(Credits: Alamy)
Mon 28 April 2025 5:00, UK
When Black Sabbath first broke out on the scene, they were a blazing fireball of heavy metal energy that crash-landed like a crater and left the world forever changed. But let’s be honest — being able to storm the stage and electrify it to the masses is quintessential, and a lot of that revolves around having a zest for life by the bucketful. As much as they may still think they have it in their own heads, the truth is that for Tony Iommi and Co, those days of youthful power are a distant memory.
Of course, this is not to diminish anything that Black Sabbath have achieved throughout their tenure, as there’s no denying that their sonic calling card has left a permanent imprint on both British music and the wider heavy metal scene at large. That said, it would probably be generous to claim that they’re able to command a stage in the same way they once could, not least because no one’s quite sure how Ozzy Osbourne has made it to this point still alive.
Joking only partially aside, the band’s ability to deliver a show is clearly a pressure that has weighed heavily on Iommi over the course of his career. Unfortunately for him, however, the stamina he had fought so hard to maintain seemed to fizzle out at one of the most inopportune moments, when the stratospheric achievements of Black Sabbath should have shot off into the stars on a high – but instead, in his opinion, sadly tumbled to the ground.
Naturally, for any huge band, their homecoming show will carry that load of extra pressure, but particularly when it marks the closing of such a seismic chapter. That was precisely what Iommi felt with regard to Black Sabbath’s final farewell gig in Birmingham in 2017, recalling two years later in an interview with Louder Sound that: “The feeling [of the end] built as we crept towards to the final gig at the Genting Arena, but it didn’t really sink in ‘til the day of the show.”
Yet it wasn’t until nearing the concert’s conclusion that the true gravitas of the moment hit the guitarist, as he said: “Looking out at the audience during the last few songs, people were crying. Those people idolise you and love what you do. In a way it felt like we were letting them down. It was a shame.”
It just goes to show that even with over half a century of playing the game, even the oldest hands in the industry can sometimes falter. Whether it was the emotion of the moment or other factors at play, Iommi knew deep down that this wasn’t Black Sabbath sailing off into the sunset in their prime – so, naturally, the fullness of time meant there was only one way of putting things right.
When the band take to the stage in Villa Park this summer for their second – but this time real – final farewell show, it of course won’t be without its potential hairy moments. But it will also be the chance Iommi has longed for these past eight years to set the record straight once and for all. You can be sure he’ll be putting on a performance of a lifetime.
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