Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath’s historic farewell show was less Live Aid, more Loud Aid | OneFootball

Nothing could be more Sabbath, you might argue, than lording over your own wake. With Ozzy Osbourne dealing with both Parkinson’s disease and myriad other health issues, for one final Back to the Beginning extravaganza, Black Sabbath gather around them the ultimate black conclave of demon disciples and jackal-eyed offspring who owe their existence to metal’s revered originators. Each to perform a Sabbath cover in a truncated set of intense heaviosity and pay heartfelt tribute in blood and sweat.

“This is the greatest moment in heavy metal history!” screams Lzzy Hale of Halestorm, the line-up’s sole woman. “We’re not here to say goodbye, we’re here to say thank you,” says Scott Ian from Anthrax ahead of a gut-crushing take on Sabbath’s “Into the Void”. Video messages beam in from Billy Idol, Dolly Parton, AC/DC and, to much livestream controversy, Marilyn Manson.

Game of Thrones star and noted metal obsessive Jason Momoa introduces a “heavy metal boot camp” of supergroups, variously including Red Hot Chili Peppers, Extreme guitarists, Faith No More drummers and the day’s musical director, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. An incredible array of hard rock’s biggest acts blitz through 15-minute slots, fret fingers blur, melting faces at oxyacetylene pace and pounding away at the sonic sinkhole that threatens to plunge Birmingham’s Villa Park into the underworld by night’s end.

Loud Aid? Well, if you were to pit the last few decades of Download festival against each other in one almighty Wall of Death, it might look something like this. With merging and collaborating metal acts swapping over on a revolving stage, it’s a fast-spinning Lazy Susan of metal history. Yet there’s precious little ego and plenty of heartfelt humility amongst the huge names on display. Everyone handles their Sabbath covers like sacred texts, to be splattered with their own brands of vivifying savagery but never completely chewed up and spat in the fire.

Pantera sink “Planet Caravan” into the earthly depths, courtesy of Phil Anselmo’s Mariana Trench of a voice. Tool honour the witchier end of the Sabbath ouvre – Maynard James Keenan rocking the goth Travis Bickle look through a mystical “Hand of Doom” – and Slayer their elemental energy. Jack Black sends a film of himself larking around in a frilly-armed OZZY shirt to the occult musings of “Mr Crowley”, with a band of School of Rock finger ninjas (including Morello’s 13-year-old son Roman), while Yungblud, fronting an unholy marriage of Anthrax and Megadeth, steals the first half of the show with an emotive, piano-led cover of Osbourne’s “Changes” that out-roars much of the rest of the bill. Adaptable chap.

The sheer volume of rock heroes onstage becomes dizzying. Just a few hours into this who’s who of Satan’s sonic soldiers, it seems perfectly normal to find Billy Corgan wandering on to do “Breaking the Law” with Judas Priest, then watch the band morph over 20 minutes through incarnations featuring Sammy Hagar, a silver-faced Tobias Forge from Ghost, Blink-182’s Travis Barker and Ronnie Wood. Suddenly there’s Steven Tyler from Aerosmith powering through “Walk This Way” and “Whole Lotta Love” with Morello and RHCP’s Chad Smith. And, big gun wise, the day is still keeping its powder dry.

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Ronnie Wood performs during the Black Sabbath farewell show (Ross Halfin)

Fourth – fourth – on the bill are Guns N’ Roses, who graciously give over half of their short set to Sabbath songs – “Never Say Die”, “Junior’s Eyes”, a chunky “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” – before hammering it home with “Welcome to the Jungle” and a punchy “Paradise City”. Axl is in decent voice, if occasionally prone to new-teeth babbling and falling out of time. And Metallica lean hard and heavy into the speed metal potential of a short slot, obliterating “Master of Puppets” and “Battery”, circling each other like battling alphas through “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and pouring a lifetime of riffs into their sprawling and visceral take on Sabbath’s “Johnny Blade”.

Archive newsreel footage of horrified Eighties metal protesters running off a list of things Black Sabbath records supposedly promoted, from thrill killing to suicide (newscaster: “You forgot cannibalism, ma’am”), remind us of just how dangerous and subversive a prospect Ozzy Osbourne was in metal’s breakout years. But as the Prince of Darkness himself finally appears for his solo band set, rising from beneath the stage in a batwing-festooned black throne to the crescendo of “O Fortuna”, the roar in the room is one of gratitude and empathy. “Let the madness begin!” he yells – eyes bulging, menace persisting – as a thunderous “I Don’t Know” strikes up. He leads the sways and clapping, clearly revelling in the moment. “It’s so good to be on this f***ing stage, you have no idea,” he says ahead of a bombastic, operatic “Mr Crowley”, but it’s written all over his gleeful, teeth-baring grimace.

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Top left to right: Rex Brown Pantera -Tobias -Ghost -David Draiman Disturbed -James Hetfield Metallica -Tony Iommi Black Sabbath -Robert T Metallica – Phil Anselmo Pantera – Geezer Butler Black Sabbath -Sammy Hagar -Kirk Hamnett Metallica, Steven Tyler Aerosmith – Ozzy Osbourne – Bottom Mike Inez -Alice In Chains – Zakk Wylde Ozzy/Pantera – Bill Ward Black Sabbath – Lars Ulrich Metallica Billy Corgan Smashing Pumpkins (Ross Halfin)

He pulls no punches either. Once, his 1980 anti-alcohol track “Suicide Solution” saw him hauled up in court to defend himself over metal’s potentially fatal effects on its fans. Tonight, it’s a statement of endurance. And while the emotion clearly gets to him during a billowing “Mama, I’m Coming Home” (“I’ve been laid up for like six years,” he says. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart”), he seems invigorated by the driving rock of “Crazy Train”, firing off a water cannon as if he wants to put out the eternal hellfire as he leaves.

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Ozzy Osbourn waves his arms as his plays his final show (Ross Halfin)

When he returns with his Sabbath bandmates, bathed in crimson spotlights and drenched in the storm effects and ominous tolling bell that opened their 1970 debut album – properly back to the beginning – he’s bolstered further by Tony Iommi’s nimble fretwork and Geezer Butler’s supple bass frenzies. There are points during the warlock blues of “War Pigs” and a ponderous, gargantuan “Iron Man” that Black Sabbath sound still very much in their pomp. By the time their four-song set closes with a fiery “Paranoid”, fireworks and a cake for an emotional Ozzy, the show feels like anything but a wake. It’s far more a celebration of the delicious darkness Osbourne and his coven unleashed over five decades ago, and the behemoth it’s become.