Black Sabbath have officially announced The End.
The band posted two images on their Facebook page – one with an image reading “Black Sabbath 1968-2017” and another showing Geezer Butler, Ozzy Osbourne and Tony Iommi on stage early in their career.
While the band wrapped up their 81-date The End tour in Birmingham last month, signing off with their classic 1970 hit Paranoid in front of a sold out show at the city’s Genting Arena, guitarist Iommi has previously hinted that one-off shows could happen in the future.
But could that possibility be in doubt in light of the two new social media posts?
In a recent interview with Classic Rock when asked if playing another show in Birmingham to mark their 50th anniversary next year could happen, Iommi says: “It would be nice, wouldn’t it? But again, there’s nothing planned. Not to my knowledge, anyway, but if we were offered something like that I think it would be great.”
He adds: “That’s the problem, you see. We don’t want to call it The End and then go off on another tour. One-off events? Yeah, I’d have no problem with that. I don’t think any of us wanted Sabbath to stop, but it got to the point where, for me, I needed it to.”
Frontman Osbourne previously reported: “We’re doing 80 shows – it’s good enough. I wouldn’t mind extending the tour for another few gigs. There’s a lot of people who won’t get to see us, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.
“We started off as four guys from Aston who had a dream, and it came true beyond our wildest dreams. We were manipulated, ripped off, conned. We lost each other within each other. But it’s great to have got this back just to end on a high note.”
