When the first electric guitar referrence on July 5, 2025, Villa Park in Birmingham has rebuke from speakers, it will be more than a concert – it will have history in making it. Heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath returns to stage in his original lineup for one last time. All in its center is a person whose life has long become legend: Ozi Osbourne.
In a way, it is like a fairy tale with a pleasant end: a heavy hero is scared of life, where all this begins – and bid farewell to the stage where he had once started. “It’s my time to return back to the beginning … I have time to return the place where it was born. Birmingham is a true home of metal. Birmingham forever,” he said earlier this year when announced the concert, which is determined to be their final. Osborne said that the income from the concert will go to various charity in Birmingham.
With the shadow of Birmingham
John Michael Osbourne was born in 1948 in the Industrial Birmingham, in the world of smoke and social stress. Their possibilities were not promising, and the reality of Birmingham’s gritty neighborhood was really harsh.
But in music, Ozi – a name that he had from his school days – found a language through which he could express his anger and despair, as well as his black humor. Together with Tony Iomi, Geyser Butler and Bill Ward, he founded Black Sabbath in the late 1960s. Combined with dark, heavy rocks, mental subjects and social important songs, became a generation music.
The albums discovered as “Paranoid” (1970) and “Master of Reality” (1971), become blueprints for later heavy metal groups. The specific voice of Osbourne became high, plaintiff, penetrating and weakened, distinguished at the same time.
But when the music of Black Sabbath reached a circular heights, Osbourne’s personnel dynasty was almost dramatic. The singer was lost in the world of alcohol, drugs and other excesses. By 1979, the issues of their drug abuse were out of hand, their behavior was so uncertain and incredible that the band excluded them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tyv7rwqfzc
And then the incident came with her forever. In 1982, Iowa, in a concert in the USA, used to cut the head with a live bat, which the bee was thrown on stage, is believed to have been fake and made of rubber (that receiver rabies shot the backward). Whatever is the truth behind the incident, whether it is completely stinging moment or a task of total confusion, it came to reproduce the myth of Ozy Osbourne, the myth of the so -called “Prince of Darkness”.
Unprecedented single career
In 1979, there was another low point for Osbourne, leaving the band. He moved forward in the consumption of intoxicating intoxicants till his future wife Sharon Rachel Levi, not helping him to remove his addictions. So suggested that he hit a single career.
He recorded the album “Blizzard of Oz” (1980), and immediately saw success.
His margin for Sharon Osbourne, who became his manager, brought him the stability he needed.
In the 2000s, the couple and their children are known worldwide through the Kelly and Jack reality TV show “The Osbornness”. In this, the audience saw Osbourne as a bad, foul-mouther, but warm father, making him more than a pop culture incident.
In the last few years of his life, bees are characterized by health failures. In 2019, it was discovered that Osbourne was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. He canceled tourism, operated and fought his way back without any difficulty. But his love for music, his audience – and perhaps the myth of Ozi – was going to him.
And thus the idea for the reunion concert with Black Sabbath came. “I will be there and do my best. Mentor,
Initially back
The concert has been titled “Back to the Starting” in Birmingham on 5 July. This will be the first time in more than 20 years when the original lineup has performed together. In addition to Black Sabbath, metal Great Search Metalica, Pantera and Gojira, so perform, much more for metal fans.
But it is safe to say that the main focus will be when Ozi, Tony, Geyser and Bill will take on stage together. It is not just a reunion, but a worthy farewell to one of the greatest rock groups of the era.
This article was original in German.
