Ozzy Osbourne Plays His ‘Final Song’ With Black Sabbath

“Look at all this love for heavy metal.”

James Hetfield, the guitarist and lead vocalist for Metallica, gazed out at the crowd at Villa Park, a football stadium in Birmingham, England, on Saturday. His band was the last of a slew of headliner-caliber metal acts and seasoned pros in and around the genre to perform ahead of the night’s honoree and hometown hero: Ozzy Osbourne.

The gathering, a daylong festival called Back to the Beginning, was designed as both a tribute and a farewell. Osbourne, who has stepped back from live performance amid health issues including Parkinson’s disease and emphysema, played solo for the first time in nearly seven years and then, for the first time since 2005, reunited with all three other original members of his pathbreaking 1970s band Black Sabbath — the guitarist Tony Iommi; the bassist Terence Butler, known as Geezer; and the drummer Bill Ward — for a four-song set.

Both performances were billed as career finales at the event, which was organized by Osbourne’s wife, Sharon, along with the Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, and streamed worldwide with a two-hour delay.

“Metallica is so grateful to be invited here to see all your beautiful faces and celebrate the band Black Sabbath, because without Sabbath there would be no Metallica,” Hetfield continued. “Thank you, boys, for giving us a purpose in life; thank you, Black Sabbath.”

Gratitude was a theme throughout the concert, where artists didn’t simply cite Black Sabbath for inspiring them musically, but often credited the group with fostering an entire global subculture.