Back to the Beginning, the much anticipated final performance of Ozzy Osbourne, was packed with wall to wall metal and heartfelt tributes. It was enough to make you want to bang your head and cry at the same time.
With actor and known metalhead Jason Momoa as the MC for the day, Back To The Beginning festivities kicked off at 1:30 pm British time Saturday July 5th. Momoa exclaimed that the event was “the most epic day in the history of heavy metal,” and may have been right.
The concert was a tribute to Ozzy Osbourne, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease several years ago, and billed as his final on-stage performance.
Within 40 minutes Mastodon, Rival Sons, Anthrax, and Halestorm had already taken the stage. With a notable cover of Ozzy’s “Perry Mason” by Halestorm.
The whole thing was reminiscent of The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness was a benefit concert held on Easter Monday, 20 April 1992, at Wembley Stadium in London, England, for an audience of 72,000, which was also available on Pay Per View (the old version of a live stream) and was much discussed throughout the years. This concert will be equally as remembered. However, the cool thing is the person the tribute was for actually got to be there.
The crowd for Back to the Beginning was estimated to be about 45,000 dedicated metalheads and a peak of 5.8 million more on the accompanying livestream. The concert was held in Birmingham, England, where Black Sabbath is from, and took place in Villa Park, the stadium of Aston Villa Football Club. This event marked Ozzy Osbourne’s return to his hometown for his last performance.
Supergroup A
While all of the bands gave solid, albeit short performances, the Super groups were certainly a highlight since this was a one-time opportunity to see all of these grates on stage at once.
After Lamb of God, the first supergroup of the day was introduced, backed by Anthrax’s Scott Ian, ex-Megadeth bassist David Ellefson, Faith No More’s Mike Bordin on drums, Sabbath keyboardist Adam Wakeman, Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt and one time Ozzy guitarist Jake E. Lee.
Props have to be given up for Bettencourt, who is an extremely solid guitar player and was great for the all star jam portions of the show. His playing was intricate, soulful, and often held the songs together. Not forgetting of course contributions by Chad Smith and Travis Barker to keep the beat.
Lzzy Hale opened the supergroup jam by singing Ozzy’s “Ultimate Sin,” representing an entire gender as the only woman on the bill. In an interview for Audacy Music, Hale addressed that by saying, “I was talking to my friends Taylor Momsen and Amy Lee and Maria Brink and all of my sisters in this genre, and they’re all so proud of me. And I said, ‘Hey, girls, I’m carrying you with me. You’re gonna be there in spirit. I’m gonna make you girls so proud.’ And so it’s this beautiful event that everyone gets to look forward to. I’m so glad they’re doing it.”
After Hale, David Draiman sang Ozzy’s “Shot in the Dark” and Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf.” Then, Ugly Kid Joe’s Whitfield Crane took on “Believer,” and did a very decent job.
(Just saying, Amy Lee could’ve killed “Changes” on vocals and piano.) However, newer English singer songwriter Yungblud ultimately sang Sabbath’s “Changes,” as Anthrax’s Frank Bello and Sleep Token’s II joined in on the all-star jam and definitely brought their A game, especially when the whole crowd sang along.
Between supergroups, Alice in Chains did a short set where current vocalist William DuVal nailed their Black Sabbath cover “Fairies Wear Boots” proving that he has a damn good voice.
Gojira also did a solid set performing “Mea Culpa,” made famous by their performance of it at the Olympics in France last year, accompanied again by opera singer Marina Viotti, which received an enthusiastic response. They also covered Sabbath’s “Under the Sun.”
Supergroup B
The second supergroup featured Tom Morello, Nuno Bettencourt, Andrew Watt, Rudy Sarzo, and Chad Smith had several vocalists including Billy Corgan who made a valiant attempt to sing “Breaking the Law” with Judas Priest’s KK Downing coming in for a guest spot on guitar. Corgan is known for playing alternate music with Smashing Pumpkins but in truth grew up a Metalhead. However, his voice just was not strong enough for singing Priest. Living Colour’s Vernon Reid and the Rolling Stones Ronnie Wood also joined in at one point.
The crowd seemed a little bit confused when Tobias Forge from Ghost came on stage and sang “Bark at the Moon” in face paint and a sparkly jacket. If he wore his trademark pope outfit, maybe more people would have recognized him.
Sammy Hagar then came out and did a fun but middle of the road performance of Ozzy’s “Flying High Again” and “Rock Candy” (by his original band Montrose) sporting a shirt that read “free tequila.”
Then, Steven Tyler made a surprise appearance showing everyone what a lead vocalist should look, act and sound like. Don’t forget Aerosmith were forced to pull the plug on their own farewell tour last year due to a serious vocal injury suffered by Tyler a year earlier. So, it was interesting to see Tyler in such good form. Tyler sang a total of three songs, including “The Train Kept A-Rollin’” and “Walk This Way,” and a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” where his vocals really shined.
Other Tributes
Marilyn Manson gave a nice tribute to Ozzy via a video shown between bands. Manson is currently on his own tour but there is speculation that he was not there in person because they canceled his shows in England due to controversy surrounding prior allegations against him that have already been dropped. Sharon Osborne has always supported Manson, but some people booed but some cheered during the video. Manson of course did not make it about himself and just Express his love for Ozzy in a short and sweet way.
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David Draiman caused a similar controversy by recently making negative comments about Palestine and was also both cheered and booed when he hit the stage.
To be fair, it was an emotional event, with countless moments of praise and appreciation for Ozzy and Black Sabbath and everything they’ve done for metal music. Dolly Parton, Elton John, Billy Idol, Jonathan Davis, and others also recorded messages to Ozzy and Sabbath about their impact on metal music. During the show, self-recorded videos from fans professing their love for Black Sabbath, also appeared on the big screen between acts as well.
Jack Black also did a pre-taped music video featuring Roman Morello (Tom Morello’s son) and Revel Ian (Scott Ian of Anthrax’s son) doing a rendition of Ozzy’s “Mr. Crowley” with Black nailing the vocals.
Headliners
Pantera did their set with the lineup they had recently been touring with consisting of classic-era Pantera vocalist Philip Anselmo and bassist Rex Brown along with guitarist Zakk Wylde and Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante. They opened with a medley of “Cowboys From Hell” and “Walk.” Near the beginning of “Cowboys From Hell.” Meanwhile, Momoa walked off the front of the stage, climbed over the barricade and into the audience to help start a circle pit near the front of the crowd.
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Tool did a visceral and deeply heavy set as always. Tool’s version of Black Sabbath’s “Hand of Doom” was dark and heavy as it should be but with that Tool sound added in, and Maynard’s smooth eerie vocals, was one of the best covers of the evening.
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Slayer was by far one of the heaviest performances. Slayer paid homage to Black Sabbath by playing a version of “Wicked World” that veered into “South of Heaven” and then back to “Wicked World.” They also played “Raining Blood” and “Angel of Death” with an intensity that only they can bring. Their Circle pit appeared naturally.
Guns N’ Roses sounded tight af as a band since they’ve been touring relentlessly lately. Even with Axl babying his voice by using falsetto, their version of “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” was on point with Axl sounding like his old self in the lower register parts.
Interestingly, Guns n’ Roses and Metallica both played at the aforementioned Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert back in the 1990’s as well. The infamous tour they did together around that same period did not end well so it is always interesting to see them share a stage. After all these years though, I’m sure they have buried the hatchet.
Although, it should be noted that The Hollywood Reporter described Axl Rose that night as “less ego-driven than we’ve seen him in concert and very much focused on the task at hand — honoring the band that pioneered heavy metal and broke open the floodgates for bad boys just like him. They played four Sabbath covers and two of their own songs “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Paradise City” while Metallica did the reverse.”
Some people said that Axl struggled with his voice on their other Sabbath cover “Never Say Die” but honestly so did just about every vocalist that day. I think if we learned one thing from this concert, it’s that Ozzy is an extremely unique vocalist who will never be replaced in the world of metal. All of the Ozzy and Sabbath tributes were well done and heartfelt but few can live up to the original.
Metallica opened their set with the Black Sabbath’s “Hole in the Sky,” off of Sabotage, which they hadn’t performed live since 2009. They also did a deep cut cover of “Johnny Blade” off Never Say Die!, marking the first time they’d ever played that song live, and also did their classics “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “Battery” and “Master of Puppets,” Which are always crowd pleasers.
Interestingly, backstage, Slipknot’s Sid Wilson proposed to Ozzy’s daughter Kelly Osbourne. As Wilson dropped to one knee in front of Ozzy, Sharon, and Jack and began telling Kelly how much he loved her, Ozzy interrupted by joking, “Fuck off, you’re not marrying my daughter.” The longtime couple share a son, Sidney, born in November 2022.
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Last but most certainly not least, Ozzy came to the stage decked out in sparkles emblazoned on black, of course, with dark hair again for the occasion, sitting on a bat wing-embellished throne. He sang songs like “Crazy Train” along with longtime partner in crime Zakk Wylde on guitar. Their performance of the ballad “Mama I’m Coming Home” brought the crowd to tears and seemed to affect the singer most in the moment as well.
The headlining act, of course, was Black Sabbath with original members Ozzy, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward ( proudly shirtless) performing together for the first time in 20 years. They did “War Pigs”, “N.I.B.”, “Iron Man” and “Paranoid” as Ozzy continued to perform from his black-winged throne. At the end, which many complained did not air on the live stream, the other members of Sabbath presented Ozzy with a cake while fireworks lit up the stadium from overhead.
This was a spectacular, chaotic, moving, perfectly fitting tribute to the Prince of Darkness himself Ozzy Osbourne who was relishing every moment of his final performance with as much glee as usual even while sitting.
This will certainly be remembered for years to come just like the Freddie Mercury tribute. It’s just Ozzy actually got to be a part of it and that makes it even more amazing.
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