Black Sabbath Farewell: The Highlights of Back to the Beginning
Did we just witness the greatest heavy metal event of all time?
Whether you were there in person (luuucky) or watching on the livestream, I’m pretty sure most of you will now have already seen a bunch of footage from Back to the Beginning, Black Sabbath’s epic swansong at Birmingham’s Villa Park.
As Ozzy, Tony, Geezer and Bill finally put their instruments down for good, we rock fans were treated to a send-off the likes of which have never occurred before in popular music. As well as performances from Sabbath themselves (the original lineup no less) and Ozzy’s solo material, there was a veritable who’s who from the last four decades of metal on hand, all lined up and ready to play to the rabid 45,000-strong crowd of true believers.
Today, I’ll check out some of the highlights from this towering show, which started at 1pm on Saturday and moshed solidly until the half ten curfew. We’ll see metal legends, curious covers, surprise entries, super groups and drum-offs: everything a hard rocker needs!
Contents
Yungblud Steals the First Half
Things Kick Off
The gates of rock were thrown open at 11.30am and the metal hordes descended upon the stadium. Now, who to put on first in a lineup of legends? Somebody suitably rumbling, epic and intense, in order to set the pace for the day’s events, right? Who better, then, than Mastodon, who proved that the recent departure of lead guitarist Brent Hinds (replaced by Nick Johnston) has slowed them down, nor diluted their sound.
A good start!
Legend After Legend
The lineup throughout the day was spectacular. Every taste in metal was catered to, from grunge (Alice in Chains) to Thrash (Anthrax, Slayer). The sets were understandably short - from around 15 minutes to slightly more as the night progressed - and band changeovers were managed in 7 minutes each time! That’s a lot of headbanging to be done in one sunny day, so I expect a great many of the audience simply wrote off the Sunday to recover!
There were performances by bands and then carefully selected Supergroups, which I’ll cover in a second. Every band played a tune or two of their own and also a Black Sabbath cover, with Metallica’s version of Hole in the Sky being a personal highpoint.
Metallica
Hetfield and co were (appropriately) the final band onstage before Ozzy, and delivered an intense show that included epic fan favourites Creeping Death and Master of Puppets.
Gojira
Shout-outs also to Gojira’s apocalyptic set (did Joe Duplantier have the best guitar sound of the whole show? You tell me)...
Anthrax
…Anthrax brought their palpable energy to an early-doors performance, with Scott Ian in classic foot-stomping form…
Slayer
…and Slayer turned the aggression up to twenty for a ferocious performance, aided by Exodus’ Gary Holt on guitars alongside Kerry King.
Tool
Tool proved that their complex, mercurial sound works just fine in the daylight without the psychedelic graphics…
Guns n Roses
…and hard rock royalty Guns n Roses not only showed up on time (!!!) but put on one of the night’s most memorable performances.
The Super Groups
When you have a musical director for the event in the form of Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, you can rightfully expect a few fireworks to be let off in terms of star musos showing up for special appearances.
Tom didn’t disappoint, bringing together a huge raft of players for Sabbath covers, all under the name of Tom Morello’s All Stars. There were two ‘bands’ like this throughout the day, and though the lineup rotated from song to song, here’ roughly who made up each band:
Tom Morello’s All Stars Supergroup A:
- Nuno Bettencourt: Extreme guitarist (you knew that),
- Alan Wakeman: keyboards, Ozzy’s solo band, also son of Yes’ Rick Wakeman
- Dave Ellefson: bass, formerly of Megadeth
- Frank Bello: bass, Anthrax
- Jake E Lee: one of Ozzy’s greatest guitarists
- Mike Bordin: drums, Faith No More
Tom’s Supergroup B:
- Danny Carey: drums, Tool
- Nuno again
- Rudy Sarzo: Ozzy bassist
- Alan Wakeman again
Each of these bands made a huge mark on the day, like these two…
Yungblud Steals the First Half
Some audience members may have met the arrival of Yungblud to the stage with a slightly raised eyebrow, but he went on to deliver a performance that had the stadium rapt with attention. His cover tune was the affecting Changes, and many have said that this was the event’s early half highlight.
Steven Tyler Shows Up
Whilst Aerosmith are hardly what anyone would describe as being ‘metal’, nobody got angry when frontman Steven Tyler showed up as part of the second super group. His three song stay included the inevitable Walk This Way, but also threw in old blues tune Train Kept A’ Rollin and, curiously, Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin. Did he not get the memo about Sabbath covers? Either way, the crowd loved it, and provided a palette cleanser right before Pantera came on!
Other guest vocalists included:
- Papa V Perpetua (Ghost)
- Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins)
- Sammy Hagar (Van Halen)
- Whitfield Crane (Ugle Kid Joe)
- Lzzy Hale (Halestorm)
The Drum-Off
Normally, the drum solo part of a gig is where you go to the bar, but this one was a little different. This time, we had three of rock’s great skin-thumpers blasting away to the Symptom of the Universe riff, as jammed out by Morello, Nuno and Sarzo. The drummers were:
- Travis Barker (Blink 182)
- Danny Carey (Tool)
- Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
I loved Smith’s commitment to the snare drum (his fills were frenzies!), and Carey’s smiling, barely-sweating mastery of the kit is as artful and gobsmacking as ever, but for me, it was actually Barker - decked out a far-out looking bandana and cap combo - who brought the best performance. It was a close call of course, but his choices, energy and sense of dynamics were pretty thrilling. Who was your favourite?
Black Sabbath’s Final Triumph
Darkness fell around Birmingham. An air raid siren sounded, the screens turned red, and all die-hard metal maniacs knew that War Pigs would be the first song from Black Sabbath themselves. Ozzy was wheeled onstage atop a grand black throne, a cackling and immense presence regardless of his compromised health. The rest of the band appeared seemingly out of nowhere in time for those crashing intro chords.
It was on. Black Sabbath’s last ever live performance.
They played for around 35 minutes and smashed out four classics - War Pigs, N.I.B., Iron Man and Paranoid - before enjoying a rapturous ovation from the entire Villa massive. It was a triumph, a sonic soundtrack of four legends taking their places at the Mount Olympus of rock music.
Not every great band gets the opportunity to go out like this, and Black Sabbath met the moment with grace, spirit and a powerful reminder that, in amongst the best that metal music has to offer, they are still the dark masters of the craft.
The End of the Beginning
What did you think of the show? For me as a Sabbath fan, I loved how much the metal community saluted them. Every band on stage made a point of describing how important BS were to their own musical journeys, and for inventing a musical place that so many artists could then fill and dominate.
It was an elegiac thing to see Ozzy so frail and throne-bound, but he also looked to be having the time of his life, so there’s joy involved there too.
So many great bands fizzle out or have members pass away before the world takes a second to properly acknowledge their contributions. Black Sabbath are lucky in that regard: the original members were all together on stage, presenting their powerful selves as a united front for one last time.
Billy Corgan (frontman of Supergroup B, of course) put it well in a personal Instagram post:
“I both whooped yesterday in sheer exultation to be in the right place at the right time, and I wept silently as my heroes fell on their wizardly, mythic sword to bid us farewell. We have the music, and we have them in our hearts.”
Well said, Billy! So, it’s farewell but not farewell, since we have the entirety of their musical output with us, for whenever we need to hear the original masters of metal.
Which is every day, right?
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