This post was meant to be a celebration of Black Sabbath‘s monumental Back to the Beginning metal-thon and all the Sabbathian goodness and rekindled love it inspired. Who hasn’t been on a Sabbath bender of late?
Following huge media coverage of Glastonbury and Oasis in the previous few days, Back to the Beginning could not have been timed better: the festival spirit was already overflowing but this time, July 5th, it was for heavy rock and metal. The historic aspect of BTTB was never in doubt but once you got into it and started watching and reading more about it, it really sunk in just how big a deal this actually was.
It was on-stage closure for the people who started it – in their home city, supported by the bands who drew on their influence and came back to pay tribute. Poignancy played a huge part in all this. It was so much more than a final gig by a legendary band. It was a moment that will go down as one of the great events in rock.
Then Ozzy passed away just days later. And it’s knocked everything sideways.
Instead of being a celebration of music and legacy, Back to the Beginning has rapidly become something else – not just a send-off for a band but a send-off for a life, too. No wonder our thoughts have stalled and become blurred … it’s too fast a transition from loved-up afterglow into shock. In some ways, Black Sabbath have been pushed a little further back within the memory of this event and Ozzy – understandably, right now – is up front and centre. We’re in Ozzy mode.
Unlike Black Sabbath’s back catalogue, Ozzy’s solo music isn’t enough my thing, despite some awesome tunes. But his OTT Hammy-horror videos and album covers, shred-glam guitar sounds and widescreen wild man personality were so integral to growing up in the 80s that it might as well be. He helped define what rock sounded like in that decade and for anyone who spent time programming the video recorder for The Power Hour, Raw Power and Noisy Mothers in the deep, dark small hours on ITV, Ozzy was inescapable. We grew up with him. We knew and got to know the musicians he picked. We knew the bands he toured with. He’s always been there, a connector of souls.
The only Ozzy records in my stash* are Tribute and the Just Say Ozzy live EP so they’re being revisited right now. Suicide Solution and I Don’t Know always, always work. Records like this are inseparable from teenage memories, even down to the way they feel – the Tribute record cover is oddly grainy.
Funny to think that Geezer Butler played on Just Say Ozzy. The rotation and crossover of band members in the post-70s Sabbath/Ozzy orbit blows your mind, as does Ozzy’s ultimately short-sighted approach towards playing his former band’s tracks. In the sleeve notes, he wrote, “The Sabbath songs – to have recorded them one last time with Geezer Butler, Zakk and Randy, says it all for me. It’s a chapter of my life I can now close.”
That was 1990. But the chapter didn’t close – not until July 2025.
Farewell, Ozzy Osbourne.
*adding a couple of CDs now though. Diary of a Madman and No Rest for the Wicked are the chosen ones
amplifier wordsmith 