A close friend of Ozzy Osbourne has said the heavy metal star ‘knew’ he was dying at his final Black Sabbath show.
Last month Osbourne’s family announced his death aged 76, following a long battle with Parkinson’s and other health problems.
A week later, he was given a public farewell in his home city of Birmingham, with thousands turning out and lining the streets for a funeral procession, which happened just weeks after his band’s final ever show there, held at Villa Park.
The Back to the Beginning show saw Osbourne perform a short solo set before being joined by bandmates Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward.
The event also featured sets by several other huge metal bands, including Metallica, Slayer, and Alice in Chains.
However while the gig marked the first time the group had played together in 20 years, it was also billed as their final ever show after Osbourne’s ongoing health issues.
A month on, the show’s organiser and the musician’s friend Tom Morello has said it was a ‘miracle’ Osbourne lived ‘as long as he did’.
‘Ozzy Osbourne’s lived a pretty on-the-edge lifestyle for a long time,’ he explained during an appearance on Chicago’s Q101 radio station.
Although he called the heavy metal star’s death a ‘tragedy’, Morello said Osbourne looked at the show as a chance to go out on a high note.
‘The fact that he lived to play and feel that love and to one more time…you know, to do Paranoid, to do Crazy Train. If you have got to go — I mean, I wish Ozzy that lived another 30 years — but if you’ve got to go out, it really felt like he knew.’
Morello said that he believed Osborne was aware of his impending death and he’d been ‘frail for a while’, but receiving the news three weeks later was still a ‘terrible and tragic surprise’.
Reflecting on the success of the concert, Morello, who is a guitarist for Rage Against the Machines and Audioslave, explained: ‘On the day, a million things could have gone wrong, and maybe like three things did. But it felt like a spiritually great moment for all fans of rock and roll. Ozzy and Sabbath could not be more important to me personally as a fan and as an artist.’
Describing Osbourne as ‘one of the all-time greats’, Morello said he’d wanted to organise ‘the greatest day in the history of heavy metal’.
‘I laid out to make it a great show for fans and for them…the band got to play and feel the love not just from the bands, not just from the 40,000 people in the stadium but from people all over the world,’ he added.
During the concert, Osbourne was seated on a leather throne, which had a bat on the top.
He told fans: ‘It’s so good to be on this stage. You have no idea.’
Before leaving the stage, he said: ‘It’s the last song ever. Your support has enabled us to live an amazing lifestyle…thank you from the bottom of our hearts.’
Ahead of the show Osbourne had said he was ‘giving it everything I’ve got’ to make it on stage. ‘
‘If my God wants me to do the show, I’ll do it. By hook or by crook, I’m gonna make it there,’ he said on SiriusXM’s Ozzy Speaks.
Back to the Beginning, which attracted 40,000 fans and was also live-streamed around the world, raised more than £140 million for the three charities Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Acorn Children’s Hospice and Cure Parkinson’s.
Osbourne’s cause of death was ruled to be ‘out of hospital cardiac arrest’ and ‘acute myocardial infarction’.
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