{"id":621635,"date":"2026-09-11T17:40:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T17:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/621635\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T17:40:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T17:40:19","slug":"i-said-to-ozzy-i-dont-think-we-should-do-it-we-should-just-let-the-other-bands-play-our-stuff-and-us-come-out-at-the-end-and-say-thank-you-tony-iommi-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/621635\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI said to Ozzy, \u2018I don\u2019t think we should do it. We should just let the other bands play our stuff, and us come out at the end and say thank you\u2019\u201d: Tony Iommi says that Black Sabbath\u2019s final show almost didn\u2019t happen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tony Iommi<\/a> has revealed that he seriously considered cancelling Black Sabbath<\/a>\u2019s farewell show with Ozzy Osbourne<\/a> because he feared that the singer was too weak to perform on stage.<\/p>\n

In a new interview with Classic Rock magazine, guitarist Iommi also says that he didn\u2019t want Osbourne to perform a set of his solo material before Sabbath\u2019s performance ended the show.<\/p>\n

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The Back To The Beginning event at Villa Park in Birmingham on 5 July 2025 saw Osbourne singing solo and with Black Sabbath while seated on a throne. Just 17 days after the show, Osbourne died at the age of 76.<\/p>\n

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Back To The Beginning also featured sets by a host of bands who were influenced by Black Sabbath, including Metallica<\/a>, Guns N\u2019 Roses, Tool and Slayer.<\/p>\n

Iommi tells Classic Rock: \u201cI said to Ozzy: \u2018I don\u2019t think we should do it.\u2019 I said: \u2018We should just let the other bands play our stuff, and us come out at the end and say thank you. But it was for a good charitable cause, and eventually we said okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Back to the beginning Ozzy Osbourne -Black Sabbath – July 5 2025 Villa Park Birmingham – YouTube
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Iommi explains that the band\u2019s signature song Black Sabbath was dropped from their set because drummer Bill Ward had struggled to play it during rehearsals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe needed to rehearse with Bill, because it had been twenty years and he couldn\u2019t remember how to play some of his stuff,\u201d Iommi says. \u201cWe wanted to do the song Black Sabbath on the night but it was too difficult for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

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When the members of Black Sabbath reunited to prepare for the Back To The Beginning show, it had been three years since Iommi had last seen Osbourne, and as he recalls now: \u201cI hadn\u2019t seen Ozzy for a bit, and it was difficult seeing him like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seeing Osbourne in such a frail condition, Iommi thought it would be best for Osbourne to cancel the solo set he had planned before Sabbath\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n

He admits: \u201cI was concerned he was going to blow himself out, and by the time we came on he\u2019d be struggling.\u201d<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

In the end, however, Osbourne managed both sets, climaxing with four Sabbath classics: War Pigs, N.I.B., Iron Man and Paranoid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe adrenaline carried Ozzy through,\u201d Iommi says. \u201cAnd I\u2019m so glad we did it. But of course we didn\u2019t expect him to go so soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the Classic Rock interview, Iommi talks about his new solo album From The Dark, his first studio release since Black Sabbath\u2019s swan song 13 emerged in 2013.<\/p>\n

Tony Iommi \u2013 World Alone (Official Video) – YouTube
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One of the key track on From The Dark is Death Watch, which features a guitar solo from Queen<\/a> legend Brian May. \u201cI\u2019d already done a solo, but I took mine off,\u201d Iommi says.<\/p>\n

Iommi and May have been friends for decades, but even after all these years May was stunned when Iommi revealed how many riffs he has stockpiled on a number of CDs: \u201cFive hundred, six hundred riffs,\u201d he says. \u201cBrian couldn\u2019t believe how many I had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iommi also recalls how, in the early 2020s, a famous producer tried to persuade him to make another Black Sabbath album with the others three original members of the band \u2013 Osbourne, Ward and bassist Geezer Butler.<\/p>\n

The producer was Andrew Watt, who has recently made albums for Paul McCartney<\/a> and The Rolling Stones<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d met Andrew Watt when he was producing Ozzy,\u201d Iommi says. \u201cHe was very keen and a bit too excited. He also didn\u2019t know what it was like working with the original Sabbath, working with Bill.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tony Iommi has revealed that he seriously considered cancelling Black Sabbath\u2019s farewell show with Ozzy Osbourne because he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-621635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}