A woman walks past a mural painted in honour of rock band Black Sabbath ahead of their upcoming concert in Birmingham.
Credit: Reuters Photo
Birmingham: Tens of thousands of fans will rock out in Birmingham on Saturday as Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath reunite for what they have said will be their last live performance together.
Nearly six decades after helping create heavy metal music with an eponymous song that enthralled and frightened audiences, Black Sabbath will return to their home of Aston for "Back to the Beginning" at Villa Park stadium.
The one-off gig, with profits going to charity, has been billed as Ozzy's last performance, five years after the 76-year-old "Prince of Darkness" revealed he had Parkinson's disease.
More than a dozen other acts including Metallica, Guns N' Roses and Slayer are set to perform in tribute to Sabbath in the once-industrial English city considered the birthplace of the genre.
"The goal is a very simple one, and that is to create the greatest day in the history of heavy metal as a salute to the band that started it all," Rage Against the Machine member Tom Morello, the music director for the event, told Metal Hammer magazine.
The gig will unite Sabbath's original lineup of bassist Geezer Butler, guitarist Tony Iommi, drummer Bill Ward and frontman Ozzy for the first time in 20 years. Fans can expect performances of "Paranoid", "War Pigs", "Black Sabbath" and Ozzy's "Mama, I'm Coming Home".
Hotel prices in Birmingham have sky-rocketed and Sabbath murals and banners have started appearing across the city, whose factories were one of the influences for the band's heavy sound of loud, distorted guitar and aggressive vocals.
Lisa Meyer, who organised a Black Sabbath exhibition in Birmingham in 2019, said the band won over followers by offering a heavier alternative to the Beatlemania and hippy music of the 1960s.
"That's what really resonated with fans, giving a voice to that rage, anger and frustration, but doing it in a really cathartic way," Meyer, co-founder of the Home of Metal project, told Reuters.
Saturday's extravaganza will also feature performances by Lamb of God, Pantera, Anthrax, Tool, Gojira, Alice in Chains and Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst.