Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi admits that he is worried about the band’s upcoming performance at singer Ozzy Osbourne’s farewell show in Birmingham on 5 July.
In a new interview with Music Week, Iommi says of the event at Villa Park: “This would be a big, monumental thing if it all comes good. The worrying thing for me is the unknown. We don’t know what’s going to happen.
“Normally, when we’d tour, we’d rehearse and run through the thing for a while, and it’s just us. But with this event there are so many other moving parts.”
This show, under the banner ‘Back To The Beginning’, will feature performances from a host of guest stars including Metallica, Guns N’ Roses and Tool.
Ozzy Osbourne is scheduled to perform a set of solo material before reuniting with Black Sabbath alongside Iommi and fellow founding members Geezer Butler and Bill Ward.
But with Osbourne in poor health, Iommi says that fans should not expect too much from the singer.
“You’re used to Ozzy running around,” Iommi says, “but he certainly won’t be doing that for this show. I don’t know if he’s going to be standing or sitting on a throne or what.”
Iommi says he is approaching this show with “excitement mixed with fear”.
He clarifies: “Once we start playing, then we’ll know we’re doing it. It’s always a worry, even when we did tours before, there’s always that build-up, and then it gets to the point that we do it and it’s OK.”
He also states that this show is definitely the final performance from Ozzy and from Black Sabbath.
“It’s absolutely the end,” he insists. “This show has come up because of the situation [with Osbourne’s illness] and because it’s a charity thing. But there’s no way we could go out and do a tour.
“Everybody in the band is looking forward to doing it, though it’s a nerve-wracking thing, as we’ll be touching on some stuff that we haven’t done for a long time.”
