Tickets for the Black Sabbath final show went on pre-sale about 25 minutes ago, and my son and his girlfriend got in. As some of you will know, they run a YouTube vlog called Mead and Metal, so when they post that journey, it will be one hell of a vlog. Good old Ozzy Osbourne. I remember my first Sabbath album was Never Say Die. It had just come out and I went to the local (only) record shop in Haywards Heath to buy a copy, brought it home and popped the needle down. That opening song! A classic. The whole album? It’s not their best. I didn’t know at the time but Ozzy was on the verge of being sacked from the band but that album launched a lifetime love of Sabbath. My next album was Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and then Sabotage (still my favourite Sabbath albums to this day.
So Ozzy was sacked and in came Ronnie James Dio as vocalist. I was already a huge Rainbow fan and knew his voice and lyrics would work in Sabbath, but when Heaven and Hell came out even I wasn’t prepared for the awesomeness of that record. It was a good time for rock music, 1979 to 1981. Lots of changes but Led Zeppelin was still going, as were Pink Floyd. AC/DC made the transition from Bon Scott to Brian Johnson – both Sabbath and AC/DC proving that it was possible to change vocalists successfully. I didn’t think Rainbow were quite as successful when Down to Earth came out with Graham Bonnet singing, but it was just a very clear change of musical direction to get more commercial sales, and that worked for them, so what do I know?
Ozzy went on to a solo career. That first album was a game-changer. It certainly didn’t try to imitate Black Sabbath – Randy Rhoads’ guitar playing was fresh and continued a new way of playing rock guitar, pioneered by the likes of Eddie Van Halen, and that really paved the way for the Hair Metal guitar players in the later 80s. I played Blizzard of Ozz to death. Headbanging and playing air guitar in my bedroom. Then Ozzy announced a tour and they were playing at the Brighton Dome. So many big rock bands played in Brighton in the 80s. In those late 70s/early 80s years I saw AC/DC on the Highway to Hell tour, Black Sabbath on the Heaven and Hell, Rainbow on the Down to Earth tour, Motorhead, Iron Maiden on their first tour in a tiny little venue then called the Top Rank. Rush, Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy, UFO, Gillan, Kiss – so many. I think rock bands have moved their tour dates to Southampton now – maybe Brighton is deemed too close to London… But I got that Ozzy ticket. My Mum and Dad used to drop me and my friends off, then pick us up afterwards. It was a wild night. He was such an incredible frontman. Randy Rhoads was also astounding to watch, even when Ozzy was dragging him around the stage by his hair… The Dome was all seated, and the stewards would always try to keep the audience from rushing the front of the stage – they always failed. I ended up front row against the stage. By the end of the show I was drenched in buckets of water, he’d been throwing over us, and Ozzy was running around in nothing but his underpants. Yes. It was awesome.
Mum and Dad would arrive a little early to pick us up and would ask to be let in to see the end of the shows, and they always were. This time, as they approached the door to the Dome theatre an elderly steward in a full red outfit stepped in front of the door. He looked at my Mum and in a concerned voice said, “I wouldn’t go in there madam, the singer has no clothes on.” Mum laughed and thanked the old man but stepped in to see another bucket of water splash into the audience.
At the last Black Sabbath show at Villa Park this Summer Ozzy will be sitting down. He won’t be throwing buckets of water, and I doubt he will be only in his underpants by the end of the show. He can’t walk any more. To be honest I’m amazed he’s still alive. My feeling is it will be a very emotional show. A chance for him to thank his fans and a chance for his fans to thank him and the rest of the band – for a lifetime of entertainment, of some of the greatest rock music ever written and recorded, for lyrics that helped so many of us make sense of the world growing up. A fitting farewell. I won’t be there, but my son will be, and somehow that seems even more right to me.
Thank you Ozzy and Black Sabbath. Thank you so much.
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Being from Brighton I share those memories, and was at that Ozzy gig at the Dome, has to rank amongst one of my top gigs, and many of the ones you mention – the Heaven and Hell tour at Crawley Leisure Centre I believe!! Top Rank was great for gigs, Pavilion Theatre too – Hanoi Rocks there were incedible. Then always down the Years afterwards. Great memories, thanks Damh
We must have met back in the day Steve. I think you’re right. The Heaven and Hell was Crawley. Hard to believe really. I saw Motörhead and Judas Priest there too. A leisure centre…
I’ve seen Sabbath many times, from the mid 70’s till the last sabbath of the millennium tour. Ozzy waddled on stage like an old man then, when the music started he came alive, jumping all around the stage until the end of the last encore, then he returned to be the old man again. It was so sad I didn’t want to see him live again, I rather remember the first gig when I was 14 in 1975!
All good bands listed & im lucky enough to have seen them all! 🙂
Oh Dave thank you, you have taken me back to being 17 again. Great music, great concerts, jeans, t-shirts and patchouli smelling cut offs that were coved in band patches, long hair and pints of snakebite Happy happy times x
That was pretty much my life too. My friend’s Mum made me keep my Patchouli cut off outside!
love hearing you recount these memories! i wish you could be there for their last show…i only had one BS album…Paranoid! still to this day it is my fave album. gotta love that darkness it slaps one in the face with…
anyhoo, great blog! stirred up a few of my own from those days…
peace and blessings to you and yours.
Such awesome memories of Black Sabbath I went to a private party at Chislehurst caves
many moons ago i was about 17 told not to wander into the caves, so of course we did the sound of Sabbath rumbling through the caves was surreal just a small torch and sabbath a time never forget or repeated kind of a dream now !
health and safety would have freaked
I honestly think i will keep memories of the gig in the caves and not his last gig although it sounds like will be a ball
thank you Sabbath and Ozzy think you helped make me the magical and wonderful person i am today ♀️♀️
Legend!!!!
That was a very moving piece of writing. I feel the same about the bands I grew up with The Smiths and The Stone Roses and Madchester era.I still go shows today despite been 57. Ozzys a Villa fan like me too, his mother was dinner lady at a school near mine in Great Barr Birmingham. Music is so important. Love your music Dave and the live podcasts, saw you quite a few times at PF events.
I also see Ozzy back in the day in a Small venue on the Norfolk coast called West Runton Pavilion. It was I think his first tour as solo Blizzard of Oz tour. And as you say Randy was amazing. I saw a lot of bands there from Suzi Quattro to Motorhead and Girls school!! As you say we were lucky to had such a great time in music. I feel lucky to have made friends with Maddie Prior and Rick Wakeman(though I doubt they would remember me now) I also Saw Hawkwind several times along with others!! I bet you’re son will have a great time!! I looked at price of tickets!! Now waiting for Paramedics!! Lol
I too grew up on the metal of the 70’s and 80’s. And im pretty sure that they helped lead me to my pagan path as well. I got to see Iron Maiden last year for the first time since 1992, and I was instantly transported back to 1987. What struck me was the different generations I saw. Guys our age along with their kids and grandkids! It was awesome! Have your son bring you a shirt from the concert! 🙂 Peace and blessings mate! /|\
I have also replied via the FB post
From Birmingham, they are in my blood. I had a friend who was a wannabee roadie for them and I started going to see them in the pubs and clubs around Brum. Their transit van, still had Earth painted on the side, the bands first name.
I recall walking up Hurst St in brum, clutching their first album proudly, under my arm, that I had just bought from The Diskery. I bumped into Tony and Geezer, who said “They will never make it big you know”, yeah right.
That LP was a musical life changer, for me and millions of others.
So many happy memories.
Thank You Black Sabbath for enriching my life with your music.
Hopefully, see you at the Summer Gathering Damh♡
Hello Dave
As I said to you at the Summer Gathering, I meant to post this ages ago…
Black Sabbath. I was first introduced to their music (I already knew the name of the band) by my friend Paul Gathercole, the son of a Baptist Minister, when we were doing A Levels. I was more than a little surprised. I didn’t expect a Christian, and Paul was a practising Baptist, to be into Black Sabbath!But he was! He lent me Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and I loved it. (My favourite if their first eponymous album).
That was as far as I got a few days ago in writing this, prompted by the gigs at Villa Park, but was interrupted by something. And now, as I type this (just after the England women’s football team win their semi-final in extraordinary circumstances again), I learn the Ozzy Osbourne has died. The world will never be quite the same. I’ll have to finish this tomorrow as it’s late now.
I think Sabbath have been a very underestimated band musicianship-wise over the years. Even Paul, who introduced me to their music, described them as “just” riff-based. They were much more accomplished than that in my opinion.
Another point that interest me compared Tony Iommi and the famous French jazz guitar player Django Reinhardt. In my teens I wanted to play guitar. My mum (who would have no idea how to deal with Black Sabbath!) gave me a book which went on quite a lot about Django Reinhardt. I had never heard of him and never heard any of his music. I have since. he was good! When he was 17 Django knocked over a candle in his caravan, which started a big fire, and he was severely burned, on over half his body. This included bad burns to the fourth and fifth fingers on his left hand and it was considered that he would never play again. Yet he did, he taught himself to play with the injuries, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Remarkable, at the same age, 17, Tony lost the tips of his fourth and fifth fingers of his right hand in an industrial accident on the last day of working at a sheet metal works. Tony is a left-handed guitar player, so his right hand is his fret hand. Like Django, Tony was told he would never play again. But (and I didn’t know this until I researched this today) a friend of his made him listen to a recording by Django Reinhardt, telling him of his injury, This inspired Tony to play again (there is more on this on the Tony Iommi wikipedia page which is well worth reading).