy did make a surprise appearance at the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham back in 2022. And now, three years on, there’s Back To The Beginning, which may lead some to take the finality of this enterprise with a pinch of salt… so is this really the end?
“It’s absolutely the end,” says Iommi, his chuckle not detracting from his conviction. “This show has come up because of the situation [with Ozzy’s health] and because it’s a charity thing. But there’s no way we could go out and do a tour. Everybody in the band is looking forward to doing it, though it’s a nerve-racking thing, as we’ll be touching on some stuff that we haven’t done for a long time.”
While Sharon Osbourne is unsure if she’ll even be able to look at Ozzy on stage, given the wealth of emotions the moment will elicit, she reaffirms the show’s status as the final curtain call.
“The fact this is the end is what makes it special,” she says. “I just want the fans to be ecstatic about the day.”
As does Iommi, though he’s conscious there are thousands who were unable to get tickets.
“It’s a shame because so many people won’t be able to see this show,” he says. “I don’t know if they’re going to stream it or what…”
“We’re talking to people about it now,” says Osbourne of plans to ensure no one misses out.
But will celebrations of this magnitude become a thing of the past? Is it possible for more Ozzys and Sabbaths to come through in the future, with new Sharon Osbournes championing them?
The manager believes so, because, for all the changes in the industry, one fundamental remains.
“It’s all about the talent,” she says. “I’ve never been someone who says, ‘If you have a face job, lose 20lbs and stick a toilet roll down the fucking crotch of your jeans you’re going to make it.’ You can’t just find someone who’s a great singer and think you can turn them into a star. You’ve either got it or you don’t…”
PHOTOS: Kevin Goff/Warner/Ross Halfin/Samir Hussein/Getty
