(Credits: Far Out / Harry Potts / Press / Alamy)
Sat 11 April 2026 17:30, UK
Music is filled with strange coincidences here and there. A lot of chance meetings involving the biggest names in rock have led to some of the most well-known stories within the genre.
For instance, many people probably thought that Van Halen would likely split after David Lee Roth left the band, as who could ever live up to a frontman like that? However, they were taken to new heights and in a completely different direction when Sammy Hagar signed up, with Eddie Van Halen and Hagar put in touch miraculously because they had the same mechanic.
Not to mention, you have the 27 Club, which consists of a number of talented musicians all of whom passed away at the same age of 27, of whom include the likes of Amy Winehouse, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix.
However, perhaps one of the strangest coincidences which exists within the world of rock, heavy metal more specifically, revolves around the number 17, as it connects two of the genre’s biggest stars, and relates to exactly the same circumstances. The genre might need a rebrand, as while many heavy bands throw around the number 666 as their trademark, it could well be 17 that resonates more.
There’s no getting around the fact that heavy metal is a genre of music that should be experienced live, and sure, you can pop on some headphones and lose yourself in the layers of distortion and screeching vocals that ensue, which is a hell of a lot of fun, but there’s nothing quite like throwing yourself into a live environment, getting pushed around in the centre of a mosh pit and losing your mind in an unbreakable wall of distortion unlike any other live music experience out there.
(Credits: Far Out / Evgeniy Smersh)
Fans know that, but so too do performers. When you go and see a lot of heavy metal bands play live, they put a great deal of care into their shows and are always desperate to leave fans experiencing the greatest gig of their lives. Metallica have always run a tight ship when it came to getting the sound right, Kiss took gigs to another level by introducing pyrotechnics and make-up, while bands like Van Halen, Guns N’ Roses and AC/DC battled it out to see who could deliver the most killer guitar and drum solos on the planet.
Regardless, one of the first bands to blow audiences’ minds with their exhilarating heavy metal live sound was Black Sabbath, who had been performing in Birmingham together for some time before they started actually recording and releasing music, which had allowed them to tighten up their gigs to the extent that when they hit the road and began playing in front of people who weren’t local, the sound travelled and continued to resonate.
That understanding of their live sound meant that when Sabbath eventually went into the studio to record, it was easy for them to lay down something that really packed a punch. “We were very tight. We’d been playing together for over two years; we’d been through Germany and Switzerland. When we played together, we wanted to improve and be really good,” said Bill Ward, “You have to remember, this was a very good live band coming into the studio for Paranoid.”
The band were constantly committed to taking that live sound to as many audiences as possible, and in doing so, exposed them not only to their music, but to the music of other bands who would become legends of rock and heavy metal. Two groups already mentioned, Kiss and Van Halen, both started out as Black Sabbath support acts, as the Birmingham musicians helped a lot of budding bands find their audience, and another band who were also hailed as one of the most exciting heavy metal acts on the planet was Motörhead.
While their sound might not have been as layered or complicated as Black Sabbath’s, it still had all the hallmarks of awesome heavy metal, including distortion, an unmistakable groove, and unmatched vocals from one of the biggest names in the genre, Lemmy.
(Credits: Far Out / Alamy / Wikimedia / Martin Kníže)
Motörhead and Black Sabbath spent their careers going around the world and taking the sound they worked so hard to perfect to different audiences, and often, this persistent pursuit of life on the road was done to the band’s detriment, where they forced themselves to keep playing even when their bodies told them not to, as they understood the power of an awesome metal gig, and they didn’t want to take that away from fans.
When Motörhead were on the road for what would be Lemmy’s last tour, it was clear to everyone, including the singer himself, that he wasn’t in good health. A lot of changes had to be made to the show so that Lemmy could safely take to the stage, and that final tour ended up taking everything out of him; everything.
Drummer Mikkey Dee recalls what it was like working with Lemmy on that tour, saying, “Instead of arguing with Lemmy, trying to get him off the road, let’s just help him instead,” he said, “I remember shows where we had to adjust a lot of stuff, but I think we, and he, did fantastic. Our last show was December 7th in Berlin, and then a couple of weeks later, the man is gone. Trust me, me and Phil put in 150%, Lemmy must have put in 300% to get through the sets.”
Lemmy and Black Sabbath lead singer Ozzy Osbourne were good friends, as the two of them were fans of each other’s work and collaborated on a few tracks together, so after Lemmy died, the latter talked about his admiration for the Motörhead frontman, revelling in not only his talent as a musician, but his unrelenting humour.
“I think about Lemmy all the fucking time,” said Osbourne, “He was a great guy. He’d go, ‘That record you just made was fucking shit’, or ‘I really like that one’. His favourite [line] was, ‘Your best record was No More Tears’. Yeah, because you wrote on it, you cunt!”
Osbourne was just as stubborn as Lemmy when it came to performing live. He used to frequently say that his body failed him before his mind did; he still wanted to go out on the road, keep making music, but he physically wasn’t able to. Desperate to put on one final show for the fans, Black Sabbath came together and performed at what will be remembered as one of the greatest and most stacked heavy metal sets of all time. Sabbath performed, but so too did Metallica, Guns N’ Roses and Slayer, making for a spectacle, and one that saw Ozzy, despite realistically not being well enough to perform, absolutely nail it.
Credits: Ross Halfin Photography
“The audience showed him all the love that you’d expect,” said his son Louis on a Facebook post, “an emotional end to a phenomenal 57-year career […] I was sobbing at times. It was everything we wanted it to be and more. I had been anxious for months about this, as I’ve been worried about my dad’s ability to perform with his Parkinson’s disease. I just wanted it to be a dignified send-off for him. But as soon as he started singing, we knew he was gonna nail it.”
Here’s where the number 17 comes in: two heavy metal legends, both desperate to continue playing in front of their fans even though their bodies are telling them to stop, fighting their way through one final gig, while fans left happy, ecstatic, sharing the room, the air, with the musicians who had meant so much to them and other newly-minted fans equally obsessed. After playing what they knew were their final shows, and hanging up the microphones for good, they passed away, both at peace knowing they had given their fans everything they could, both knowing they lived fulfilling lives, and both exactly 17 days after those final shows.
It was heartbreaking news when both artists passed away, and it’s impossible to find positives in the passing of musical greats, but we can celebrate what they gave to the world, and we can admire the poetic nature embedded in the fact that two of heavy metal’s greatest ever artists passed away 17 days after they decided to let the curtain close for good. Lemmy put it best, as the last time he ever saw Ozzy Osbourne, despite being incredibly ill and knowing his time was coming to an end, he also knew he could take solace in the fact that he left behind a life well lived.
“I went down to South America, and he was there on tour,” recalled Osbourne, “But he was so fucked he couldn’t speak to anyone. He was sitting at the front, skinny as a rake. He was riddled with cancer at the end. But mind you, he turned round to me and said, ‘I’m probably going to die, I suppose. Never thought I’d make 70, so I did good’. His exact words were, ‘I could have lived a lot longer and taken care of myself, but I lived my life the way I want to live, and I ain’t got no regrets’. Fair enough!”
Fair enough.
