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Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Rock legend cancels band's final show ever because of illness
Jeff Lynne had to cancel Electric Light Orchestra's (ELO) last show ever due health issues, according to the musician. ELO's final show on the 'Over and Out' farewell tour, was supposed take place at Hyde Park in London on Sunday, July 13. However, Lynne canceled the show the day before because of 'a systematic infection,' according to a statement on ELO's X page. 'Jeff Lynne is heartbroken to report that we will not be able to perform at tomorrow's BST Hyde Park Show,' the statement read. 'Jeff has been battling a systematic infection and is currently in the care of a team who have advised him that performing is simply not possible at this time nor will be able to reschedule.' It continued, 'The legacy of the band and his longtime fans are foremost in Jeff's mind today — and while he is so sorry that he cannot perform, he knows that he must focus on his health and rehabilitation at this time." Ticket holders were directed to BST Hyde Park's website for refunds. ELO's penultimate show was also canceled due to Lynne's health. The band's show Thursday night, July 10 at Co-Op Live in Manchester, England was set to be the second-to-last show on the 'Over and Out' farewell tour, but the concert was axed just minutes before showtime, according to NME. 'Unfortunately due to illness tonight's (Thursday 10th July 2025) scheduled performance of Jeff Lynne's ELO at the Co-Op Live will not be going ahead,' a statement on ELO's X page read. 'Jeff is devastated he cannot perform this evening. More information will become available as soon as possible. For refunds please go to your point of purchase.' Lynne has reportedly been struggling with his health while on tour. The musician broke his hand at the start of the final leg of the 'Over and Out' tour on July 5, Ultimate Classic Rock reported. Concertgoers have also shared concerns about the 77-year-old's health on social media. One fan wrote in a July 9 Facebook post that Lynne 'had to be helped onto the stage' and was 'missing his cues, forgetting words and almost collapsed two thirds of the way through' a concert they were at. 'They had to bring him a chair and he was struggling to stay on it. By the end of the concert the band had to sing Mr Blue Sky for him and his backing singers looked visibly shaken up,' the fan wrote. 'At the concert end the crew rushed onto the stage to help him off. So sad to see my musical hero in such a state. How on earth he will manage tomorrow's Mcr gig and Hyde park on Sunday I cannot imagine. Thanks Jeff for the fantastic music and enjoy your retirement. So So sad.' The final performance would have marked the end of a 55-year run for ELO, which formed in 1970 in Birmingham, England. The band released its eponymous debut album in 1971. ELO gained traction throughout the '70s and in the 1980s with hits like 'Evil Woman,' 'Turn to Stone,' 'Strange Magic' and 'Don't Bring Me Down,' which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, Billboard reported. ELO has since released 15 studio albums, with 'From Out of Nowhere' in 2019 being their most recent. Several of the band's albums, including 1977's 'Out Of The Blue,' have been certified platinum status in the U.S. by the RIAA. The band split up in 1983 after Lynne began feuding with manager Don Arden but the breakup was finalized in 1986 because of contractual agreements. ELO reunited for a short period from 2000 to 2001 but didn't begin touring again consistently until 2014. ELO made its United States performance debut in 2018 after being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. More music content Live Wire: Tommy Whalen brings eclectic guitar showmanship to Theodores' Popular 2000s country artist loses younger brother in Texas floods Country singer 'in a bit of shock' after losing 2 family members on same day Legendary classic rock band cancels penultimate ever gig because of illness R&B icon slams 'misconception' she's 'too important to care' about being late Read the original article on MassLive. Solve the daily Crossword
Irish Examiner
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Ozzy Osbourne obituary: A wild life of heavy metal, reality TV, and biting bats
If a single individual could be said to embody the attributes of heavy metal, it would be Ozzy Osbourne, who has died aged 76 after suffering from Parkinson's disease and other disorders. In a career stretching across six decades, Ozzy Osbourne became a star with Black Sabbath in the 1970s, launched a hugely successful solo career in the 1980s, turned himself into a heavy metal entrepreneur in the 1990s with his travelling Ozzfest rock festival, and in 2002 became an unlikely but wildly successful reality TV star, thanks to the MTV show The Osbournes. The Black Sabbath repertoire included songs with titles such as 'Paranoid', 'Evil Woman', 'Hand of Doom' and 'Children of the Grave'. The atmosphere was darkened further by the guitarist Tony Iommi's fondness for tuning his strings lower than usual, and lyrics (mostly written by the bass player Geezer Butler) that alluded to the occult and mental illness, sung in Ozzy Osbourne's urgent high-register whine. His voice was not pretty but it was impossible to ignore as it sliced through Sabbath's dense sludge of drums, bass and fuzz-toned guitar. 'Sabbath never set out to be legendary,' Ozzy Osbourne said in 2005. 'The only thing we set out to do was scare people.' Black Sabbath in 1970: Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward, and Ozzy Osbourne. Sabbath were a hit straight out of the blocks with their debut album, Black Sabbath (1970), which sailed into the UK Top 10 and reached 23 on the US Billboard chart, despite a hostile response from rock critics. Later that year they released the follow-up, Paranoid, which topped the British chart. Its tough and edgy title song gave them their only British Top 10 single (it went to No 4), while ''Iron Man' and the outspokenly political 'War Pigs' became staples of the Sabbath catalogue, each featuring a distinctive Iommi guitar riff. The band's hot streak continued through the albums Master of Reality (1971), Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973) and Sabotage (1975), but Never Say Die! (1978) signalled Ozzy Osbourne's departure and the end of Sabbath mark one. Following some chaotic touring and abortive recording sessions, he was fired in 1979. An alcohol-and-cocaine lifestyle coupled with legal squabbles with their management and record label had sapped the band's strength. 'I was drinking like a fish for two years,' he said. 'I would have been dead in two or three years if I'd carried on.' Black Sabbath were managed by the notably unsentimental music mogul Don Arden, who assigned his daughter, Sharon, to keep Ozzy sufficiently acquainted with the straight and narrow to be able to write songs and perform. She became his manager and, in 1982, his wife. She launched him as a solo artist, leading his own band, The Blizzard of Ozz, which featured the gifted guitarist and songwriter Randy Rhoads. When Warner Bros and EMI turned Ozzy down as a solo artist, Sharon signed him to her father's label, Jet. Ozzy's solo career was immediately successful, his debut album, Blizzard of Ozz (1980), producing a couple of hit singles with 'Crazy Train' and 'Mr Crowley', the latter inspired by the occultist Aleister Crowley. The follow-up, Diary of a Madman (1981), was another bestseller – in his autobiography, I Am Ozzy (2010), Osbourne cited this as his favourite album — and contained the drug-inspired hit single 'Flying High Again'. Ozzy Osbourne in his open air hot tub in the garden of his luxury home in Goldwater Canyon, Beverly Hills, California biting the head of a rubber chicken. Picture: Getty Images However, Osbourne's progress was rarely incident-free, and, marriage aside, 1982 was a particular annus horribilis. In January that year, when he was perfoming in Des Moines, Iowa, an audience member threw what Osbourne took to be a rubber bat onstage, whereupon he bit its head off only to discover that the creature was real flesh and blood. He was forced to seek precautionary treatment for rabies. The following month, he was arrested in San Antonio, Texas, after urinating on the Alamo cenotaph. As a police officer remarked, 'Son, when you piss on the Alamo, you piss on the state of Texas.' Osbourne was banned from performing in the city until 1992, when he made a public apology and donated $10,000 to maintaining the monument. In March 1982, Rhoads was killed in Florida while joyriding in a Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft, which crashed. The albums Bark at the Moon (1983), The Ultimate Sin (1986) and No Rest for the Wicked (1988) carried Osbourne through the 1980s on a surging tide of sales, but controversy was never far away. In 1986 he was sued by the parents of Daniel McCollom, who had killed himself while listening to Blizzard of Ozz; the parents contended that the song 'Suicide Solution' was a 'proximate cause' of his death. The case was dismissed in 1988, but Osbourne was then sued by the parents of another young man, Michael Waller, who alleged that their son too was driven to kill himself by hidden messages in the song. Again, the suit was dismissed. Attempted murder In 1989 Osbourne was arrested for attempted murder after trying to strangle Sharon while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Rock star Ozzy Osbourne in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, where he appeared before Amersham Magistrates Court accused of assaulting his wife Sharon Picture: PA This caused him to spend six months in rehab. After he recorded the album No More Tears (1991), he announced that the tour to promote it (he called it No More Tours) would be his last before he retired. The album contained Osbourne's only Top 40 solo hit single in the US, 'Mama, I'm Coming Home'. The song was addressed to Sharon, from whom he was temporarily estranged. Recordings from the tour were released as Live & Loud (1993), which included many of his best-known songs, with the other members of Black Sabbath joining Osbourne for the track 'Black Sabbath'. Live & Loud was intended to bring the curtain down on his career, and the track 'I Don't Want To Change The World' won him a Grammy for best metal performance in 1994. Upbringing Ozzy was born John Osbourne in Aston, Birmingham. His father, Jack, did night shifts at the industrial company GEC, while his mother, Lillian (nee Unitt), worked for the motor components firm Lucas. He had three older sisters, Jean, Iris, and Gillian, and two younger brothers, Paul and Tony. The family managed to squeeze into a two-bedroom home with an outside toilet in Lodge Rd, Aston. He acquired the nickname 'Ozzy' at primary school, after being initially dubbed 'Oz-brain', and while his school work was hampered by dyslexia, he showed interest in music and performing when he took roles in school productions of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas including The Pirates of Penzance, HMS Pinafore and The Mikado. Soon, the influence of the Beatles loomed large. Ozzy claimed he had originally wanted to be a plumber, then decided he wanted to be a Beatle instead. He left school at 15 and took a variety of jobs, including trainee plumber, slaughterhouse assistant and apprentice toolmaker, and for a time worked at the same Lucas factory as his mother, where he tuned car-horns. An amateurish attempt at petty crime led to him being arrested while trying to steal a television, and he spent six weeks in Winson Green prison. After a stint as vocalist with an R&B band called the Approach, in 1967 Osbourne was recruited by Geezer Butler to sing with his band, Rare Breed. The group imploded almost immediately, whereupon Osbourne and Butler joined Iommi and the drummer Bill Ward to form Earth. In 1969 they changed their name to Black Sabbath, after a 1963 horror film featuring Boris Karloff. With help from the Birmingham club owner Jim Simpson, who acted as their manager, the band secured a deal with Vertigo Records, which released their debut album, recorded and mixed in two days. Ozzfest Osbourne's early 1990s retirement lasted only until 1995, when he came roaring back with a new album, Ozzmosis. Though hardly a classic, this sold three million copies within 12 months, and, after his follow-up Retirement Sucks tour proved one of the biggest successes of the summer, Osbourne and Sharon created the heavy metal touring package that they dubbed Ozzfest. This became an annual event in the US, Europe and eventually Japan. Ozzfest presented a huge array of metal, thrash and hardcore bands, from Metallica and Judas Priest to Slipknot, Slayer, System of a Down and Linkin Park. In 2004 Ozzy and Sharon presented Battle for Ozzfest on MTV, in which bands competed to be included on the 2005 bill. In 1997 Ozzfest included a Black Sabbath reunion, after which the band recorded the live album Reunion (1998) and continued touring into 1999, appearing again at Ozzfest. A mooted new Black Sabbath studio album was put on hold while Osbourne completed a solo album, Down to Earth (2001). A photoshoot for MTV show The Osbournes, Ozzy is joined by Sharon, Jack, and Kelly. Picture: Getty Images It was now that his career took its surprising lurch into TV. Following an appearance on MTV's reality show Cribs, about celebrity homes, the Osbourne family were recruited for their own series, The Osbournes, which ran for three years from 2002. Featuring Ozzy and Sharon with their children Jack and Kelly — their elder daughter Aimee hated the idea and opted out — it resembled a surreal, outlandish sitcom liberally spattered with X-rated language, and became one of MTV's greatest successes. He was back on TV in 2016 with Ozzy & Jack's World Detour, which ran for three series, with Kelly joining her father and brother for the third in 2018. In 2003 Ozzy almost died after crashing his quad bike at his estate in Buckinghamshire. While he was in hospital he topped the UK singles charts for the first time with 'Changes', a Black Sabbath song he had re-recorded as a duet with Kelly. In 2005 he was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame as both solo artist and member of Black Sabbath, and the following year into the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Black Sabbath. An album of cover versions, Under Cover (2005), was received unenthusiastically, but he was back to chartbusting ways with Black Rain (2007) and Scream (2010). The long-awaited Black Sabbath studio album, 13, finally appeared in 2013. Memoirs of a Madman (2014) was a compilation of the best of Osbourne's solo work. In 2015 he received the Ivor Novello award for lifetime achievement at a ceremony in London. In 2016, Black Sabbath, including Ozzy, embarked on a year-long world tour, billed as the group's swansong. However, it was overshadowed by further Osbourne family dramas. In May, news broke that Ozzy had moved out of the family home after 34 years of marriage. It emerged that he had been having a four-year relationship with Michelle Pugh, a hair stylist, and was being treated for sex addiction. Ozzy made a public apology, saying that he was undergoing 'intense therapy'. In 2019, he was forced to postpone his No More Tours 2 concerts in Europe after being hospitalised with a respiratory infection. He was also diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, though this was not made public until 2020 (in 2005 he had been diagnosed with Parkin syndrome, a genetic condition which causes symptoms similar to Parkinson's). In September 2019 he reached No 8 on the US singles charts with his performance on Post Malone's 'Take What You Want', his first entry into the Top 10 since 1989. He released a well-received new solo album, Ordinary Man (2020), but cancelled planned north American shows to enable him to undergo treatment for Parkinson's in Switzerland. In 2022 he released his 13th solo album, Patient Number 9. Floral tributes are left by the Sabbath Wall on Navigation St in Birmingham, following the death of Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne. Picture: PA Earlier this month he gave his concert farewell at Villa Park, Birmingham as the finale of a day of metal music. A short set of solo songs was followed by another with his original Black Sabbath bandmates Iommi, Butler and Ward, ending with 'Paranoid'. In 1971 he married Thelma Riley, and they had three children, Jessica, Louis and Elliot. Shortly after their divorce in 1982 he married Sharon. She survives him, along with the three children from each marriage. Ozzy (John Michael) Osbourne, singer and songwriter, born December 3, 1948; died July 22, 2025 The Guardian
The Herald Scotland
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
'Get well soon, Jeff' - the heartfelt message from fans of ELO's Lynne
Lynne had to cancel a show at Manchester's Co-op Live on Thursday evening at short notice. In a message posted on X the band said the show had been cancelled "due to illness". Though hugely disappointed, fans of the group took to social media in the hours after today's announcement to express sympathy for Lynne. Many simply said: "Get well soon, Jeff". One fan, posting on the Jeff Lynne's ELO fan group on Facebook, said: "In honor of Jeff trying his best to put on a final show for us during his time of illness, I think we should all gather around the Hyde Park Rose Garden at 2 PM tomorrow to sing a few ELO songs. Maybe it could be something we all need right now. I'm sure Jeff would love our support too since he can't perform tomorrow". Tomorrow's Hyde Park show, which was sold out, would have been a fitting swansong for the hugely successful group. The 'Over and Out' tour saw them group play 27 dates in North America between August and October last year. The British leg was considerably smaller in scale. There were two nights in Lynne's native Birmingham last weekend, two in midweek in Manchester, one of which was cancelled, and Hyde Park tomorrow. The set-list in Birmingham and Manchester was a glorious exploration of a superb catalogue of hit songs in all their pop/classics grandeur: Evil Woman, Showdown, 10538 Overture, Sweet Talkin' Woman, Can't Get It Out of my Head, Livin' Thing, Telephone Line, All Over the World and Turn to Stone among them. People were travelling to Hyde Park from all over the world. One woman had flown from Melbourne, Australia. Others made their way from Finland and Denmark, from Argentina, the Netherlands, from France. Two next-door neighbours in a quiet street in Shieldhill, Falkirk, had, independently of each other, booked tickets. Many fans in London would have been seeing ELO for the umpteenth time; others for what would have simultaneously been the first and last time. Various ELO tribute bands, who between them do a fine job of replicating Lynne's songs, paid tribute to him before news of the dual cancellations broke. One, the ELO Experience, sent via Facebook their best wishes to Lynne 'and all of his team' for the farewell tour. The post continued: 'Have a great set of shows and to everyone attending, treasure this time, as one of, if not, the greatest song writers and performers of all time is taking his final touring bow. Thank you for everything Jeff'. Lynne caused a minor stir in Birmingham last Saturday when he took to the stage despite having a broken hand, sustained during a taxi crash in London. 'I've had a guitar in my hand all my life but not tonight', he told the audience at the Utilita Arena, insisting that 'nothing would keep me away from you'. Jeff Lynne's songwriting abilities had been evident from his earliest days as part of a Birmingham group, The Idle Race, before accepting, in 1970, Roy Wood's invitation to join him and drummer Bev Bevan in The Move, who had enjoyed chart success with I Can Hear the Grass Grow, Blackberry Way, Flowers in the Rain and Fire Brigade. 'We stayed as The Move for a couple of years while we made this album, Electric Light Orchestra, which was what we'd decided to call it when me and Roy used to hang out at clubs in Birmingham and discussed this group with strings', Lynne told a 2012 BBC documentary, Mr Blue Sky: The Story of Jeff Lynne and ELO. Music writer Mark Beaumont, in an article about ELO in a recent magazine publication, Ultimate Genre Guide: Soft Rock, describes how Wood and Lynne saw different chamber-rock possibilities in the Beatles' classic, Eleanor Rigby. Lynne, he writes, 'particularly would take the orchestral tendencies of late-60s Beatles and Beach Boys and focus them into sci-fi melodies designed to dominate all earthly radio waves.'Electric Light Orchestra would come to represent the greatest sonic excesses of the soft-rock era, but they also brilliantly realised the logical endpoint of a journey begun by 'A Day in the Life' and Brian Wilson's teenage symphonies to God. [John] Lennon himself would describe them as 'Son of Beatles'.' Beaumont notes that as The Move gradually wound down, it became something of a shell company for ELO. ELO's debut album, The Electric Light Orchestra, was released in 1971, opened with 10538 Overture and showed the full extent of Wood and Lynne's musical ambitions. Wood, however, 'frustrated that his strings were inaudible during live shows', departed in 1973 to launch his latest project, Wizzard. This left Lynne as the sole producer and songwriter. The next albums came at a steady pace, all of them bearing Lynne's distinctively melodic stamp: ELO2 and On the Third Day in 1973, Eldorado in 1974, Face the Music in 1975, A New World Record in 1976, and the ambitious double album, Out of the Blue, in 1977. Eldorado breached the Top 20 in the States. A New World Record and Out of the Blue went Top 10 in the UK. Along the way there was a constant stream of captivating, bestselling singles: Roll Over Beethoven, Showdown, Ma-Ma-Belle, Evil Woman, Strange Magic, Livin' Thing, Telephone Line. Reviewing an ELO concert in Madison Square Garden in 1977, a New York Times critic observed: 'The Electric Light Orchestra... is the most commercially successful of the classical rockers at the moment, and it's easy enough to hear why. The secret is that [it] incorporates its classical elements in as painless a manner as possible.' Read more: Comeback concert for ELO frontman Obituary: Kelly Groucutt Paying tribute to the Eagles, Taylor Swift, Radiohead - and ELO War of the Worlds Review: Spaceships shooting flames at the audience. What more could you want? Obituary: Carl Wayne In 1978, the year after the ten-million-selling Out of the Blue, Lynne was interviewed by Melody Maker. The question was put to him: ELO has always thought in grand ideas. Was he finding it hard to come up with the goods? 'Not at all', he responded. 'I'm just eternally grateful that I can go into the studios and that people say 'There's a studio. Do what you want.' I mean. I find that f – unbelievable. We've done eight albums now and I just feel completely happy about everything. 'I don't find the inspiration harder to come by. Quite the opposite. I'm getting more excited now about this new album – the one we'll do next year – than anything I've ever done. I just want to get into the studio and do it, mix it and put everything down. I just love being in a recording studio. Absolutely love it. That's my forte, recording things. It's a great and exciting thing to do'. The next album, Discovery (1979) saw the band embracing the disco sound that was then in vogue but nevertheless gave them their first UK number one album. The band's sound evolved further in the Eighties, with such albums as Time, Secret Messages and Balance of Power. Time (1981), described by at least one critic as the band's best album in years, was a concept record about time-travel, and emulated Discovery in its UK chart position. A fair-minded assessment in The Quietus online culture site in 2021, by David Bennun, described Time as 'a terrific, eccentric sci-fi electro/synth-pop album' - the headline said it was ELO's forgotten masterpiece - and wondered why Lynne had tended to overlook its songs when putting together concert set-lists. ELO broke up in 1986 and apart from a brief flourish in 2000-2001 remained dormant until reforming as Jeff Lynne's ELO in 2014. Lynne had in the meantime joined the Travelling Wilburys supergroup with Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, George Harrison and Roy Orbison, and also produced albums for Harrison, amongst others. Harrison's son Dhani, incidentally, was to have been one of the support acts at Hyde Park tomorrow, alongside Steve Winwood and the Doobie Brothers. Lynne was made an OBE in the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours list for services to music, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame in 2015. The band were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2017. Had things worked out as planned, the final notes of the ELO classic, Mr Blue Sky, would have sent some 60,000 fans home happy at roughly 10.20pm tomorrow night. Sadly, it was not to be. "The legacy of the band and his longtime fans are foremost in Jeff's mind today – and while he is so sorry that he cannot perform, he knows that he must focus on his health and rehabilitation at this time", read the BST statement. Ticket holders will now be refunded.
Metro
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
Major concern as BST Hyde Park headliner cancels gig '15 minutes after start tim
Fans are concerned for Electric Light Orchestra's Jeff Lynne after he cancelled tonight's performance at due to 'illness' as concert-goers piled into Manchester's Co-Op Live. Taking to social media at 8.45pm this evening, the Mr Blue Sky hitmakers, led by frontman Jeff, 77, wrote: 'Unfortunately due to illness tonight's (Thursday 10th July 2025) scheduled performance of Jeff Lynne's ELO at the Co-Op Live will not be going ahead. 'Jeff is devastated he cannot perform this evening. 'More information will become available as soon as possible. For refunds please go to your point of purchase.' One fan @sleeptokem, who was in situ at the Co-Op Live Arena when the announcement was made, took to social media and said: 'THEY CANCELLED ELO TONIGHT BECAUSE JEFF IS ILL????? YOU CANT MAKE THIS UP WE'RE ALL BEING BOOTED OUT.' They added: 'I do not blame jeff for being ill or cancelling but this should have been communicated to us earlier than 8:15!! the support was supposed to be on at 8!' ELO – famed for hits including Mr Blue Sky and Evil Woman – are due to perform at major London festival BST Hyde Park on Sunday evening, billed to be their last ever UK gig. More Trending Festival organisers called the gig in July 2025 a 'final goodbye' from the band, which was founded in Birmingham in 1970 by Lynne and keyboardist Roy Wood. 'My return to touring began at Hyde Park in 2014,' Jeff said. 'It seems like the perfect place to do our final show. 'We couldn't be more excited to share this special night in London with our UK fans. As the song goes, ''we're gonna do it One More Time'.' The band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017, while frontman Jeff was made an OBE in the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours list for services to music, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in 2015. This is a breaking news story, more to follow soon… Check back shortly for further updates. If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. For more stories like this, check our entertainment page. Follow Entertainment on Twitter and Facebook for the latest celeb and entertainment updates. You can now also get articles sent straight to your device. Sign up for our daily push alerts here. MORE: Bodycam shows bloodied face of terrified PC during Manchester Airport 'assault' MORE: Second boy, 16, killed on railway line in Poynton named as Jordan Everett MORE: Body cam footage shows brothers 'throwing punches' at Manchester Airport police officers
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Rob Halford Explains Why Judas Priest Are Missing Black Sabbath's Farewell Megaconcert
Judas Priest found out too late that Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath would be playing a star-studded farewell concert this summer to join in on the festivities, frontman Rob Halford recently told Metal Hammer. A talent agent in Germany recruited the band to perform at the 60th anniversary concert for another venerated metal band, the Scorpions, on July 5, and despite Sharon Osbourne offering to fly the band to and from Birmingham, England for Ozzy's final bow in time to honor their Scorpions commitment, Judas Priest declined. 'It all got announced and was a big deal — Scorpions and Priest — and suddenly I get this phone call [from Sharon Osbourne]: 'Robbie, I know you've got this gig with Scorpions, but could you consider coming over to do a thing with Ozzy and the guys, he'd love to see you.'' More from Rolling Stone Ozzy Osbourne Shares Health Update Ahead of Final Concert: 'I'll Do the Best I Can' Judas Priest and Alice Cooper Plot Heavy Co-Headlining Tour Les Binks, Former Drummer for Judas Priest, Dead at 73 Halford mulled over Sharon's offer to ferry the band via private jet between the concerts, but the singer didn't want to leave anything to chance. 'Even with a private plane, there's a word called 'technical', where something could go wrong, or the weather that time of year could cause problems… I was absolutely gutted,' he said. He nevertheless said that he was excited for the concert, even Judas Priest would be there, since it reinforces Birmingham's status as the birthplace of heavy metal. Like Black Sabbath, Judas Priest formed in the city. (And incidentally, ex-Priest guitarist, K.K. Downing, will be performing at the event. In addition to Osbourne and Black Sabbath, the concert, dubbed Back to the Beginning, will feature sets by Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Tool, Slayer, Pantera, Gojira, Alice in Chains, and many others. It will take place at Birmingham's Villa Park. 'All my mates are going to be there though, great bands and artists,' Halford told Metal Hammer. 'It's a wonderful and epic moment for Sabbath and heavy metal.' Halford may be missing out on Black Sabbath's farewell, but he should take some comfort that he was actually one of the few headbangers to have been there at the actual beginning. In 2020, he told Rolling Stone what it was like to see Sabbath's early club gigs in Birmingham. 'I have vague memories of seeing them as Earth in an obscure club in Birmingham, and they were in a sort of heavy-blues, jazzy-prog mode musically,' he said. 'I can only recall the very first Sabbath songs like [Crow's] 'Evil Woman,' which was a cover. There was still some freeform noodling going on when they played live, but essentially the heaviness was dominating.' He was also present for the first time when the original Black Sabbath lineup said goodbye at the conclusion of Osbourne's No More Tours tour in 1992. At the time, Osbourne had been worried about his health and decided to take a final bow, before reversing course a couple of years later with the Retirement Sucks tour. Black Sabbath had reunited with Ronnie James Dio. When the idea of Black Sabbath opening for Osbourne's final shows came up, Dio quit, and Halford became their frontman for two shows. The rest of the band — guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, and drummer Bill Ward — then joined Osbourne for encores later in the evening. Halford also fronted Sabbath for a short set in Camden, New Jersey, in 2004 when Osbourne fell ill.
