What really happened at the end of Black Sabbath’s farewell show

Ozzy Osbourne holding a finger up at the camera from his throne on stage — (Image credit: Ross Halfin)

More than 2 million people watched the livestream of Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne’s triumphant farewell gig at Villa Park in Birmingham on Saturday – but many viewers have expressed disappointment that the band didn’t take a final bow together.

The livestream ended with Sabbath’s set-closing Paranoid, before Ozzy bid goodbye to the crowd. The cameras then cut to confetti being fired into the audience and fireworks exploding from the roof of the stadium.

However, some people pointed out that the four original members didn’t take the opportunity to say goodbye together, calling the ending “cold” despite Ozzy’s well-documented health issues preventing him from standing during the show.

Reddit post criticising the end of the Back To The Beginning show — (Image credit: Reddit)

What livestream viewers didn’t see was both guitarist Tony Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler going over to speak to Ozzy after the final song. Iommi walked to Ozzy’s black leather throne to warmly shake hands and exchange words with the singer, while Butler presented Ozzy with a cake bearing an image of the Prince Of Darkness, before allowing him to soak up the adulation from the crowd.

Butler himself confirmed this, taking to Facebook to say, "I keep hearing that people watching the stream thought that our set ended abruptly, with us just walking off. Sorry if it seemed that way. I went off to get this cake for Ozzy. Cheers to the fan who captured the proper ending. [see below].

The Back To The Beginning show saw more than 40,000 people packing out Villa Park to watch a star-packed line-up pay tribute to Ozzy and Sabbath. The show, which was MC’d by Aquaman star Jason Momoa, featured Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Slayer and more, plus a pair of supergroups with rotating line-ups that included Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood, Tom Morello, The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan, Ghost’s Tobias Forge and members of The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Tool and Blink-182.

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