Moshers gathered in their masses. Spilling out of the crazy train from Birmingham to Villa Park earlier this month, the thousands of black band shirts contained a universe: spandexed glam rock nestled next to indecipherable black metal logos, accessorised with wild hair, tough belts and tougher boots. Denim and leather jackets almost sagged under the weight of stitched-on patches. Metal’s tribalism is a marvel, a commitment to a sound and lifestyle on the margins of the mainstream. That Saturday, the genre’s fans were out in force, giving thanks to the man who started it all.
The daylong metal celebration Back to the Beginning was billed as the farewell concert by Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath. But Ozzy’s delayed retirement, due to the effects of debilitating surgeries and Parkinson’s disease, barely masked a different motive: this was surely it, and not just creatively. We wondered: would Ozzy be well enough to perform. If so, what would that performance look like? It gave the day the air of a wake happening in real time.
Black Sabbath had never been stymied by illness or adversity. Tony Iommi lost the tips of two fingers as a teenager but persisted in learning the guitar by making his own prosthetic fingertips and adopting light-gauge strings, which created Black Sabbath’s signature tone. In recent years, he’s lived with cancer. Bassist Geezer Butler has been open about his long experience with depression and drummer Bill Ward is a heart-attack survivor. A degenerative disease, Parkinson’s is marked by its cruelty, robbing a person of their agency and ability to express themselves. For a performer, Parkinson’s may feel like a premature death, of the persona they’ve created and the power it exerts.
Hours before Ozzy appeared onstage at Villa Park, that power and the reverence his lovable, cartoonish, hellraising persona inspires was obvious in the legions of bands – and acolytes – who played before him. Acts forewent their usual fees to raise record-shattering profits for charities supporting children’s hospitals, hospices and Parkinson’s research; there was a drum-off between members of Blink-182, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tool for Sabbath’s Symptom of the Universe; Yungblud cranked Ozzy’s Changes up to 11. The format soaked up the boyish camaraderie, the big kids in Ozzy’s shadow who live for metal.
As the skies darkened, chants of “Ozzy! Ozzy! Ozzy!” rose and the stage illuminated a figure seated on a throne of bats. It could be easy for some to forget – through the haze of reality TV, Brummie mumbles and cartoonish antics – that Osbourne’s vocals gave rise to an entire genre. To lose that would be to lose it all, so there was mass relief that he was in surprisingly good form. He was visibly fighting against his physical limitations and getting into character with wide-eyed growls, his tone and conviction punching through on Mama, I’m Coming Home and Paranoid.
His fragility generated a sense of urgency; hearing him sing in person, I recognised that Ozzy’s power had always been in his fragility. His voice was a soul’s wail, not a grunt or growl. In life, his honesty drew people closer to him. The mythology around his performances and wilderness years propelled his fame, but this night flashed him way back to a moment when his ad in the paper searching for bandmates might have been passed over, consigning him to a life as John Michael rather than Ozzy, another working-class lad from Aston in search of immortal truths.
Back to the Beginning began as an impressively curated tribute. Now it takes on greater resonance as a swansong. We didn’t know it, trudging out of Villa Park with the smell of fireworks and lager in the air, but it now seems like the most well-executed exit in entertainment since David Bowie’s. Closing the circle ignited something in Osbourne that night, and in turn, the audience. He clung on for one last moment under the spotlight, one final connection. And then he went home.