I visited the new Black Sabbath mural in Birmingham and it promises one thing
Mr Murals had clocked off by the time I arrived at Navigation Street to see his new Black Sabbath art wall for the first time on Navigation Street.
The artist has been mapping out the faces of the original band line-up on a stretch of the street leading to New Street Station for the past few weeks, bringing to life an installation that will surely be among the most photographed places in Birmingham when the Black Sabbath faithful flood in for the last ever gig on Saturday, July 5.
Visitors from all over the world are heading this way to see Ozzy Osbourne, Bill Ward, Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi one final time, while I'll be taking my own five mile jaunt across town for the same reason.
Read more: Black Sabbath at Villa Park - line-up, times, set list, tickets and how to get there
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But as anticipation builds, it was the 36m-long stretch of the city centre street Mr Murals that I'd made a special pilgrimage to, keen to extend what music director Tom Morello is calling the 'greatest heavy metal gig of all time' into a full, summer-long celebration of metal.
Up close, it's more mind-boggling than it looks in photos.
An obscure flurry of letters that took me a beat too long to realise spelt out 'GEEZER BUTLER' looked to be a completely random smattering of symbols until I later watched the painter at work online.
Mr Murals doesn't gatekeep his methods, showing followers online how he uses the letters to map out photorealistic faces.
It's as though he's hacked the system and obtained a cheat code for artistic skill. Seeing the mural at this stage, the skeleton before the flesh is on the bones, feels like something worth taking a journey for in itself.
We took some time to snap selfies by the Black Sabbath logo, crisp lines and colour gradients behind spray paint lightning bolts just lovely by themselves, without all of the other images of the four founding fathers of a genre.
A familiar feeling came to me as I stood back and pictured how it might all look when it's done.
It's the same feeling I got in the weeks leading up to the Commonwealth Games in 2022. It's the promise that something good is coming.
The way the city has taken what will be one gig and turned it into a weekend of celebrations feels like something we needed. A pick-me-up, a chunk of summer joy. A break in the monotony.
It might just be paint on the wall, but Central BID commissioning this mural feels like a big deal. There's no cost to us as fans, no challenge to access it and no difficulty when you arrive - it's just there for the sake of celebration, for everyone to enjoy.
The same goes for the work they've done with the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery on the Ozzy Osbourne exhibition, which will launch next week and be free for everyone, all summer long.
And outside, on Victoria Square, there'll be a free-to-see exhibition of photographs and album artworks to enjoy. Why? For the sheer, pleasurable heck of it, it seems.
As a fan of heavy metal it feels important. The acknowledgement of the enduring brilliance of a genre that started right here.
It deserves the recognition, like country music gets in Nashville or the Beatles get in Liverpool - this is the home of metal, and we're finally acting like it.
I hope we can keep it up when the gig is over. We need to do more to celebrate music in this city that gave so much to the world - we deserve it.
I still want to see The Crown on Station Street be recognised for its importance as the home of Birmingham music, not just metal, but other crucially important bands too. More than just a facelift, it needs a major overhaul.
I want heavy metal fans from around the world to come and find it here, where it belongs.
With the mural, and the hope of more on the horizon, Black Sabbath Weekend is turning into Black Sabbath summer. I, for one, am living for it.
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