Less than a month ago, Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne played their final show at Back To The Beginning in Birmingham, England, their hometown.
Back To The Beginning was announced on February 5th by Ozzy Osbourne‘s wife, Sharon Osbourne, after it was known that Ozzy was starting to lose the ability to walk after his diagnosis of Parkinson’s back in 2019. Sharon Osbourne announced the show as a benefit concert, with all proceeds and donations going to Acorns Children’s Hospice, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, and Cure Parkinson’s.
The charity show was to have a dozen metal icons honour the man and band that founded heavy metal before Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne‘s last performance – Alice in Chains, Anthrax, Gojira, Guns N’ Roses, Halestorm, Lamb of God, Mastodon, Metallica, Pantera, Rival Sons, Slayer, and Tool as well as supergroups consisting of Sleep Token members and Yungblud were on the bill – with the entire show breaking records by raising over $190 million for the three charities.
During his final performance, Ozzy Osbourne played an individual set with five tracks, “I Don’t Know,” “Mr. Crowley,” “Suicide Solution,” “Mama, I’m Coming Home,” and “Crazy Train,” while Black Sabbath closed out the historic night with “War Pigs,” “N.I.B.,” “Iron Man,” and “Paranoid.”
After Back To The Beginning, on July 10th, Ozzy Osbourne announced his upcoming memoir, Last Rites out via Hachette Book Group on the 7th of October. The autobiography is said to cover events as recent as the performance just days before in 2025, so there’s really no telling how finished the memoir was before the dreaded announcement came.
Because less than three weeks after Ozzy Osbourne gave back to the city in which he was born, he passed away on July 22nd in Buckinghamshire, England, accompanied by his loved ones.
For days, the internet was flooded with statements, tributes, photos, videos, and memorials for the beloved Prince of Darkness, highlighting the career that started metal. Black Sabbath‘s signature low tuning was unbeknownst to the general public at the time of their founding in 1968, offering the foundations of exploration into lower tunings and darker sounds.
The city of Birmingham, which had been decorated for the highly anticipated Back To The Beginning show – offering exhibitions on Black Sabbath‘s journey, a brand new mural, a photo gallery of the band, and more – soon became decorated with dozens of bouquets of flowers, letters of admiration, drawings of the departed Ozzy instead as fans paid tribute to the band they loved so dearly. And while the energy may not have been sad in Birmingham, it was melancholic – there was a sense of camaraderie amongst the mourners.
Bands and musicians in attendance of Back To The Beginning began offering the occasional interview or comment about Ozzy‘s death, opening up about how unexpected it was, with Pantera even rearranging their tour schedule in order to properly grieve Ozzy. Pantera‘s Zakk Wylde was Ozzy‘s long-time guitarist.
Then, this past Wednesday, on July 30th, Ozzy Osbourne was laid to rest. His funeral cortege passed Ozzy‘s childhood home, the Black Sabbath Bridge, the Black Sabbath mural, and the venue The Crown, before bringing the Prince of Darkness to his final resting place in Welders House. It’s estimated that over tens of thousands of people attended Ozzy‘s final journey around Birmingham, with singing and brass bands paying tribute to the beloved metal icon.
On July 31st, the Osbournes had a private funeral with close friends and family in attendance at the family’s home in Buckinghamshire, England, where Ozzy requested to be buried, with his Black Sabbath bandmates, Zakk Wylde, Corey Taylor, Elton John, and Yungblud reportedly invited to the ceremony. Loudwire reports about 110 people in total attended the private funeral.
It is now August 2nd, the first August without Ozzy Osbourne since 1948. And it feels pretty weird.
There is no word as to whether or not Ozzy‘s memoir will go ahead as planned, but there was confirmation that Back To The Beginning had been filmed for a Paramount+ special about Ozzy‘s life in the last three years, which is due to premiere on the streaming platform in late 2025.
So, Ozzy will still be here. He always will be – he will be in every memory his friends hold, in each and every photo and video ever captured of him, in each song metal bands write… hell, his mentee Yungblud vows to play his cover of “Changes” every show for the rest of his life.
So, yeah, we are without Ozzy now. But he will never be gone.
Ozzy Osbourne Forever.
You can pre-order Ozzy Osbourne‘s last memoir here.
You can stream, and purchase, Yungblud‘s live cover of Black Sabbath‘s “Changes” here, with all proceeds going to charity.
You can find the stream of Ozzy Osbourne‘s funeral procession throughout Birmingham here, if you’d like to pay your respects.
And you can also pay tribute to Ozzy by continuing to love, and support, metal music, just as much as he did.
