Ozzy Osbourne and a reunited Black Sabbath will play their final concert in July.
The show will take place at Villa Park in Aston, Birmingham on July 5 and feature the last-ever live performances from The Prince Of Darkness and Black Sabbath’s original lineup: Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward.
Support will come from a host of legendary bands the heavy metal pioneers have inspired: Metallica, Lamb Of God, Slayer, Gojira, Alice In Chains, Mastodon, Halestorm and Anthrax.
Rounding out the extravaganza will be an all-star group featuring Billy Corgan (The Smashing Pumpkins), Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine), Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit), Jonathan Davis (Korn), Wolfgang Van Halen and many others. Morello will also serve as the musical director for the event.
Tickets will go on sale on Friday, February 14, at 10am UK time.
See the full list of performers in the poster below.
All proceeds from the show will go to Birmingham charities, namely Cure Parkinson’s, the Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Acorn Children’s Hospice
Osbourne comments: “It’s my time to go Back to the Beginning… time for me to give back to the place where I was born. How blessed am I to do it with the help of people whom I love. Birmingham is the true home of metal. Birmingham Forever.”
Morello adds that the one-day extravaganza will be “the greatest heavy metal show ever”.
Last year, Osbourne and Butler appeared together in a promotional video for Aston Villa football club, in which they joked about playing at the team’s home stadium.
In January 2024, Sharon Osbourne told an audience at London’s Fortune Theatre that Osbourne was planning a show at Villa Park this year. During a Q&A with Loose Women colleague Jane Moore, Sharon said, “He won’t tour again but we are planning on doing two more shows to say goodbye as he feels like ‘I have never said goodbye to my fans and I want to say goodbye properly’. We will do it in Aston Villa where Ozzy is from. His voice is still absolutely perfect.”
The last time Black Sabbath’s original lineup played a full show together was an Ozzfest date at the Sound Advice Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach, Florida, on September 4, 2005.
Their final live appearance onstage was at the UK Music Hall Of Fame ceremony at Alexandra Palace in London later that year, where they played just one song, Paranoid.
In 2011, the four men appeared at a press conference at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood to announce a final world tour together, but Ward’s place had been taken by Tommy Clufetos by the time the dates kicked off the following year.
In what’s shaping up to be a bumper year for old-school heavy metal in UK stadiums, Sabbath’s homecoming will take place just a week after Iron Maiden headline the London Stadium, 130 miles to the south.
