Black Sabbath's farewell Back To The Beginning show at Birmingham's Villa Park on July 5 was an unforgettable, momentous, emotional occasion for everyone in attendance, and millions more watching via its global livestream.
The concert's musical director Tom Morello had promised nothing less than "the greatest day in the history of heavy metal" and with a line-up that included Metallica, Slayer, Guns N' Roses, Alice In Chains, Tool, Halestorm, Mastodon, and a clutch of one-night-only supergroups paying tribute to Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath, few would argue that Rage Against The Machine's guitarist delivered in spectacular style.
One of the most surprising, unanticipated highlights of the show came towards the end of the first set by Tom Morello's All Stars, when a hand-picked supergroup which included Extreme's Nuno Bettencourt on guitar, Anthrax's Frank Bello on bass, Sleep Token's II on drums, Black Sabbath/Ozzy Osbourne touring keyboardist Adam Wakeman on keys, and English rocker Yungblud delivered a superb version of Black Sabbath's Changes, which had grown men and women in the sell-out crowd in tears. The performance was heralded across the world, instantly making Yungblud (aka Dom Harrison) a global star.
Yungblud looked back on the day on a recent appearance on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation and host Eddie Trunk freely confessed that when he first heard that the Yorkshire-born singer was on the bill his reaction was “Who is this guy?" but that he was totally blown away by what he saw.
"It was a wild thing," Yungblud acknowledges. "I walked on unannounced to a piano. And I remember everyone's like, 'Who the fuck is this?' You know, you could feel that... But I remember when I hit the first chorus, I saw people go like, Oh, fuck!"
"To people who didn't know who I am, who I was, they were like, 'Oh, who is this?' To people who fucking hated me were like, 'Fair, I think I might give it a second chance.”'And people who loved me were like, 'Yeah, man. That's what Yungblud does.' And it was, I don't know, man. I've almost blacked out that moment, because it just went... there's rare moments in time where you just kind of let the music take over and let the moment take over. And to see how it was received was just insane.
"I got to walk out on stage in front of 50,000 people. Probably 25,000 of them didn't have a fucking clue who I was. 15,000 of them thought I was a fucking poser. And 10,000 people probably knew someone who knew who I was. You know what I mean? And I got to just go out there and pour my heart out into this iconic song.
"I thought they were going to give me The Wizard or Sweet Leaf," he added, "'cause I've got this mad energy, but when they asked me to do the ballad, I was honored because I knew it was going to be a David and Goliath moment. It was me, a piano, and 50,000 rock fans with probably like five million people watching at home. It was a mental moment. And all I did was all I tried to do was just tell my fucking hero that I loved him."
Yungblud has seen his profile sky-rocket since the performance, which led to him being invited to pay tribute to Ozzy once more with another supergroup performance at MTV's Video Music Awards (VMAs) in September. And to cap off an incredible 2025, the singer received three nominations for 2026's Grammy Awards (2026 ceremony), for Zombie (Best Rock Song), his album Idols (Best Rock Album), and, inevitably, Changes at Villa Park (Best Rock Performance).
The singer tells Trunk that he is "extremely honored, and I'm eternally grateful".
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